The mobile platform may not be most suitable for games with complicated controls. Making a somewhat complex game that's easy to control on the mobile screen is an art. Let's check out the second entry in the Shadow Fight series to see how they've managed to do it.
Shadow Fight 2 is a free-to-play Android game. It's a classic fighting game with shadow fighters. It's a visually stunning game with smooth character movements and attacks. The fighting looks realistic and it's more than just button mashing.
There is a sort of a backstory, but nothing more than the fact you need to defeat many opponents on the way to fight the final boss. Other than the Story mode, you can participate in tournaments or arenas with enemy waves. You can practice on a punching bad, learn new skills, and purchase new weapons. The game uses two different currencies, one you can earn through fighting and the other you need to purchase with real money.
The fighting looks stunning, but you'll often find yourself struggling to execute punches and avoid your enemy's strikes. The game doesn't allow longer combos since your opponent quickly falls on the ground. Different punching, kicking, and weapon strikes are executed by combining the virtual joystick with the correlating buttons on the right side. Using the virtual joystick alone moves the character and executes jumps, rolls, etc. It's difficult to master the moves on the mobile screen, and it will certainly lead to disappointment when you lose the match.
The game implements energy bars. You lose a bar when you fight a single match. You can also watch an ad to fill up a single bar. The combination of premium currency, energy bars, and ads, make this game a freemium-model game designed to make as much money as possible. Good weapons are expensive if you use the regular currency, and having to wait after playing just five matches is wrong.
Also, the game requires permission to make and manage phone calls. They say it's for user ID assignment, but, being an amateur Android developer, I can say for sure there are other, less invasive ways to do that. Suspicious, to say the least.
