Behold, my latest addiction! I recently discovered this gem of an idle game and really feel it deserves some attention. Let’s review the highlights over a few paragraphs. Also, don’t forget to check out our gaming guild BATM. First, take a look at the quick video intro from the developers, then we’ll come back and I’ll tell you what to expect:
1. Overview
So, what is Ulala? Ulala is setup as an idle RPG. Meaning, your team continually fight against wave after wave of enemies. When you feel like you’re ready, challenge the boss of that wave to progress onto the next wave. Like most idle games you’ll continue to gain resources while offline as your characters auto battle.
When it comes to things to find there are plenty of gear and items to grind, rank, and level up. Very robust reward / event systems exist across the game. There are also lots of random drawing / lucky type games to suck you in. Lastly, Ulala will have you obsessing over getting that maxed out flying squirrel for your character! The pets and collections available in the game are impressive.
What I personally like most about the game is the simplicity of the combat, but many levels of tactics, and other activities to keep you more than busy. Also, I love the social aspect that you get to assemble a team of 4 players to push the content. This way you can setup a complimentary soup of character classes. It also allows your teammates to play while you are offline, further adding to the idle element which means you’re almost always progressing.
2. Technology / Polish
The technical aspects of Ulala are fairly impressive. The developers have clearly spent a lot of time on small details. You have reward popups and indicators. You can tap on almost everything! Rules and rates for random draws are clearly laid out. Updates are simple and unobtrusive. It makes it easy to switch characters. Plenty of status indicators let you know what’s happening. This is one of the few games that gives you a detailed skill timeline and DPS graph. It shows off the usual features such as: in game mail, announcements, chat, friend lists and follows.
The interface always feels snappy and responsive. The graphics run smoothly. Ulala uses up around 2Gb of storage on my device, but the active data usage is very low. It does take it’s toll on the battery, which doesn’t surprise me. My only complaint here is that it doesn’t give you much time away from the game before you show as offline. Thankfully there is not a lengthy load time or anything when returning, although you do have to see the annoying offline gains summary every time.
3. Content
Surprisingly, Ulala has plenty of things to keep you busy. It doesn’t appear that way at first, but don’t be fooled, before long you might be overwhelmed with all the things! They begin by easing you into things from character creation. The various classes are a nice balance between damage dealers, damage soaking (tanks), and damage recovery (healers). Here is where things are setup a little different from some other games. You’ll be setup in a ‘season’ server which contains other players who began around the same time as you. The season runs for 15 days, and is basically a giant race to see which teams can take the title of the season hunt leader (trophies, titles, blah blah blah..) As you progress in level you’ll unlock more features that allow you to increase your power. I’ll go ahead and say it, if you are a big spender and decide to whale out, you will have a huge advantage during these hunt seasons. My initial teams were able to get in the top 95% of players in our seasons, but catching the leaders requires $$$.
During the season you’ll get to start collecting gear, gems, items, skills, resources for your character to equip or spend later. You’ll also have the opportunity to collect food, cook recipes, and use those to capture lots of different pets to collect. If you spend the premium currency pearls, spend it first on the rookie pass, it’s well worth it. After that, you’ll basically want to save those for quick battles or random skill draws if you get desperate. The only real ‘content’ during the season is the main idle campaign levels crossing several continents. Plus, the mystic cave levels, which are basically elite bosses which act as gatekeepers at various levels to impede your progress until you beat them for gear enchant rewards. But, don’t worry you’ll be plenty busy keeping up with the leaders.
After the season ends, your character is transferred to the main server cloud for your region, such as North America. Now the focus shifts from a race atmosphere to mid-game grinding, various competitions, and collections out the wazoo! You still have the same campaign you were working on during the season, plus now you’ll unlock elite (hard mode) levels of the same for pet materials. Also, daily you’ll be working on quests, pet adventures, daily raid instances, and PVP Arena. In addition, now players can participate in weekly and monthly events: hero hill, clan battles, holiday specific events, and server wars.
Holy cow the collections! Once you enter the full game server you’ll have more things to collect then you can remember. Gear, Gems, Skills, Toys, Heroes, Clatter Cards, Pets, Pet ranks, Pet evolution materials, Pet research, Pet skills, Etc. Etc. Believe me, it’s a lot. However, each little piece you get adds to your overall power level in some way. If you are easily enthralled by collections (like me) you’ll love / regret starting this game.
4. Design
The overall design of Ulala is great! All the stuff to do fits neatly in the single screen interface. Organized by function in the tabs across the bottom. The ‘camp’ is where you’ll find all the extra content, events, and clan functions. Next, the character screen where you’ll find all your gear and collections that relate directly to you. Then, in the center is the campaign battle / idle screen. Plus your team management is there. After that, you’ll see the pets tab and all the collections to do with them. Finally, you have the market tab where you can shop and do random draws til you go broke. They also offer daily pearl packages, gifts, and shops for all the various currencies found in the game.
The graphics and theme of the game revolve around a prehistoric aesthetic with dinosaurs and cave man. The execution of the graphic design reminds me, as I’ve seen stated in other reviews, of The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. Plus they’ve included plenty of special effects, humorous elements, and each area and character is unique in some way.
I found myself really pleased with the sound design in the game. All the effects are entertaining, on point, and informative. Then, the background music is so so catchy! Over all, well done.
5. Social
One of the truly unique areas of Ulala is the various social aspects built into it. I can’t stress enough how awesome it is to team up with 4 players to defeat the content. So, even when your busy or sleeping even, your teammates can be advancing you forward. In addition to that, the design of it makes it easy to publish your desired roster and fill those spots with various applicants or invite your real life friends.
Or if you wanna join a team, you’ll be listed in the hall as free agent where other team leaders can find you. The game also allows online players with permission to swap active skills and pets of the entire team around to gain the most advantage in the fight.
To add the team features, Ulala also has build in chat channels, mail system, announcements and clans. You can level your clan with daily activity points. Players can share some purchased rewards in the clan. Spend your points in the clan shop. Finally, you can enjoy the periodic clan wars. The makers of the game also setup some interesting shout out mechanisms where the leading players pop up on ‘billboards’ in the game travel areas.
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