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Is it worth trying? (I wasn't expecting the final rating to be that low to be honest, I mean it's decent but there's nothing game changing for me)
Update: Just so you know, you'll need to create 4 teams later on for recurring dream mode when you reach acct lvl 60. You can probably get away with 1-2 fully built dps per team.
Short answer: If you like easy casual 3d action, stamina based side game where you only control 1 unit in combat while the ai controls the other 2, then you should try it.
Long answer: The short answer kinda gives a whole lot already, I'm pretty sure some people won't like it either due to the easy part or due to only being able to control 1 unit.
First, how's the gacha?
First 40 pulls on normal banner gives you guaranteed S rank. But Limited banner needs you to progress to pull unless all the mail rewards are still there since 1 multi = 2k currency.
S rank pity is 70 pulls then guaranteed pity of 140 (Rate of 1.60%). It's not specified that it carries over to next banners but other players do say it does but I can't guarantee it myself since it was only talking about 2 different currencies having the same pity count on limited.
The standard has its own rate up which seem to cycle to other standard unit every 2 weeks and it specify that the pity carries over if the rate up changes.
Let's talk about the good side of this first. Okay, I have to add this since I didn't know this how the Functor gacha works. So if you pull an ssr of the faction of your choosing, it seems we can choose a specific unit's functor of that faction. That's actually good than getting rng specific functor.
There's these sort of weapon banner here called Functor, we have blue and purple rare for specific unit faction and yellow rare for specific units (same 1.60%). There's also a different yellow rare for specific unit faction but we can get those a bit easily on shop which makes our ticket currency for specific unit Functor very limited. Like I was only able to do 1 multi with the ticket they gave us and we'd probably need to use the general currency for more.
Second, How's the refreshing currency economy?
We gain 40 currency daily
We gain 1k currency weekly
We gain 150 more on Recurring Dream mode weekly (I'm not sure if it increases later on after reaching acct lvl 50)
We gain 200 more on Dimensional Variables weekly as well. (Also not sure if it increases later on)
We gain 400 all in all if we sign in a whole month. (I haven't missed a day so I'm not sure if we actually need to sign in daily or just the specific day of the week to gain it.)
If I haven't missed anything and calculated it correctly, then we gain around 7k monthly which is 35 pulls which is half a pity.
Currently, I think limited will change every 2 weeks and I'm hoping for a good amount of currency during events.
Third, about gameplay. Since we can only control 1 unit is it fun?
Well, that depends but it's kinda not bad since we don't need to think of unit cycling along with skill cycling etc. In here, it's just a bit of normal attack, dodge (slow mo effect), skill cycling for some units, shield-like breaking on bosses (not really a shield but similar that puts them in a down-like state), ult.
Unfortunately for some, it's easy but it's not button mashing. You kinda need some sequence on some skills. The 3rd skill being typically used after using the first and second skills sometimes in very specific sequence or just let the ai use the unit for you. You can just be the healer unit at the back if you want to or not even use any healer at all since it's possible to survive with a separate support passive we can use.
The ults, we still do activate individual unit ults ourselves and we can activate 1, 2 or 3 at once if the units have ult synergy. Currently, only 1 can do 3 ults at once which are the 3 free units they give us.
Unit classes so far for me feels like a melee/mid range attacker/healer/crowd control. Might be more but I don't have everything and we can't test units we don't have.
Enemy classes, I just feel like it's very limited for now.
Fourth, other stuff like equipment/ set piece and fragments
We do have unit factions in here as stated back on gacha, It's not just for the Functors but also for 3 pc set effects called Sigils
We can equip 2 set effects. Those Sigils we can farm can have a unit faction buff that we have a currency we can obtain to reroll it to a different unit faction. I suggest wait for 5 star before leveling.
These Sigils also have a fixed passive stats and an additional 4 we can add at a higher Sigil level which we can also reroll.
Another use of unit faction is that it gives us team buffs if we're using 2-3 units of the same faction.
