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It’s not quite Valorant Mobile, but it’s not far off - Hyper Front Quick Review

9K View2023-01-02

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

If you’re dying to play something that captures the feel of Valorant on mobile devices, Hyper Front is worth playing. How similar is it? Well, it’s close enough that Valorant developer Riot Games is actually suing Hyper Front publisher NetEase. That said, I don’t think Hyper Front is a total clone, for better and worse. But until Valorant Mobile actually comes out, it does a fine job of filling that tactical hero shooter role on phones.

TIME PLAYED

I put around five hours into Hyper Front over the weekend, including playing a bunch of matches, testing out different characters, and exploring the game’s many battle passes, events, and other monetization systems.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• The feel. First-person shooting can be hard to get right on mobile, but Hyper Front comes right out of the gate feeling polished and fun. The game’s generous but necessary aim assist rarely failed to help me hit my intended targets. And the overall speed and intensity of matches kept me happy to keep loading up another round.

• Short matches. Valorant’s core plant-and-defuse mode uses a best-of-twenty-five (or first to thirteen wins) setup that can lead to lengthy back-and-forth matches of forty minutes or more. NetEase wisely opted for a brisker option that’s better-suited to games on the go. Hyper Front cuts matches to best-of-fourteen (or first to eight wins) format, and even my longest matches capped out at fifteen minutes or so.

• Variety. Even beyond the thirteen playable heroes available right now, each with their own unique powers to put to use during matches, I have to respect the variety of gameplay options available in Hyper Front. While the Valorant- and Counter-Strike-inspired attack-and-defend style is the main focus, the game includes five additional game modes that unlock as you level up. I can’t wait to hit level 12 and check out Arms Race, a personal favorite mode from my Counter-Strike days.

• Polish. Hyper Front is a hefty game, coming in at just under 4 GB of storage space on my Galaxy S21 Ultra. However, the size is put to good use, with fast loading, strong visuals, and a UI that’s slick and easy to navigate compared to many other free-to-play games.

WHAT SUCKS

• Unlocks. As with Valorant, Hyper Front requires players to grind out currency and quests in order to unlock heroes beyond the five who are offered when you first start up the game (enough to put together a full team, naturally).

That’s annoying enough on its own, but Hyper Front takes things a step further by locking a handful of its most powerful guns behind “Weapon Research”—essentially a series of quests that must be completed to unlock each weapon. These unlocks don’t seem to require spending money, at least, but they still feel like an unnecessary and annoying roadblock to just being on even footing with players who have been at it longer.

• Monetization. You know what does require spending money, though? Everything else in Hyper Front. Sure, a battle pass is to be expected in this type of game at this point. But even beyond that, I counted no less than six other events or sales icons begging me to spend money. Most of what’s offered is cosmetic, but then some of those cosmetics are even only given to you for a limited amount of time. If free-to-play monetization annoys you, go into Hyper Front aware that you’re going to encounter lots of it.

• Availability. This is a minor annoyance but worth noting for anyone reading this who wants to check out Hyper Front. I’m assuming it’s due to the aforementioned lawsuit, but Hyper Front is currently unavailable to players in North America. In fact, it’s currently only available in Canada, as well as western European and eastern Asian regions. If you’re rocking an Android phone like I am, you should be able to find a working APK of the game, but you’ll need to load up a VPN to play it. A small frustration but worth it!

Mentioned games

Hyper Front

ActionCasualTactical ShooterMultiplayerPvPShooter

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Comments

lazion brown

this is Wal-Mart valorant

2023-03-08

Author liked

Kef Author

😂 Mom: "We've got Valorant at home" The Valorant at home:

2023-03-08

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SpFinX

Netease is a red flag for any game. Still, those female characters designs are gonna lure tons of people, maybe even me. It's really funny how you can instantly say 'that's not european/USA AAA publisher' just looking at them. China laughs at body positive trends and so do players.

2023-01-04