Returning to a Personal Favourite: Injustice Mobile

I think Injustice Mobile was the first mobile game I played on a platform that wasn't made entirely for gaming (I had the original DS & a GameBoy Advanced growing up).

Maybe that is why it has such a soft spot for me when compared to other games in the app store. Maybe it's because when I moved out for my first year at college, I didn't have internet in my room, and so I needed something I could play without WiFi, or at least could be played with the shoddy public WiFi they provided sporadically across campus. Maybe it's because I was really good at it?

Our college required everyone who attended to own an iPad (they had a course every program needed to complete that was done through an app that was only available through the Apple App store). Anywhere you went on campus, wherever there was a group of idle students, you could find at least one person playing Injustice.

Whatever my reasoning, I recently downloaded the game onto my phone (previously I had it on my iPad, but it's 10 years old now and can't seem to run games anymore). The game is just as fun as it was when I first downloaded it in 2013.

Like most app games, and many console games, Injustice is pretty grind heavy. Unlike many other games though, it is relatively easy to grind continually. Once you have enough characters (which doesn't take that long) you could theoretically play non-stop, given that it takes about 90 minutes to fully-recharge a character's power. That might sound like a long-time, but compared to other mobile games it's incredibly short, especially since each character's energy recharges independently (so you can swap out your team and use fresh characters while your other teams recharge).

That doesn't even consider the fact that you get free recharge tokens relatively frequently. I don't really use mine, but I have over 700 stockpiled at this point. It didn't take a significant amount of team building to be able to play until my battery runs out or device overheats. I think it took about two months of playing between/during classes at college to get to that point (I can't remember though that was nearly 10-years ago already).

The game is also really good looking, in my opinion. Especially when you consider its age and the fact that it's a free to play app game.

As time has gone on, they have added multiple different game types that weren't available at launch, and a couple of additional currencies and resources that are all gathered by playing the game, but in slightly different ways. This does in some ways slow down progression a bit, but it also adds more to unlock and more reasons to keep playing.

The game is also super easy to manage in terms of controls, and it doesn't require rapid reflexes to do well at (they can certainly give you an edge, but you won't be outmatched if you don't have them like many other games).

If you haven't played the game yet and are a fan of mobile games, DC Comics, or are just looking for something to fill idle time you have, you should check out the original Injustice Mobile game.

A word of advice for those approaching Injustice Mobile for the first time, some of the gear and characters that are difficult to obtain are incredibly overpowered compared to what you will be starting with (even once you start getting gold teams). There is already a lot of helpful info on strategies, team builds, etc. so I won't go into that now, but I would recommend focusing on Survival and getting all the gear & other rewards you can without risking a loss and also going for any base level (possibly higher if your teams are strong enough) challenges to unlock more of the powerful gold characters.

I also have a few teams I focus on levelling up at any one time. Instead of trying to pick teams to utilize all of my characters evenly, I've found a few really strong combinations (a bronze team, a silver team, and three gold teams) that I always use before any other teams whenever I can. They are also where I focus my S.T.A.R. Labs boosts for XP, Crit Chance & Crit Damage, although I don't use my HP & Attack boosts on them. Since those bonuses impact the challenge of Survival mode and the teams you encounter when doing multiplayer battles I don't want to unbalance my team at all. Currently I'm directing all Attack & HP boosts towards Arkham Origins Batman who I partner with two of my weakest characters (to help level them up).* Having the weak characters in multiplayer reduces the strength of the enemy team, and because Arkham Origins is the majority of my team's damage, he can mop the floor with most teams he comes up against.

*I know that I said I have my teams made-up by card type above, but Arkham Origins Batman is my exception.*

Sadly, between the pandemic, the trend in gaming to focus on excessive monetization in games, and the Injustice 2 Mobile game (Injustice 1 Mobile is significantly better than its sequal in my opinion), I feel like WB Games has likely abandoned Injustice Mobile. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope they continue to add new characters and gear to the game.

Even if they don't add any new content, I'm sure I have hundreds of hours of gameplay left in its life until I max out all my characters.

I'd love to hear what games you like to play when you don't really have the time or energy to commit to playing more focus intensive games. Let me know in the comments!

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