Guardians of Harmony: Unity

DISCLAIMER: You may not know the games that the author mentions, but those referenced games were the ones that the author played, so it may not be accurate which game had that feature first, as many of them followed it off each other occuring to the fact that mobile games aren't like AAA games and anyone can submit one to those portals unlike the home console portals.
"My Little Pony meets Brave Frontier"
Guardians of Harmony: Unity is a Korean mobile RPG for iOS and Andriod by Hasbro and Astralitz Mobile revolving around summoners collecting units of characters called Guardians that would evolve from 1* to 6* (later 7*). It is considered MLP meets Brave Frontier because it's an mobile RPG that involves summoning units and RPG elements, although technically the gameplay is more like Summoners War instead of Brave Frontier (units have 2 to 4 attacks). Astralitz Mobile took inspiration from other games into theirs to make sure it doesn't feel like a "simple mobile clone" of whether it's Clash of Clans, Candy Crush or other games.
It takes inspiration from the following games:
*Summoners War: Gameplay, Trial of Ascension, Homunculus (which inspired the Summoner Avatar)
*Puzzle and Dragons: Team composition (You can hold 5 units and one reinforcement unit as a friend's leader equaling 6 units)
*Brave Frontier: Summoner Avatar (you later get to create your summoner pony which uses weapons with their own skill tree
*Crusaders Quest: Elements (based off Goddesses)
==Trailer==
The first trailer (shown on Hasbro's Youtube channel) represented a rift through time that opens up in Equestria, and Cosmos comes out. Spike is surprised, and everyone in Equestria is frightened. Spike then decides that everyone has to fight for Equestria. Spike, nicknaming himself "The Summoner of Harmony" is calling Guardians everywhere to defend Equestria. With a squad of Guardians, Spike then finally says "Let's get this giant monster down!" and then the title comes in.
==Plot==
The King of Disharmony, Cosmos, has taken over Equestria. To deal with this, Celestia is calling summoners to take action and to fix Equestria back where it was. As the mane six crusades all over the land of Chronia, they battle evils and collect the sacred elements created by Hera, the Goddess of Chronia to protect the lands themselves.
==Open Beta==
On October 25, 2016, the open beta was announced. The beta would have players play through the game in a limited state to comment for changes or search for bugs. On January 1, the beta was closed to finish up changes for it's release.
*Only Equestria Normal and Hero were available (Hero Mode was originally called Hard Mode and the unreleased Legend Mode was called Hell Mode. This was changed to be less frightening for the target audience.)
*Players could sync to their Facebook/Google+ to get their account, and an "Test Monkey" badge shown on their accomplishments list shows that they were involved in the beta. Normally, since the fact that this badge can be only be obtained for a limited time, the badge is unlisted from the accomplishments.
*Players can get up to 6 star Guardians with evolution dungeons, bit dungeons always open in the vortex. (there was no transcendence)
*In the lobby where your squad is shown, there is a button saying "Comments?" and another one saying "File a bug report", which were the two beta-exclusive buttons.
==Gameplay==
Beginning goes like this. You state your age, but if you state that your under 13, the player may not use Facebook/Google+/HIVE connect, guilds or online chat. (GameCenter can still be used to save progress online) Common automated chat mesages include:
*"Player" has summoned 5* "unit name"
*"Player" has achieved max level!
*"Player" has established the guild "guild name"
*"Player" has cleared ToD's 100th floor!
*"Player"'s "raid number" is waiting for players.
There are 6 servers in this game. Save files are seperate on each server.
*Global
*Europe
*Russian
*Korean
*Chinese
*Japanese
Princess Celestia tells you that she has called for your help and that Cosmos is aiming to take over Equestria. You have to lead Equestria's heroes to take on him to fix Equestria where it was. After that, you choose your mane 6 unit (e.g Twilight Sparkle) that starts from 2*, and goes up to 6* simply. After that, the unit may get it's awakening, which powers up the unit and gives that unit an EX Skill, which gives the unit extra powers. Awakened Guardians's rarity are purple 6*, and after that (in a later update) you can finalize it to be a 7*.
