Accessible to MOBA Newbies
Paragon is instantly a more accessible game than its competition for a few reasons. (Except for SMITE, it’s the only MOBA that can be comfortably played with a gamepad.) But unlike SMITE, Paragon is a fully-featured MOBA in the vein of League of Legends and DOTA 2.
It has a jungle, red and blue buffs, and a bunch of other small map mechanics at play. Though at the same time, the over-the-shoulder perspective makes everything easily digestible, especially to those who have never touched a MOBA. Suffice to say, it has all the same coordinated strategy of the competition without feeling overly simplified for consoles.
Its Card System Simplifies the Hardest Part of MOBAs
This is where Paragon most drastically differs from the competition. Paragon doesn’t have an in-game store full of hundreds of items that build in different ways. Players instead build a deck of items and upgrades to bring into the match with them. In this way, you’re only bringing items that you know you’re going to use, and it also adds a fun layer of strategy for different play styles.
But most importantly, it takes out the stress of fiddling around with the in-game store utterly confused about what to build next, and why to do it. The game’s starter decks also aid players in the process, so that they can start building their own later on.
Beautiful Characters with Fascinating Designs
Having a MOBA running on Unreal Engine 4 developed by the people who made the engine sure has its perks. Paragon is a generally beautiful game with a cool aesthetic, but the best part is the range of interesting heroes to choose from. And with a new one being added every three weeks until the end of 2017, I can only imagine how wacky the’ll be in the future.
A personal favorite of mine is Iggy & Scorch, who is a little gremlin guy who rides around on his miniature dinosaur, and rains hell down on players with Molotov cocktails. Another great one is GRIM.EXE, a sweet looking killer robot controlled by its flying puppeteer from behind.
It’s Completely Free
Paragon has been in free open beta for a few months now, so it’s never been a better time to get in and at see what’s going on with it. Whether you’re on PC or PS4, it should be easy to convince some friends to give it a shot with you. Not to mention, both versions have seamless cross-play with each other!
For the sake of clarity, Paragon is a free-to-play game that has card packs purchasable with real money, but it’s also fairly easy to earn them by simply playing the game. Even the standard decks contain all the cards you’ll need for a winning character build. There’s also alternate hero skins for purchase with currency, if that floats your boat.
Good Tutorials, Even Better Spectating Tools
Most MOBAs have pretty good tutorials nowadays, but it’s a feature worth mentioning when so many other games really don’t. Every character in the game has a complimentary video that has a basic rundown of what they do. And like we mentioned before, every character has several handcrafted starter decks that guide you through a match from start to finish about what items to buy and when.
Also well-made are Paragon’s spectating tools, which have their own corner of the main menu. You can jump in and watch any game going on live, or back up to watch from the beginning. The system is definitely a work in progress, but one of the camera angles lets viewers zoom out to a more traditional MOBA view, and get an easy lay of the land.
About the author