I'm not sure if it's fortunate or not but we have character fragments in here which we can increase the unit's rarity. There's A, S, SS, SSS and I'm not sure how to read the last one, let's say it's cursive n. From A rank to cursive n rank we need 318 fragments. If it's an S rank then 300 fragments.
There's a daily refresh shop that sells shard but I never seen high rare units there yet.
The Recurring Dream seems to sell shard of a high rare. It might be only selling a shard of a unit we have, except for the limited one for now.
We can also obtain 1 S rank unit from there probably after a month.
Fifth, my thoughts?
I was not impressed by the sound or eng va personally and they started the story underwhelmingly that I jus skipped it all. The value is okay I guess since the skins doesn't look bad. But I'm not sure if there's added effects in there since there's no trial or something and it's around 15 usd.
In all honesty, I kinda thought I won't play this that long but I already finished the normal chapters within a week and I reached chapter 6 without leveling any units up which gives you guys more of an idea of how easy the game is. The only problem back then was you'll lack the dps to 3 star a stage if you don't level your units since it wants you to clear it in a certain amount of time. Having said that, I think I did enjoyed playing it at least.
Lastly, will I drop this game when a different game that interest me releases?
I'm not gonna lie, there's a huge chance that this is the first game that I might drop when that happens. But who knows. Maybe it gets better later on.
Is it worth trying?
I have reached a point where I need to wait for update to continue the story so I think I played a good amount already. Lvling up your account could take awhile sometimes.
It's a classic turn based game but with shield to break and genshin like system. If you don't know what it is then you have a weapon which is Light cone in here which is unit type specific. Relics, this game has 6 slots, a 4pc + 2 pc effect. Skill levels and dupe system for light cones and units.
Units have different types and typical elements. You could use same elements but it's possible that you won't be able to break shields which in turn could make a stage longer or even harder if the enemy has a strong special skills.
The story is unskippable as well as the ultimate animation which i get that it can get tiring for some.
The story is good for me. But I know some wouldn't like the style especially with other references from other stuff like movies, series, memes, etc. There where times when the main and side story isn't for me as well. But just a few for now.
Pity is similar to genshin which is 50/50 at 90 for units, 80 for light cones and guarantees rate up on the next 90/80 that carries over to next event banner. Standard banner has similar pity but it's separate count from event banner.
The game has energy system
Now what do we farm using energy here? It's relics(you can get basic purple rare relic set on chest on the 3rd main map and different set as acct lvl reward), skill lvl up mats ascension(limit break) mats. World boss can also drop some of those + currency for a few purple rare light cone on shop. There's a few yellow rare light cones and standard ticket on a different shop where it also has farmable currency. You can only farm those currencies a few times a week.
For now it's undeniable that it's a well made f2p mobile and pc game. It's still just not for everyone since people have different preferences.
I skipped value because I only value skins, I don't care about battle pass and that monthly thing but I know others would so it's better to skip it.
Is it worth trying? (First impressions) Personally a 3 star at least since it's an okay game but the rating system makes it a bit lower.
Short answer:
If you're fine with it chibis with real time skill use that can be on manual like blue archive with idle game mechanics for exp, gear and the like as well as needing to ascend units to higher rarity with dupes or units with same element and rarity then it's not bad. You can actually reach a good amount of chapters with low lvl units as long as it's a good team, otherwise you'll find yourself needing close to the enemy lvl.
Long Answer:
The current good thing about this game is it gives you 2 guaranteed units that you like. 1 is random on pull but it's unlimited tries. Then you could select any unit you want on the second one. Then the pity of the standard banner is 30 pulls.
If you reach a certain chapter you'll unlock link which you can lvl 1 unit the same level as 1 other unit. So if you have good comps then you can reach it with only a few units lvled up.
The current downside for me
-the hero arena. They give you 8 players to choose from to fight and you kinda need to win 8x in a row to get all rewards and if you refresh then your win count reverts back to 0.
-Ascend system to higher rarity. I'm not a huge fan of that since I can feel like we can get stuck on something for a long time but it is what it is.
