Rebel Bots: Epic War PvP Clash is a nesting doll of knockoff ideas

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SHOULD I PLAY REBEL BOTS: EPIC WAR PVP CLASH?

You probably already have. Rebel Bots: Epic War PvP Clash is another thin offering of retread game mechanics stretched around a “collection” system that’s mainly about collecting your money. There’s nothing new to see here; it’s just a reskinned version of Clash Royale with cutesy robots instead of cutesy medieval soldiers. There’s also a cutesy World War II theme going on, and the soaring, patriotic menu music sounds like the theme from Band of Brothers for some incomprehensible reason.

TIME PLAYED

I played enough Rebel Bots: Epic War PvP Clash to get in about a dozen actual matches. Again, it’s just Clash Royale but with tanks and riflemen instead of catapults and barbarians. In addition to the cards I had in my deck, I could also move my commander unit around the battlefield to assist with hot spots, being careful not to get them killed and lose the match. I currently have four treasure crates sitting in the queue to be opened, and playing any more matches is pointless until I clear out some space for new crates. Unfortunately, I’ve watched all the “speed up” ads I’m allowed to for now, and the only other way to open the crates up is by spending premium currency gems. Oh well, guess I won’t be playing this for a couple hours!

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT REBEL BOTS: EPIC WAR PVP CLASH?

• Matches are quick. I rarely wound up feeling bogged down during matches, which wrapped up in about two or three minutes on average. After a certain amount of time elapsed, matches kicked into a double damage mode that kicked things into overdrive until the end. The fact that matches were so brief made it easy for me to jump straight into the next one.

• The menu music reminds me of Band of Brothers. I should watch that show again.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT REBEL BOTS: EPIC WAR PVP CLASH?

• It’s just Clash Royale. I could have just played that, I guess? Either way, this is a simplistic game about spamming cards that I never found strategically interesting. There were probably bad ways that I could have set up my deck, but I found that in general, if I just kept using the most powerful cards I owned, I’d generally win without much trouble.

• The theme is nonsense. Apparently the idea behind Rebel Bots: Epic War PvP Clash is that robots are staging an uprising against the humans, but then some of the humans join their side, so it’s just a random assortment of robots and humans in each battle. The cartoony World War II look didn’t really do anything for me; that is, until it actively angered me with a bomb unit called “Fat Boy,” a combination of the Fat Man and Little Boy codenames for the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Gross! Why would you do that?

• Timed loot chests. Good news: You win loot chests after every battle! Bad news: Chests take two hours or more to open, and that timer gets longer with rarer chests! Also you can only have four of them at a time, so any battles I fought after that were pointless until I opened some of the chests I already had.

• It’s microtransactions all the way down. Look, Rebel Bots: Epic War PvP Clash is exactly what it appears to be: a low-bandwidth coin-flip game with a bunch of premium currencies and battle pass reward tiers strapped onto it. Why not just launch a GoFundMe instead? I’d probably be more likely to open my wallet.

PLATFORM TESTED

Android via Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G phone