Picture a game that blends the simplicity of Smash Bros with the competitive thrill of Mario Party. That’s Squad Busters in a nutshell. The strategy brawler from Supercell challenges you to amass coins, build your army, and conquer monsters and players on the map. It’s a game built with depth and fanservice that’s easy to learn and quick to play.
Squad Buster matches only take 5 minutes, and it’s an excellent game to invite your friends and family to join the fun. It doesn’t require a top-of-the-line gaming phone to play, and you can jump in without prior knowledge of Supercell’s mainline games. We’ve had a chance to preview Squad Busters before launch, so we are here to give you the full rundown of how the strategy brawler stacks up as we near the global launch.
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How Squad Busters plays
Bottom line: It is repetitive and grindy
We’ve recorded the first 20 minutes of Squad Busters gameplay, showcasing the tutorial and some early matches. The game is currently in soft launch, so expect slight differences in hero balance in the global release — though the game’s structure and gameplay should remain similar if no untouched.
The premise of Squad Busters is very simple. Collect as many Gems as possible without getting killed. You raise an army of heroes, fuse those heroes, and fight all the baddies on the map. Recruiting heroes requires coins; you only obtain those by eliminating players, monsters, and destructive objects (like trees). Matches take five minutes at most — enough time to play while waiting in a car or on your lunch break.
Overall, Squad Busters lacks variety in gameplay. The game seems half-baked for what it offers since very few game modes are present. Right now, acquiring new heroes is the main draw, but without a sure way to get more without spending money, I don’t see the game retaining players long-term.
Controls are a bit too simple in Squad Busters
Supercell’s crossover lacks skill expression and creativity
Of course, when a game introduces PvPE as its main game mode, you want it to stand out, especially if you’re someone (like me) who prefers to experiment. As you can see in the above video, controls are limited to tilting your phone to attack and swiping for movements, which puts a lot of restrictions in play, thanks to the very few controls Squad Busters offers.
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You can’t outskill your opponents; you can only add new characters to your army and build fusions through chests. But that’s if these chests spawn the right heroes to select from in a match; RNG plays a big role in how powerful or weak your army becomes. On the other hand, it also streamlines the gameplay and overall balance, so it is not strictly pay-to-win. Though, you’re only given two choices, you run or fight. This way of playing caps a player’s skill level, and it doesn’t reward you for being a quick learner. It also forces players to slog through early levels until they’ve acquired a better starting baseline.
Not all heroes are created equally in Squad Busters
Microtransactions are everywhere
If you’ve played any hero shooter, you know it’s tough for companies to get the balance right. Some heroes will be infinitely better than others; you’d much prefer building an army full of Maxes and Witches than with Gregs and Goblins, for example. But this isn’t a fair comparison, as the game groups heroes into tiers. Heroes are split into rarities and classes, ensuring they are intentionally unequal. A hero’s strength is all about their starting rarity and traits; epic heroes will have better starter stats than common heroes. You also can’t acquire better heroes until you’ve bought them directly, pulled them from chests, or earned enough Portal Energy to unlock them. It’s a very slow process and fails to stay engaging.
But for a free-to-play game, there’s always a dangerous line you don’t want the developers crossing, which is in the form of in-app purchases — and unfortunately, that’s a given here; the app is full of them. Inside the in-game shop, you can buy consumables that put you miles ahead of other players via Mega forms.
Outside the game’s cash shop, there’s a battle pass — the Gem Pass. You can also buy a premium version, though the rewards make it hardly worth the cost (nearly $18 CAD).
It’s not the worst pay-to-win game, but it still leaves the doors wide open — what happened to games that only used IAPs for cosmetics? I miss those.
Prepare to grind your way to the top in Squad Busters
Squad Busters might seem like a casual game on the surface, but it is far from it. The game is very grindy and contains silly paid systems that skew the balance. However, there are some upsides, as it is not a bad title if you’re just trying to find an easy-to-access party game, especially if you’re using the Party Up feature. But if you’re hoping to compete with randoms, it’ll require a chunky commitment (and might be outside your budget). Otherwise, it’s still a fun game at its core and does an excellent job of being a delectable Supercell crossover, which is why we’ve included the download link below.