The graphics in this game, is a cel-shaded 3D 60fps similar to Summoners War.
===Intro===
You are introduced to the tutorial and gameplay. Units have 2 to 4 special attacks, which are support, offensive, or defensive.
To balance things out for the target audience and the brony fandom, the early-game is easy to pick up and play (you can freely stick strong units and plow through the content until you get to Tartarus, where all of the enemies (until Valhalla are 6* and later on 7*). The gameplay is more similar to Summoners War and Seven Knights, where Guardians have a variety of skills, there's strategy and a fast forward button up to three times fast.
After you clear a wave, you see the six Guardians (one is the reinforcement) march on to the next wave. After you clear a stage, the Guardians do a victory pose, (cheerful, various things). Your Guardians (except for the reinforcement) gain EXP. Ardinz is the only gate that does not give EXP.
Gate 	Highest EXP gained	If leveling from 39 to 40 (7*) requires 3,460,000 EXP, how many runs would it need? (round to the nearest one)
Equestria 	920 	3761
Maroniah 	1750 	1977
Tartarus 	3000 	1153
Kiran-Samora	5500 	629
Valhalla 	11000 	315
Gracca 	18000 	192
===Basics===
As you go on the quest, you'll unlock cutscenes with dialogue between characters along with voice acting from the characters of MLP. The cutscenes are animated in Toon Boom Harmony, similar to the movie.
You can also bring another type of combat style called Elements, which after every 10 special attacks used, it fills 1/3 of the gauge and then you can use it to launch special buffs without consuming a unit's turn, similar to Goddesses from Crusaders Quest. Unlike the Goddesses, you cannot chat with them, you can only read their power description out of battle.
Evolution requires the unit to get to it's max level, then you have to power up that unit to by using Relic Units obtainable from the Daily Dungeons and the quests, and then you can evolve it. If the unit is a common unit that only goes up to 4*, then the unit can be traded (based off synthesis) with another 4* common unit to make a 5* from a different batch.
You have an energy stat, which refills by 1 point every 5 minutes. You start off with 25, but at max level (80) it can go up to 140. Stages require around 4 to 15 energy.
As you get heroes and fuifill certain objectives, you upgrade your summoner powers. For example: energy stat recharge can go down to 3 minutes if you get 30 different 6* units.
There is player-vs-player mode, but you have to select an Summoner to duel against. The summoners you find from the selection rounds to your power rating (which is around slightly lower or slightly higher) so it's more dynamic and more balanced than Summoners War, where as a low level summoner you might end up facing level 40 summoners. You have 6 random summoners to fight from a selection, and after 4 minutes they get to refresh. Winning a PvP match awards you 2 to 4 energy and 25 honor. All of the units' health will be x2.5 so one 7* unit can't nuke an entire squad with a AoE attack. Unlike many Brave Frontier-like games, you get PvP control.
Cards 4* and up cannot be sold. They however can be storaged in the Guardian Storage for later (15 pages housing 150 units each) Mock Guardians cannot be sold either.
Summoning friend helpers and gifting from friends gives you honor points. Honor points are used for honor summons, 200 points a pop. You can get relic units, which gives EXP, and common units (they mostly evolve to 4* (can be traded to be a random 5*) or 6*) and rarely a Mane Six Unit. If the helper you choose is a Friend, the helper's leader skill is avaliable to use.
Daily rewards give you gems, bits, relic units, and at the end of the week is a Premium Summon, which summons units from 3* to 5*.
7* gain a special skill called Hyper Magic which is a special skill that must be charged first and then unleashed.
