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DC Unchained Beginner’s Guide: 10 Tips, Cheats & Tricks for Surviving the First Few Stages

Normally, FourThirtyThree releases anime-themed RPGs or MOBAs such as Monster Super League, though their titles also run the gamut, with games such as Boxing Star, Battle Boom, and Battle Boom. Now they’ve got a new game that’s officially licensed by DC Comics, featuring many of the superheroes and supervillains you probably recognize from the comics or the movies — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, The Joker, Lex Luthor, and many more. DC Unchained is an action game where you control teams of up to three heroes and/or villains, and pit them against the evil army of Parademons that are currently laying waste to Gotham and Metropolis. The game features an original story inspired by actual DC Comics storylines, and each character has their own unique skills, strengths, and weaknesses, with any combination of heroes and/or villains possible across multiple game modes.

This is quite a hefty game in terms of size, and it’s not surprising either that it’s also one of the deeper titles we’ve seen in recent months. Discussing all the tips and tricks required to succeed in this game wouldn’t be possible in one simple guide, so we’re now bringing you the first in a series of exclusive DC Unchained strategy guides, as we talk about ten tips and tricks you should be keeping in mind if you’ve just downloaded the game and are playing the first few stages as you get your feet wet.

1. The Basics Of The Game

Like we often do, we will be starting out with a few basic things to remember about this game, and how it’s played. DC Unchained, for starters, is an action game where you can control your favorite DC Universe superheroes and supervillains, and in order to do so, you’ll need to come up with a team of three of each, or a combination of three characters from both alignments. You can have up to five hero teams, five villain teams, and five “Alliance” teams, which would ideally include your best characters, regardless of alignment; this is important, because in Story Mission mode, there’s a separate campaign for heroes and villains, meaning it wouldn’t make sense to mix alignments in these storylines. Each stage starts out with a cutscene of dialogue between different heroes and villains, depending on which campaign you choose (you should go with both), after which you’ll be asked to navigate the stage’s map and take out AI-controlled enemies, following the blue line to ensure you’re on the right path. All you need to do is to kill all the enemies, before setting up a final battle against the level’s boss. Kill the boss and you pass the level — your characters will then gain XP and level up, though at a much faster pace than you will be increasing your player level through the XP you earn.

Unchained mode is similar in terms of gameplay to Story Missions — you’ll still be following the path of the blue line and killing Parademons, but this time, you can use your Alliances of mixed alignment and have them fight off enemies in single player mode, or in Search Party mode, where you will team up with other players. Think of this mode like a gauntlet of sorts, where you face off against enemies of increasing difficulty. While the gameplay here is similar, you can earn rewards you won’t expect to get in Story Mission mode, and once again, you’re free to use your Alliances in here! You’ll also earn more XP and increase your player level faster if you choose to play in Unchained.

2. Complete The ‘Guide’

We often say that you should complete in-game quests in order to get up to speed with the game — they serve as a “guide” in a way, because they ensure you know everything there is to know about a certain in-game feature or mechanic. Here in DC Unchained, the game’s makers don’t mince any words, if we could put it that way — the quests in this title are filed under the “Guide” tab, which doubles as a tutorial which you can access at any time. Here you can learn about the different features in DC Unchained, and the different things your characters can do in battle to gain an advantage over the enemy. Guide activities are also filed under five different tabs — Beginner, Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master. For an example of Guide activities, the Beginner tab will require you to play Unchained mode for the first time, learn how to dodge, string together combo attacks, and chain together your skills. These are just a few of the many tasks at hand for “beginners,” and if you complete an activity under Guide, you will earn some neat rewards, including coins (common currency), gems (premium currency), family cards, stamina potions, and more!

3. Auto, Semi, Or Manual?

Most games of this kind give players the option to go on auto-battle, allowing you to watch the action unfold as the AI does everything or you. In DC Unchained, you can move your characters and have them perform actions manually, you can have the AI do it all on Auto mode, or you can assign movement and regular skills to the AI, while handling the usage of special skills while on Semi mode. This is an interesting twist, but not the only one as far as this game mechanic is concerned. Even when playing in Auto mode, you can override the AI’s controls to fine-tune your actions, though this may be a bit tricky, since the AI will naturally do things much faster than a human player ordinarily can.

When choosing which mode to play in, you should always look at your total team power and compare it against what a mission or Unchained level is recommending. If you’ve got substantially more team power than what is recommended, you can let the computer do all the heavy lifting and then some, sit back, and play on auto. Otherwise, we recommend a combination of Semi and manual; use Semi to let the AI move your characters along the blue line to save on some time, but switch to manual when the battles, especially the boss battles, begin. You’ll want to be on top of things with regards to basic and special attacks, because the AI, in most cases, won’t do as good a job of chaining skills, launching combo attacks, or dodging as you would.

4. Check Your Inbox, Login Daily For Rewards

As DC Unchained is a brand new game for both iOS and Android platforms, the game is very generous at the moment in giving out rewards. A lot of these rewards can be found simply by opening your inbox, so make sure to check your in-game mail every day — you might not be aware of the things you’re doing to naturally earn yourself some gold, gems, stamina potions, family cards/card tickets, and more. We can’t guarantee how long FourThirtyThree is going to be this generous, so you might as well take advantage of things and collect your rewards before they expire!