First impressions of the game:
Is it worth it?
Short answer:
Gameplay is decent if you like top down turn based rpg using 3d chibis that can change skill via job system with a skin that increases stats and a 6 piece gear with x gear set.
Long answer:
First of all if you like rerolling, then you can't reroll in this. Or maybe it's possible but it's going to be very hard.
Second, this is not the first game to do this but there's only 1 pity system which is to do 200 pulls to get points to claim the rate up unit. Take note that all points will expire and become a currency for dupes on the next banner. While standard doesn't seem to have pity at all, you just earn the currency for dupes immediately after pulling.
If you're fine with that then:
As continuation with short answer, you use all your units in one full turn. You can also use 1 separate energy based card skill. So far what you need to do is take the chest/s if there's any then defeat all enemies or you can just auto it with x2 speed. Clear the stage with no ally deaths to fully clear a stage.
If you lose 1 unit then 1 other player's unit will take its place.
For freebies excluding pull currency, we get a selector for ssr tank which you can select now or later. A pre reg sr unit and a mission based ssr unit which is easy to obtain.
Then we have magic and physical damage along with the typical color strengths and weaknesses. So far there's 1 low rarity that can't deal a single dmg against the color it's weak against.
This game has a unit job system which changes your individual unit skills. It sounds good in context but I haven't reach the part where I'd be able to change and try it out for myself. But it's there. From my observation. SSR can choose 3 brackets, SR can choose 2 brackets, while R only has 1 bracket.
To unlock jobs we'll need to farm shards (You can skip farm on fully cleared stages) and increase the job lvl to x amount to unlock the next job, then farm that next shard rarity, rinse and repeat.
I think in order to lvl your units' skill you'd need to promote them via dupes and it looks expensive right now.
For R rarity(1*) we need 50 shards and 100k gold.
For SR rarity(2*) we need 100 shards and 150k gold.
For SSR rarity(3*) we need 175 shards and 250k gold.
Total promotion should be 5*. I don't know if it's necessary to promote but there is an Arena that gets unlocked later on which I assume it being pvp.
Well, well. I wasn't thinking of adding review to a different server since I already have one for Sea. But due to how different it is now, i kinda have to.
If you're on Sea region, this is the only way I know to access this version.
But is it worth it?
If you like free stuff then now is the time to try it out. Free selectors, 1 purple rare skin, event with free selectors and random ticket.
code for awakened selector (not sure if it expires or not): CS1UTDKGJ08INT
If you're new then:
Game mechanic is you deploy units on a 2d fighting style space and they move towards the other end, doing auto attacks and skill while you can manual or auto ult. End goal is usually to destroy the enemy flagship while defending your own.
Global Pros and cons
Pros:
Free stuff for now. Remember that it's only for a limited amount of time.
Rearm skill lvling doesn't need specific fragments. But you still need rarity fragments to rearm.
Higher chance of having collab than Sea, even though the last one isn't too great.
Gives more codes than Sea
Cons:
Had to lower the gameplay and graphics since the old one is better. At least for me.
The UI is fine for me but the hp color being white bar isn't. lf it's for colorblind then add that mode instead. Qnd whitebar is suppose to be shield. Now it's just a lighter whitebar.
they remove units receiving exp on stages. Which means the only way to lvl now is by using exp tickets. That's going to be alot if you want to reach 110.
they seem to remove dive skip. Not great when you already know that a dive stage is a sure win.
Kinda ridiculous change in shadow palace. Needing 3 full different teams altogether.
constellation like mechanic and I'm not fond of it, you kinda need 5-6 dupes. It also lacks the QoL of selecting units that has dupes.
Seems a good amount of players aren't happy with some of the cons here and more. The devs already put their stance and seem to be finding a way to resolve some of the issue. I just hope that they are. It's a shame if they lose more playerbase just after the rebrand.
Is it worth trying?
If you like a gameplay where you set up 3d chibi units then play while also needing your attention to do manual skill and ults while they're doing auto skills and auto attacks.