===Equipment===
You can get equipment from the Scenarios, which range from 1* to 6*. Crowns, necklaces, and rings range from:
*1*: 3% stat boost
*2*: 6%
*3*: 10%
*4*: 15%
*5*: 22%
*6*: 30%
*7*: 40%
*Ultimate: 50% (must be upgraded from 7* and commonly have epic set effects, you must get parts from Legend Mode and it's where the grind gets real: 10 - 30 rare items from 5 different categories, but when you succeed you will be the proud owner of an new Ultimate piece. Represented by 7 purple stars)
**Runic: Twice of the attack is DoT which ignores mtitigation
**Aftershock: The unit can use an regular attack again with extra damage (75%)
**Revenge: When a unit gets hit (single-target only) the unit will counter attack with double damage and a critical.
**Angelic: When a unit dies, the unit will get back up with 50% health.
*Disharmonic: 65% (must be upgraded from Ultimate to Disharmonic using Disharmony Crystal. Disharmony Crystals are a single-time material that can only be obtained by clearing ToD Legend which resets monthly. Unlike Ultimate, you only need one Disharmony Crystal and 1m bits to upgrade an Ultimate equipment to Disharmonic.)
===Updates and Stories===
Unlike the Gameloft game, gem rate is higher. There are various achievements that net you 5 to 7 gems, and reaching a max level on an unit gives you 10 gems, and 3 gems for maxing out the same unit again.
There are updates that add more stages, have events for certain types of summons (increased rated for support, attack, or defense units), etc. There will be also 7* Guardians (unlike Summoners War, the game it was based off) due to the fact that the late-game inflation gets faster as Aaron Redding, the CEO of Astralitz, the developer of the game didn't want the game to be less F2P friendly as they've played Harmony Quest and said it was the worst licensed game ever due to the fact that it's super repetitive and it's "pay to continue" for more repetitiveness.
Once you get a certain set of units, you can watch a story about the units that nets you 25 gems a pop.
===Summons===
Here are the types of major summons:
*Premium Summon: Summon units 3 stars to 5 stars for 40 gems. (400 for x11 summon (one always being 4*)) 3 stars are common, 4 stars are uncommon, 5 stars are rare (an average 11 pack summon would net 8 3 star units and the rest is 4 star units) Resembles a gold summon scroll.
**Some units, such as the Two Sisters, and various villains, can only be obtained from Premium Summon and Built Summon. Note that it does not summon unique units such as the Mane Six or Mock Guardians.
*Harmonycraft Summon: Summon a unit you built from pieces obtained from the Dungeons. Only 4 star units. Resembles a blue summon scroll.
*Ancient Summon: Select a 6* unit from a batch, and then summon it. Only obtainable from winning in major events, clearing Tower of Disharmony's final floor, or clearing a Quest gate on Hero Mode. (never includes Mane Six or Mock Guardians) Resembles a rainbow summon scroll.
Whenever a new batch of units is released (3 weeks to 6 weeks) they host an summon gate to summon those units. There are actual rate-ups as it cuts away batches everytime you summon (maximum is 6 units out of the batch). Redding said that "he's always seeing those biased rate-ups when it comes to those games, and thought "What if we did a rate-up?" They decided to do the rate-up by cutting off the units everytime they summon a unit meaning that unit (flagged units stay and they take up more space in the gate so it fills in) won't be summoned again there.
===Stages and Units===
Here are the types in this game.
*Attack: Focuses more on attacking the enemies and offensive buffs. Indicated by a red sword.
*Defense: Focuses more on defense and resistance buffs. Indicated by a blue shield.
*Ranger: Focuses more on a balance of attack, defense, and speed. Indicated by a green rapier.
*Swiftstrike: Focuses more on high speed attacks, but has lower defense. Indicated by a yellow scimitar.
*Magic: Heavy support which focuses more on heavy attack, but has lower defense. Indicated by a purple staff.
*Support: Focuses more on enfeebling the enemies and healing the units. Indicated by a pink cross.
You go through stages, with a maximum of 6 units (5 is the player's, 1 is the reinforcement). Units have leader skills that boost various stats, such as HP, attack, defense, critical rate, attack speed, etc.
Stages have power ratings, which you can also compare the power rating to your squad, similar to Chaos Chronicle's.