Of course, the game also gives away daily rewards for those who log in to the game at least once a day, even for the sole purpose of reward collection. That’s right — you don’t need to take part in an actual mission or Unchained stage — just login to the game and that will count as you earn progressively better rewards for each consecutive day you log in!

5. Learn How To Dodge And Use Your Healing Potions

The action in DC Unchained may often be fast and furious, but that doesn’t mean you can subsist without a little defense. You may not need it right away, as leveling up can be just as fast and furious for your first few characters in the early goings, but as you start taking on tougher bosses and fiercer Parademons, you’ll need to learn how to avoid their attacks by hitting the Dodge button at the right time. This is the bottom right-most button in the battle screen, and if you need to regroup for a moment while up against a plethora of Parademons or a difficult boss, you’ll want to hit that button and head to safer ground for a moment. Once you’ve dodged the attacks, you can then use that brief moment to regroup to use a healing potion, which you can charge up and unlock during a stage simply by attacking more enemies, stringing a combo, then resetting it. This will come in the most handy during the more difficult levels, but you might as well practice your dodge while still early.

As a bonus tip, healing potions work for all members of your team when you use them — nice to know when you’re facing up against a tough group of enemies!

6. Combos And Chains – What’s The Difference?

Normally, these two words are used in conjunction with each other. e.g. chaining together a combo. (We personally prefer the word “string,” but different strokes for different folks, we guess.) But in DC Unchained, these two terms refer to two completely different things. A combo in this game can be strung together by hitting consecutive attacks, basic or special alike, against the enemy side, though stopping for too long in between hits will break the combo, as will hitting the Dodge button. There’s no special trick required if you’re trying to put a long combo string together — in the early stages, you can unleash an impressive combo simply by mashing the buttons. (Not really a recommended way of attacking in later stages, though.)

Chains, on the other hand, refer to a series of special skills unleashed consecutively. Doing so will launch an even more powerful Chain Skill, and that skill will differ from character to character. Basically, what you want here is for multiple special skills to be available to use at the same time; you may want to read up on your characters’ special skills to learn about their combo times, and when you should be using them. You probably won’t need to put too many chains together in the first few levels, but again, you should start practicing chaining special moves once your characters unlock their first few new special skills.

7. Toggle Regularly From One Character To Another

That’s the good thing about having three characters in a team — when one is having a hard time against the enemy, it’s time to hit on Dodge, switch from your current character to another, and get back in the fray. That buys you some time by allowing your characters to heal and rest, while letting new characters take over and handle the brunt of the offense. It’s a simple maneuver you can perform, even if you’re on full auto-battle mode, so keep a close eye on the battle and toggle between your characters as much as possible.

8. Complete The Achievements

Aside from the rewards you can earn by completing the Guide tasks, you’ve also got Achievements, which are divided into six categories — Daily Quest, Battle, Character, Story, Social, and Event. These are things that you can complete by playing the game organically, though as usual, it’s always helpful if you check the achievements so you have an idea of what you’re shooting for. You can earn coins, gems, stamina potions, and Honor Points, the latter of which are another form of premium currency which you can use to make purchases in the in-game shop. And as we mentioned earlier, the achievements are categorized in such a way that you’ll want to focus on all facets of the game, including the social aspect of things, which we shall be discussing in a bit in our next guide for DC Unchained.

9. The Basics Of Valoriums

Valoriums, which you will be introduced to early on in the game, can be considered as DC Unchained’s version of runes, and you can equip them on your characters to make them stronger and increase their stats. Let’s take a look at some of the basics of this resource, and what’s in it for you when it comes to equipping Valoriums on your heroes and villains.

Valoriums come in three colors — red, blue, and green — and if you match them to their color in the Valorium screen, that results in an even better statistical improvement. Some Valoriums can correspond to a given character, but in most cases, you can equip them on anyone you wish, preferably your better heroes. And since you may be wondering how you can earn Valoriums, they can be won as daily rewards, or in certain Story Mission or Unchained stages. In the early goings, it won’t be too easy to earn them, but because the first few stages should be a walk in the park, you may not need them as much as you would in the later parts of the game.

10. Replay Completed Stages To Level Up Your Newer Characters

Because FourThirtyThree is giving away a ton of rewards because DC Unchained is a new game, you’ll probably have a full hero team and villain team before you even play your second or third stage in the corresponding hero or villain campaign. But you’ll eventually get to unlock new characters, and be able to mix and match characters on different teams, and the best and simplest way to upgrade these new characters quickly is to grind. You can easily spend energy (the same amount of energy — 10 units) and replay levels you’ve already completed, in order to level up your newer characters and get them up to a comparable level (or a higher level, should you unlock rarer ones) to the existing ones you currently have.

That’s all for now, as far as DC Unchained is concerned. We hop you’ve enjoyed this guide and don’t forget to check back from time to time for more DC Unchained cheats, tips and tricks.