It has roguelike elements where 1 stage have multiple brackets, you need to choose 1 and it can be easy or hard or it can give you something like buffs or trade for buffs or heal, then on to the next set of brackets till the stage is done. Last bracket is usually 1 and it's a boss stage. After that there's also sometimes a 2nd wave of brackets. Again that's just 1 full stage.
So basically, you'll do the roguelike first then the gameplay rinse and repeat while hp, skill charge carry over to the next brackets till boss fight (won't be carried over to the next wave). Do all of those and that's 1 stage clear.
If you like the description then it might be for you.
Just added info of the game if you are interested.
-Fast to no loading screens
-Fairly long forced tutorial
-Rerolling isn't easy since guest acct will remain on device even after uninstalling and reinstalling.
-Sometimes need to use a preset unit on full stage.
-Starring up units might be important. It's a long term thing since you can only gain few unit fragments daily. Dupes on pulls gives store currency to buy fragments it starts with 5 currency per 1 frag. Currency needed increases by 5 more per 25 frags. Lower rares needs fewer frags while High rare will need 60 frags at first then increased to 70 frags after.
Didn't know the rating will be that low. It is just an okay game for me and the rating for okay is 2 so yea.
Worth trying?
If you like 3d arcade arena fighting game with billboard/banner/Big window-like images as background and a fan of sao, also the game needing stamina to play then maybe.
I personally am not a fan of the mechanics since it's the main mechanics, would be fine if it was a mode since it can get old fast if it's not for you. It just felt lazy since there's nothing that stands out if you compare it with any existing 3d game with combat mechanics.
Targeting system isn't great, worse when there's tons of mobs. Dodge system isn't great, not very responsive when you press it. You need to do QTEs on boss, as in pressing things fast or you'll take dmg.
Combat feels very slow paced and stiff because the second skill is slow and dodging won't work when we're doing attacks in general. There's no block as well. Getting hit will get us staggered/knocked down and recovery from those is slow as well.
There's just tons of games with combat that does it better and make it more fun in general. Even saoif is better than this and it's quite old already.
All in all for me, It's a rushed arcade game with gacha. Can't even play it on phone emulators. The last time I tried binding my acct there's no way to bind with an email, you need twitter or that Line thing. Tranferring acct from a different device was said to have a cooldown of 42hrs (not sure if it's true).
Worth trying?
If you're fine with portrait mode aim and shoot games that you can auto and has an idle game resource management. Also if you like looking at "assets" then you should try it.
Is it f2p?
It depends on luck but I think I have to say no now. Why? (Just an advice first) try not to spend too much diamond currency on regular banner if possible since event banner use a different ticket than regular banner and has an actual pity of 200. That currency doesn't get removed even when you get the unit way early or when the banner ends, you can use that pity currency to buy the current rate up unit. Rate up units will be put to regular banner eventually as they stated.
-Burst types. You need to get a unit that uses specific burst type (3 in total+ 2 extra)
-Currently, they're pretty stingy with the redeem codes, it has limited usage so you need to be there the moment when they give one out. It's like one of those codes when a streamer gives one.
-Stages have time limit. Which makes having those specific burst types vital in doing dps/heals. Dps and heal is important.
-Unit stats will be reduced in a stage depending on how low your bp(overall teampower) is from recommended bp.
-No actual pity system on regular banner to be seen but you can put on a wishlist of 15 ssr that you can possibly get if you receive an ssr but it has to be 15 in total to work. I already stated the pity for event banner above.
-Need specific faction units sometimes for dispatch missions.
-Will need specific faction units(5 with good burst comp) to try out a mode after doing chapter 7.
-Need duplicates of the same unit to max limit break which would be hard for ssr (probably an end game thing at this point since I already reached chapter 9). Need 200 pulls on regular banner to get one full dupe in the refreshing dupe shop(which isn't easy in this game since you'll mostly spend diamonds for event banners instead). So you need to lvl up your max break sr first and do some of chapter 4 to unlock sync level to have your other units have the same lvl as your lowest 5th unit. You'll gain more sync slot for lvl 1 units as you progress further.
