The Hunger Games: Panem Rising Review

The Hunger Games: Panem Rising is card-battler from Kabam that’s based around the events of the Mockingjay film. In other words, it’s time to help Katniss and her allies fight back against the Capitol, which has totally been a genocidal bossy-pants for far too long.

Panem Rising is primarily a card-collecting and battling game. It has its merits, like great card art, but most of the action is hands-off and a bit dull as a consequence.

Your base of operations in Panem Rising is the underground city of District 13, where the rebels are conspiring to infiltrate and take over the Capitol. But overthrowing an entrenched government is best done in baby-steps, so your early missions mostly involve traveling to different districts and helping its residents against individual acts of the Capitol’s tyranny.

Taking down a threat primarily involves tapping the "explore" button over and over in an area, which carries you forward. Each step costs energy (warning: you run out quickly), and yields prizes like coins and fighter cards.

Fighter cards are your key to winning battles against the Capitol’s goons. Most of the cards you pick up off the ground are for low-level workers with little battle worth, but you may occasionally find powerful cards based off notable characters. The low-level cards you discover serve as effective feed for your heroes.

But upgrading and evolving your cards isn’t a lot of fun because there’s little payoff. When you run into a group of enemies, your fighters automatically engage them and the two sides trade blows until it’s all over. Even though you orchestrate how your team grows, there’s little sense of accomplishment.

It doesn’t help that exploration in Panem Rising is likewise colorless. You just tap a button repeatedly, collect stuff at random, fight bad guys, and do it all again.

Panem Rising is an OK distraction for Hunger Games fanatics, if only because the card art is wonderful. But anyone who’s not wholly dedicated to the rebellion should burrow back underground.