It's hard to predict which games among the hundreds of thousands in the Play Store will hit the sweet spot and become a sensation. Taichi Panda, Snail Games' Diablo-style dungeon crawler, is a good example. Since its release a little over a year ago it's gained over five million downloads and an impressive audience of frequent players both free and paid. After a successful soft launch period, the developer is returning to its anthropomorphic well with a sequel called Taichi Panda: Heroes.

[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/nb9uD-KVdQ0

[/EMBED_YT]

The hook in Heroes is that each player now controls his or her own team of vaguely mystic martial artists, not just a single character. Not only does this open up avenues for collection mechanics and multiple levelling trees at once (there's two hits for Free To Play Bingo), it allows for a more balanced approach to the game's dungeons and bosses. The developers have stepped up the visual presentation from the already-pretty original, but be aware that this kind of heavy 3D game will tax your phone or tablet and drain its battery quickly.

The single player sections of Heroes eventually open up to cooperative dungeons and player-versus-player brawls, where the choice of heroes and skills in your party will become critical to success. Taichi Panda: Heroes keeps the original's surprisingly tight controls (and some unique auto-play elements that make RPG combat much easier on a touchscreen). The art style is a bit generic, and despite the Dreamworks inspiration, this most certainly isn't a game for kids - most of the female characters seem to be running around in armored lingerie. Hey, at least it's consistent with other online fantasy games.

The free-to-play elements are pushed hard in Taichi Panda: Heroes, but the original game was known as one that was at least playable for free without an inordinate amount of grind. Give it a try if you want a stylish online RPG with plenty of multiplayer content.

[EMBED_APP]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snailgameusa.pandatwo[/EMBED_APP]