-Current event shop is impossible to clear as f2p since they limit the way to earn wvent currency and needs to finish all hard mode which is impossible to clear.
It's a lot of negatives but that's how the review is. A good amount of the negatives is based on how unlucky the account is, because if you're lucky with your pulls then most of the negatives and it being not f2p won't be a problem so far. Might be a problem later on though if we need to lvl higher than 160.
Currently, there's still a lot of bugs right now, I don't think I can tolerate it that much anymore. Like I said before, bp reduces our stats and the skills remains at lvl 1 effects even after lvling it higher making us deal less dmg, some doesn't work at all. There are bugs that increases our charged atks though, if they fix that one first we'll be way weaker. A minor one is the notif bug, that bug is everywhere even when there's nothing to new.
Is it worth trying?
I have to change my review completely after reaching 7-12. The game is fun for me however it's a review and others might want to know some things before trying it out.
-Pros-
-It's very f2p if you use the free and low rarity units.
-Good quality of life and story.
-You can borrow one unit from other players (3x a day)
-Cons-
-Can't freely lvl up any units other than the 6 main units you'll use unless you're fine with progressing slower in early-mid game. (end game is still unknown)
-Scarce resource even at acct lvl close to 48.
-Team composition isn't too flexible until you possibly reach phase 3 since you're stuck with almost/half of your team comp being breaker units and a healer.
-Game difficulty depends on your team composition which could make it easy or impossible to clear.
-Having 2 mistakes in your team composition means needing to lvl another unit which slows/halts your progression since you can only borrow 1 unit.
Main Gameplay:
You usually deploy 6 units (full body and not chibi) before stage starts and they can't be redeploy when killed.
You'll mostly break cores to eliminate the enemy with cores faster and stop them from using special skills, clear mobs to avoid the enemies going to your main character to clear stage.
If you like the description then you should try it.
Wow, another review that I didn't anticipate it to be lower than 4. I just kinda have to put the gameplay to 2 because those harder stages are just there to slow down player's progression which isn't fun so yea. I'd personally give them a 4 or 4.5.
Is it worth trying?
Well.. If you're a player who's looking for an actual gameplay with visuals then no. Some will most likely just skip the gameplay after seeing the only 1 l2d movement of your unit once-thrice.
But if you're a player who's looking for a watercolor-like graphics with good music then you're welcome to try it. It's basically like an afk music player gacha.
I'm personally fine with it for some reason but this is a review so yea, a good amount of players wouldn't like this kind of game if they even consider it as one.
I didn't expect that my review score will be that low.
Is it worth trying?
Yes, if you're interested in an anime open world mmorpg gacha game.
The main reason why this review is low is due to how we score it by type. I personally enjoy the game and I played it since launch.
However, I have to be honest here and say that the only thing that lets me stay in this game is the graphics and gameplay. That's it. If you don't like those 2 then you wouldn't like the game yourself.
First impressions:
The Asia server is slow to me for some reason while global server ia faster.
Is it worth trying?
It's subjective but it's decent if you're not having connection problems.
I'd personally say that the artstyle isn't as cultured as other games out there for now but it still look fine. It only has idle l2d animation on homescreen for now.
It has another va, i think it's korean but I'm not certain and I'm not used to it.
Game mechanics is you pick 10 units to bring on stages and drag and drop your anime chibi style units on a 3x4 tiles where you can see enemy placement on other side. However there's a unit resource cost which will limit you on who you can deploy.
If you start it, all units on tiles will move in and attack. You can either manual or auto skills.
After winning it's possible for stages to have multiple rounds/waves. In which case, you'll earn more resource cost, your units' hp and skill charge and possibly buffs and debuffs will be carried over to the next wave and you can either replace or deploy more units then start it again till the whole stage is done.
There's the typical rgb light dark strength and weaknesses.
The thing i might not like or concern about are:
-Plenty of stuff to level up like gear, units (since they don't lvl up unless you use exp cards), skills, additional stats using somekind of book mats.