===Comparison and Transcendence===
Here's a comparision between a 4* Celestia and a 6* Celestia. A 4* Celestia at max level has 2890 HP, 580 attack, 600 defense, and 20 attack speed, while a 6* Celestia at max level has 7260 HP, 1520 attack, 1400 defense, and 24 attack speed. There is a jump in power between 5* Guardians and 6* Guardians.
Transcendence is a feature that allows the 6* Awakened Guardian to increase it's max level cap by 2. A max level for the Guardian is level 30, and transcendence is allowed up to 5 times. At level 40, an 6* Awakened Celestia with maxed out upgrades would have 15720 HP, 2950 attack, 2800 defense, and same attack speed. The only material needed is the Transcender Parasprite, which is a Parasprite obtainable from the Merit Point Shop and Tower of Disharmony.
A 7* transcended maxed out Celestia would have 25880 HP, 4800 attack, 4500 defense, and 26 attack speed. Wearing an Ultimate set, HP would be 38820, attack would be 7200, defense would be 6750, and attack speed would be 34. 7* Guardians have AoE attacks that hit 2 to 5 times doing around 10k damage, 20k if all of them were critical. Because of Brave Frontier's PVP issue (one with the Brave Burst first can nuke the entire opponent) they had to buff the HP, (the units can have a maximum of 60k to 80k hp)
There's a codex, which you can check to see what Guardians you had and maxed out, and the Elements you have. Elements will be obtained through out the story.
===Summoner===
Upon clearing Ardinz, you unlock your summoner pony, which you choose your uniform (summoner robe, casual clothes, hero, etc). The Summoner Pony is a unique unit that has it's own slot. It cannot be sold or fused, and will always be in your inventory. The Summoner Pony has a skill tree depending on the three weapons (the sword, the bow and arrow, or the wand) and cannot be brought into PvP.
===Elements===
Elements are magical spirits from the main universe of MLP. They are activated by every 10 attacks, and can hold up to 3 full bars, meaning it can be activated 3 times in a row before depleting. Unlike the Goddesses from Crusader Quest, these can't be taken to PvP and do not leave the summoner at any time. 
Element Name	Description 	Type 	How to Get
Harmony 	Heal everyone for the damage they do 	Support	Clear Equestria's 3rd area
Purity 	Clean everyone from debuffs and negative status effects for two turns 	Support	Clear Maroniah's 5th area
Valor 	Gives everyone DoT effect (extra damage after turn, recommended for mtitigated enemies) 	Attack 	Clear Tartarus's 6th area
Rage 	Gives everyone extra critical rate and damage (35% critical and 75% more damage) 	Attack 	Clear Demon's Core (optional)
Protection 	50% defense mtitigation for 2 turns 	Defense	Clear Kiran-Samora's final area
Wind 	Reduce all cooldowns by 25% 	Support	Clear Valhalla's 3rd area
Revenge 	Reflects damage to enemies (50%) for two turns (note that the targets' HP will only go down to 1 and not kill them)	Attack 	Clear Gracca's 7th area
Hope 	Gives an 10k secondary HP bar (great for enemies that nuke for fixed damage along with mtitigation Guardians) 	Defense	Clear Ardinz's 3rd area
==Modes==
There are various modes in this game.
*Quest: Go on various stages and save Equestria!
**Daily Dungeon: Go on Daily Dungeons, get summoning pieces and relics.
**Tower of Disharmony: 100 floors of doom await you! (based off Summoners War's Trial of Ascension) There are no continues in Tower of Disharmony, so if your squad dies, it's game over. You can beat this with only a natural 6* squad.
***Tower of Disharmony Hero: Introduced the same time when 7* Guardians were released (rewards are bigger and you get more gems and 7* equipment, however it's more steep than ToA Hard). It's possible to beat this with only a full squad of awakened and transcended 6* Guardians.
***Tower of Disharmony Monthly: Introduced in the Legacy update which changed the ToD. First 100 floors are the same, except reward are different. You can get a Transcender Parasprite for clearing floor 100, On ToD Hard, which the power rating scales from 20000 - 50000, the reward changes to an Ancient Summon.
