[Review] Epic Clicker Journey – Nintendo Switch

Epic Clicker Journey

Developed By: Cleversan Software
Published By: Ultimate Games
Category: Action-Adventure
Release Date: 08.06.2019

Cramps and severe hand pain will become your worst nightmare in this action-adventure title with slight RPG elements. Epic Clicker Journey technically falls into these categories, but really makes a path of its own that is mostly done in the mobile space. The game has you click (or press the triggers) as fast as you can to deal damage to enemies, and that’s the whole game. That isn’t literally the whole game, but that is your primary function in it, so strap in and get those fingers ready to go.

The story is pretty much irrelevant in this one, as you are just tasked with defeating the monsters and baddies that cross your path, as well as progressing down the path in front of you. You have three areas with several battle points littered across the map. You progress through defeating battles along the way, as well as collecting keys that can be used to unlock different areas. The paths sway and careen all over the place and it definitely isn’t done in a straight line. It also isn’t as simple as beating a level and moving on, as you will have to grind out levels tons of times in order to gain levels and coins enough to progress.

As you enter the arena you will find a vast array of different monsters at your disposal. All shapes and sizes, and no real reason behind it, with the trendiest of hashtags describing each monsters traits. This hashtag system is used to discern enemy weaknesses based on the traits they have. As you defeat each level you are awarded with several items that you can either equip, or sell for coins. These items have hashtag descriptions of their own, and if you have the proper hashtagged item equipped against a monster with that same hashtag then you deal extra damage to it.

As stated previously dealing damage is rather simple. You bang both triggers as quickly as possible in order to deal damage with each keystroke. You also have a DPS function that automatically deals a certain amount of damage per second whether you attack and spam or not. These two types of damage dealing equates to half of the skills you can dump skill points into, and thus you can increase the amount of damage done while you sit back and relax. You can game the system a little bit with this if you go heavy into the DPS category and dump every skill point you get into it. There are times when things can seem like they are getting hairy with this strategy, but as long as you are fighting enemies at your level or lower then you will never lose with this strategy. What is interesting about that is the game is called Epic Clicker Journey, and the main function of the games is spamming clicks, and they allowed a system into the game which allows you to sit back and not click at all. An odd design choice, but spamming the triggers can hurt your hands after awhile, so beating the game by hitting the go button and taking a break was a nice.

The other two categories for skill points are your defense and luck. Defense determines how much damage you take from enemy hits, and luck increases the chances of better coin and item drops from enemies as you defeat them and progress through levels. Luck is nice to help curb the grind you will have to go through, but otherwise defense and damage aren’t necessary to plug points into unless you really like clicking a lot. Like a lot.

You can upgrade your equipment through spending coins. You have a weapon, piece of body armor, and a shield that you can dump your hard earned money into. Again though, if you are placing all of your skill points into DPS, then you don’t need to spend money here as you won’t be trying to stop damage or deal click damage anyways. This is nice for the way I played it as it allowed me to save up for the keys you need to progress (which are extremely pricey), but if you play the game as intended you can pump your coinage here to help in those categories outside of just the skill points earned through leveling.

Finally, you can hire a “Fellow” to help you in fighting. This is one of the enemy types you have encountered throughout the game that fights by your side, dealing additional DPS damage. You pump coins into the Fellow in order to increase the DPS damage they do. So if you are going for a DPS build with your skill points, then you can increase it further here with your coins.

Gaming the system aside, you have a game with various paths you can take to play the way you want if you want to make it more of a hands-on experience. However, even if you choose to spam your way to victory there isn’t anything particularly interesting here. No story, lack of reason behind what you are doing, clear mobile mechanics with keys blocking your path (presumably for purchase of real money on mobile), and a serious lack of charm as a whole. The game tries to be interesting with it’s unique enemy trait system (#hashtag), but beyond that you aren’t really paying attention to the fights as you don’t need to, and the progression is grindy and extremely monotonous. The art reminds me of a school child’s notebook drawings, which was a fun aesthetic to run through, but that hardly is enough to give the game something worth checking out. Hard to recommend for anyone outside of people who like the spammy experiences like you find on mobile. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to find something to cure this carpal tunnel.