-There's an equipment banner which is concerning.
-Based on explanation, you can refine gear using dupes for substats. Possibly any foddera or exact dupes.
-Awakening units=more rng stats (9 total). You need exact unit dupes for it + gold. You can reroll stats using gold. However, let's say you unlocked 9 already and reroll stats then all stats will reroll unless you lock the other stats you want to keep which is said to cost more gold based on explanation.
First impressions:
The gameplay is a 2d chibi turn based jrpg. The one where units have basic, skill/passive and ult. Your units are android mech waifus unless you use the fodder mechs. I'd say some units are for cultured, especially some skins where fbi kun might open up your door.
Anyway the game might be tedious, although it depends on the person. I'd say the limit breaking procesa is tedious. You kinda need units at the same star lvl so you need to limit break your fodders for it. Some fodders needa to be leveled up as well so that you can star it up and use it as limit break fodder. Again tedioua imo. But hey, some people say they've seen worse so it makes this game okay to some.
Pretty sure there's still a lot of things i haven't tackled yet but it is my first impression of it.
In short if you like the game's art, I think it's fine to try it out.
I think I have played long enough to not be a first impression anymore. I've reached lvl 50 with my main character.
Is it worth trying?
Short answer: it's the typical mmorpg that has auto with a zone-like maps and has weapons/armor, familiar and outfit as gacha. You can also craft weapons/armor/familiars. However, the game has nft which f2p can suffer because enhancing/crafting things needs that currency which takes a long time to grind. Playing it on manual isn't.... Satisfying. If you're fine with it then you should try it.
Long answer that I made shorter:
This game for me would not be so bad if:
1: If the manual is optimized.
2: If we don't "need" to play all characters(5) doing all the story and leveling all over again just to get the stuff needed like inventory space, territe increase.
3: If there's no territe needed for enhancing gear/familiars or craft gear since only global server has that one which they made as an nft making f2p having a harder time to enhance/progress further.
4: If the server is more stable.
So far the thing that is adequate for me are:
1: Kingdom defense (defend the guild core against wave of ai enemies)
2: Lava Valley Team Arena (3v3 live pvp) Although, would've been better if everyone is on equal standing in terms of stats.
3: Familiar Adventure (A hex-based map where we deploy familiars to fight other ai familiars on auto for resources) Would've been better if deploying isn't so limited, needs tickets that refreshes daily to play.
-Worth trying?
Short answer: To be simple, it's a bird's eye view perspective of 3d anime chibi on a swipe tile match up game that has turn based combat mechanics added along with turn countdown and a feeling of a random tile generator. It only has auto for farming. I think all units have a base live 2d art and higher rarity has an additional one live2d art after max limit breaking them.
A player can possibly reach chapter 10 (where I'm currently at) with just the free starter units. If you like the description then you should try it.
Long answer:
-First: The Gacha, is it good?
For me, I think I'm kinda unlucky. But I think I only have bad rng since the rate is kinda similar to Arknights. If you don't know what it is then we need to pull for 50 to start the pity.
The rate of getting a 6* will keep increasing until you are guaranteed to get one random 6*. Which is probably 80 pulls. If we fail to obtain the main rate up unit then we'll need to get 2 random 6* before we are guaranteed to get the rate up.
There are 2 banners, which is: new rate up and regular rotating banner. Those 2 banner have separate pity count.
There's also 1 unit per color that are suppose to be very strong that can be obtainable for free after doing their specific quest which will take awhile to finish.
-Second: Is it grindy?
I don't main the game but like I said, there's only auto for farming which can take awhile, you can only unlock auto after 3 starring a stage. And I'm not sure if it's possible to lose due to the random tile generator. So far I haven't lost an auto yet.
-Third: The gameplay.
In addition to what I stated in short answer, we deploy a squad of 5 units and the first unit you put will be the leader that will show as the squad anime chibi, you can switch leader up to 3 times. Each one has a basic attack (They will of course only attack when in range), active skill, chain combo (It will activate if you match up the said amount of tiles) and equipment. Don't worry, the equipment is fixed. We just need to level it up.