****Tower of Disharmony Legend: Introduced in Rise of the Summoner update. Power rating scales from 60000 - 99999. You must have your Summoner Avatar unlocked before you take on Legend Mode. You pretty much need your Summoner Pony leader (strongest unit in the game but restricted to PvE) and all 7* transcended Guardians with Ultimate Sets to stand a chance against the top floor. Legend Mode's boss gives you a selective summon on a Disharmonic item set. Disharmonic items are the strongest equipment in the game. They are represented by 7 red stars of rarity.
**Raid: Up to four Summoners equaling 24 Guardians, they must take down a giant boss. There are four ranks, and players can use the materials they get to forge powerful equipment.
**Endless Rift: Introduced in the Endless Expedition update. Ardinz must be cleared. Power rating scales from 35000 - 99999. Every 5 stages, you come to a stop, and you choose if you want to continue, pause, or retire. Retire lets you end the Endless Rift with your score and victory bonus. Stage 1 starts at power rating 35000, and at stage 100 it reaches the maximum. You are given a choose of perks: reduced cooldown, extra attack speed, revive all dead units, extra resistance, etc. There is currently 300 stages so far.
**World Boss: Event-only mode that has the player take on a giant boss. However, after doing enough damage, the boss will be defeated and the boss's bar will go down by 0.001%, indicating it will need 100,000 wins to defeat the World Boss. The bar applies to all players and are not seperate.
*Battle: Perform PvP battles!
**Friendly Battle: Battles do not count.
**Battle Arena: Battles do count, and you can earn Arena Points.
**Guild Wars: Guilds compete who's the best Guild!
==Other Features==
There are various features throughout the game:
Name 	Location 	Description
Hall of Memoirs 	Twilight's Library	Watch dialogue scenes from the Quest storyline (with voice acting from the MLP characters)
Canterlot's Office	Canterlot 	Do achievements, exchange Merit Points for items, etc.
Minigames 	Canterlot 	Play minigames (mane 6 whack-a-mole, etc)
Recommendations 	Summoning Lab 	Find out what are the best voted Guardians for Quest, Arena, ToD, Raid, or Endless.
==Version History==
These were the versions of the game, indicated by it's loading screen:
*1.0: Released in February 2, 2017. Loading screen shows Twilight facing against Cosmos. "Battle for Equestria"
*1.1: Released in July 22, 2017. Loading screen shows an ancient golem pony (animated lights) "What Lies Beneath". This was also the update where the app page got it's alternate cover on iOS (An alternate cover would change the color of the app page's background, and have a picture on top of the app download button)
*1.2: Released in November 1, 2017. Loading screen Twilight holding two flags (one for Valhalla and one for Pazeria) "Between Two Nations"
*1.3: Released in April 3, 2018. Loading screen shows Naamah holding her lamp that bears a dark curse. (animated lamp powers) "The Curse of Naamah"
*1.4: Released in October 15. 2018. Loading screen shows Celestia's and Luna transforming into their legendary forms on the holy pedestial (animated in 3D) "Return of the Sisters"
*1.5: Released in February 2, 2019 for it's 2nd anniversary. Loading screen shows statues of Twilight, Celestia and Luna on a mountain. while the sun pans on it (animated sunlight) "Legacy"
*2.0: Released in May 27, 2019. Loading screen shows two summoner ponies surrounded by monsters "Rise of the Summoner"
*2.1: Releaesd in October 2, 2019. Loading screen shows a rift portal gate (animated portal) going to infinity. "The Endless Expedition"
==Reception==
Guardians of Harmony: Unity got positive feedback. It has been called as the sequel to Puzzle Party, as both games were high-quality MLP G4 games, while some fans compared the gameplay to Summoners War. One of them made a comparision, which was made within days of it's release. (read below)
The biggest acclaim about the game that unlike Puzzle Party, the game takes inspiration from other games so it's not just generic shovelware.
