LINE Rangers is an ultra cute defense battle game featuring many of the adorable characters from LINE.

Simple, fun gameplay

LINE Rangers is based around the story of Sally, one of the LINE characters (or 'friends' as they are known) who has disappeared without trace. In order to find Sally the other LINE characters must team up to destroy the enemy in a series of battles through different worlds.

The battle gameplay is not too complex, and follows a similar concept to the popular Cartoon Wars game. You must select characters and dispatch them onto the battlefield to combat whatever strange bad guys are in your way. Every time you send a character out it will cost you minerals, which you manufacture automatically so they replenish with time.

You start off as one character in LINE Rangers and must then unlock more as you go, selecting which ones you want in your team once you have an army of them built up. Each character has different skill sets and an overall level. You can level up Rangers by combining their powers so they get stronger. 

You can invite your LINE-using friends to play LINE Rangers, summoning their characters to help you win battles. It would be nice if there were a versus mode so you battle friends, with one of you attacking and the other defending.

Of course, as is the norm with free-to-play games, LINE Rangers becomes very hard to progress in after a few levels and you'll soon need to part with game currency for the items you need to get you past a level.

Get in LINE

LINE Rangers is pretty easy to play. After signing in with your LINE account, you are walked through the basic controls and principles of the game for the first few levels.

The menu system has a lot of options for picking your team, upgrading, inviting friends, collecting stuff, and redeeming treasure. But the layout of these options is clear and obvious, and it doesn't become overwhelming.

Friends will be friends

The graphics in LINE Rangers are gorgeous. The characters (both the Rangers and enemies) are imaginatively drawn and their actions are hilarious at times. The LINE friends have their own unmistakeable graphic style, and LINE Rangers really takes advantage of this.

The music is very repetitive but it's very apt for a cutesy cartoon adventure like LINE Rangers. Sound effects are great fun too, and the celebration noises that mark a level being passed are reward enough to want to go forward and complete the next battle.

Strangely compelling

LINE Rangers doesn't break any new ground in terms of gameplay. In this respect it's a standard free-to-play strategy battle game. However, the inclusion of the adorable LINE friends makes you want to keep playing to collect them all!