You match the tile color and if you match up to 15 in 1 go then you'll activate this Aurora mode where you can do an extra turn immediately, I don't think we can do it twice in a row though.
It has the typical unit color strength and weakness like yellow is strong against blue. Blue is weak against yellow. That kind of thing.
In addition, only those units with the same tile color you match up will attack and do chain combos. This is why we have leader switching. Because no matter what color you match up, the leader will always attack and do chain combos. The active skill can always be used after cooldown.
Also the tiles that the game generate feels random which can make your playthroughs easier or harder.
For now I guess the only thing that might be bad for me is the "Breakthrough". It's a way to improve a unit's stat and skill. You'd need dupes for higher rarities. Some Breakthrough is kinda good, just by making an active skill to be able to use on the first round makes stages feel easier and making some units need those Breakthrough.
And again, the tile generation might make you lose on some stages. It also might not be possible to redo what you did on a stage because of it. And there's no skip on grinding. There's auto but I'm not sure if it will always let you win.
-Worth trying?
-Short Answer: The main gameplay is similar to an auto game. You have squad/s deployed that has 5 or less anime girl chibi with guns on a 3x3 tiles along with a more chibi-looking supporter unit in the background.
However, your units will stay on the tile while the enemies moves in to attack your units. You can move your units to a different tile in real time. And also, you can auto or manual the skills.
You'll lose the fight if all your units in a squad retreats or if an enemy passed through your defenses. Also, if a unit gets heavily injured they'll show an injured art if you know what I mean.
The gacha here is a recruitment with timer, the currency is your resources. It's also a grindy game for levels and lacks quality of life for me. If you're fine with that then you should try it.
Long answer:
-First: The Gameplay.
Like I stated, it lacks quality of life. Like there's a good amount of things that has timers and you won't be able to use your unit/s and/or squad as a whole until the timer ends.
We have:
1: Healing station. Granted that there's a skip heal ticket. But if you ran out of it then, you'd really have to wait for them to recover. The more your unit is injured, the longer it is for them to recover.
2: Expedition. The longest is 12 or 24 hrs I think. That's how long you won't be able to use a squad. I think you can do 4 at once but you won't be able to play.
Unless you unlock more squad lineup.
3: Skill upgrading. Yes, you can't use them when they're upgrading skills, which also has a timer. The higher the skill lvl, the longer it will be.
That's all I can think of for now in terms of being unable to use units.
Back to gameplay.
First, It's a turn based board game style map where you deploy your squads on nodes called heliport or base to capture node to node and ultimately capture the enemy's base.
Each squad will have 2 resources when deployed. Ration and Ammunition. While I'm not sure what Ration does but Ammunition is needed for your units to be able to attack/defend against enemies. If you don't have ammunition then you won't be able to fight back at all. You can resupply on ally heliport or base nodes.
Second, Once you and an enemy move on the same node it will transition into the main gameplay I mentioned on short answer.
There is also some kind of mode where we can now capture enemy units and use them as a unit. I'm still not too familiar with it but regular units and enemy units can't be in a squad together. I think we need to do a lot of those capture stuff before we can capture an enemy boss.
-Second: Is it grindy?
Very much so. Leveling units takes a whole lot of time. There's even a method that players mentioned where they use higher lvled unit/s alongside lower lvl units and grind the same map over and over again since it's efficient.
There are exp cards, you can earn it in base but you'll need a whole lot of it.
It will also be more grindy if a player doesn't limit break the unit. It's necessary to limit break it for more stats and better exp gain.
You'll either need a dupe or a currency for limit breaking. Both needs more as you limit break them higher.
So it's better to use the free units they give us, especially the AR units. Use those first and do the method that players mentioned for other units.
-Third: How's the gacha?
The gacha here is unique in my opinion because we actually use our own resources to pull units. Resources being Manpower, Ammunition, R&D and Gears. Which we earn overtime or earn more using somekind of expedition where you deploy a squad that you won't be able to use on stages until it's finish.