On the iOS app store, it tends to stand on 50th - 100th places on the Top Grossing section.
Com2uS, the developers of Summoners War, after seeing the game's success, had offered Astralitz the code that gives protection against Bluestacks. The offer was accepted, and the game became more secure to prevent hackers and emulation.
One review from a parent who had her child dream of being a hero to Equestria, said that her dream came true seeing her daughter complete Equestria's gate and is now moving on to Maroniah, and praised for the fact that unlike Puzzle Party, late-game does not revolve around hoping to get the pieces aligned right to be able to win a stage.
Aaron Redding, the director the game and CEO of Astrallitz Mobile, after seeing the considerable success, had twitted that he would consider doing collaborations in the future just like Brave Frontier and Seven Knights. He told about the abandoned concepts of the game (there was going to be 6 elements including a earth and thunder element unlike most games had only 5 and the earth and thunder would be one meaning earth or air). Another concept was that the game was going to be like Puzzle and Dragons but more of a spirtual sequel (with a defense stat, no healing orbs instead you collect mana from enemies defeated and you get to collect hearts also and there would be units that have Harmony Crests with mtitigation, attack, changing the board, boost stats, etc)The 6 elements would be the following:
*Red: Fire
*Green: Earth
*Yellow: Thunder
*Blue: Water
*White: Light
*Purple: Dark
On it's success, the top review  on Puzzle Party, Harmony Quest, and MLP: Friendship is Magic all written by the same reviewer was a 1 star review that said:
*"What are you doing here? Go to Astralitz Mobile, they got the pony game you want."
===GoH: Unity vs. Summoners War: Sky Arena===
Guardians of Harmony: Unity	Summoners War: Sky Arena
*Game is easy to pick up and play
*Equipment variety is only jewelry (a ring, necklace, and crown)
*Stages have Hero Mode only (inflation is higher than Hell Mode)
*Has Tower of Disharmony (no Hero Mode at the time and doesn't reset monthly (at that time))
*Evolution and summoning is less stressful
*Does not have elements
*Stages are boring till the late-game (you would just stick strong units and plow through stages)
*Allows you to have 5 units, and one friend leader.
*Game is limited to it's content (you beat ToD, no reason to play it again)
*Player vs player is balanced (dynamic to your squad's power rating)
*Game has elements that when activated gives you various buffs
*Game focuses more on the story and has longer quests
*Special attacks cannot be upgraded
*Mons are more based off heroes	
*Game is hard to pick up and easy to feel lost
*Variety is up to 6 runes that have set effects
*Stages have Hard Mode and after that is Hell Mode
*Has Trial of Ascension (w. Hard Mode)
*Evolution requires you to get more same rank units and summoning 4* is really rare and 5* is extreme
*Has elements (one beats this, this beats that)
*Team composition is important (you need strategy)
*Early quests limit you to 2 units, and later you can hold up to 4 units in the Quest Mode. (Dungeons and ToA always let you have 5)
*Game has a lot of replayability (ToA Hard, Arena championships, etc)
*Player vs player is imbalanced (you might be faced by high-level summoners)
*Game has a short quest mode and focuses more on PvP and challenges
*Skills can be upgraded
*Mons are based off beasts and mythlogical creatures
==Transformers Game==
As the success of Hasbro's license to Astralitz Mobile. Redding would later tweet a new Hasbro game called "Transformers Heroes" which is an action mobile game based off the game Taichi Panda. The game would not have summoning but instead have unlockable and purchasable units similar to Fantasy War Tactics and Brave Frontier 2. The game is subject to release on March 3, 2018.
==Subpages==
Guardians of Harmony: Unity/Units
Guardians of Harmony: Unity/Quest
Guardians of Harmony: Unity/Characters
Guardians of Harmony: Unity/Tower
Guardians of Harmony: Unity/Vortex
Category:My Little Pony Games
Category:My Little Pony (series)
Category:Android Games
Category:IOS Games
Category:Role-Playing Games
Category:MMO Games