Ammunition and R&D is kind of the energy system of this game. Without those you won't be able to play stages since you won't have enough ammunition to supply your squad. So make sure to not always use everything to pull units.
There are resource formulas to follow to have a better chance to get the unit type that you want/need. It is of course pretty much rng.
Also, you just don't pull for units, but also for gear.
Those 2 are separate so, you'll really only get units if you go for units and gear for gears.
One for Regular, and one for Heavy. Don't use Heavy as an early game player. It needs tons of resources and if unlucky, you'll just get a unit/gear from Regular.
For units, what we can possibly get on Heavy is a Shotgun unit which isn't necessary for a lot of stages.
For gears, what we can possibly get is the Chibi support unit. There are only few good support unit so, also not worth for early game player.
Stages can also drop units and gears. So that's also great. Although it's mostly for lower rarity units.
-Fourth: How's the skin? Is it accessible?
It's pretty decent. It takes time to be accessible for me, the only thing I know to farm the currency is by doing a specific expedition which will probably take either 12hrs or a whole day. It's not too great if you're starting out because you'd rather use your squad on stages.
Unlike unit gacha, the skins actually has banners. You can get either a skin or a dorm furniture. I barely got a skin out of that. You can even possibly get a skin for a unit that you don't have so yea. Not so great.
That's all for now.
-Worth trying?
Short answer: The gameplay has this grid style turn based map where you move to fight enemies and then transitions to like a 2d anime chibi bullet hell game where they do auto attack and you can auto or manual skills. You have 3 "vanguard" shipgirls (anime girls with ship-mech-like rigs) on screen and they'll move as one when you control the movement and 3 main support shipgirls where you usually not see them unless it's pvp. If 3 of your vanguards die then you lose. If your middle support shipgirl (which is your flagship) gets destroyed then you lose.
I guess the main selling point of this game is the shipgirls itself. The art is good. Skins... Well, they're mostly cultured in my opinion although some got censored before. Lastly, it has a unit limit that you really need to expand because there's tons of units.
If you like the description then you can try it out.
Long answer:
I think the short answer already has a good description about the gameplay itself so I'll skip it for long answer.
-First: The Gacha, is it good?
Well, I think we earn a good amount of pull currency. For me, it's easier to save now. The rerun banners now gets a different currency so that you can save more of the pull currency for future banners.
I still sometimes don't get the units that I want because I don't think there's a pity on regular and limited collab rate up banners, but I guess it is what it is.
However limited UR banners do have pity system which is 300 pulls.
I also have to mention that there are ways to get some free units just by farming specific maps or unlocking this PR ships. The PR ships takes time because you wait for the objective to unlock and the longest part is grinding for exp because it needs specific faction and either vanguard or main ships to do it and it kinda needs a million exp for first one and I think 2 million exp for the 2nd one. But it's still obtainable for free and those ships are great after leveling the skills up. Which also takes time because you need PR blueprints. I don't even remember how many we need but we need a lot of those.
Also META Ships, not exactly too meta, they're just called that. This needs you to farm a different mode which I don't usually do so I don't have much knowledge about it. But it is there.
Limit breaking. I'll just put it here as well. Getting a dupe of the unit is appreciated but it's not necessary because we also get these "Bullins". Don't use them for combat because they're mainly for limit breaking ships. We get more purple bullins and less Gold bullins. The UR Bullins can be bought on shop using a currency that you can get probably from dailies or weeklies. So it might be better to use some lower rarity at first.
-Second: The skins, are they good? is it accessible?
For me, the skins look good. Pretty cultured for me. There's also l2d or kind of animated but it cost more of course. But if you're going to use the diamonds for dock(unit) space which is kind of necessary and on dorm feature then, kinda not much? There are few free skins out there but yea. Paid skins are not too accessible for f2p. I think you can only buy 1-4 skins at best as f2p. But that depends on how much dock space you'll buy.
However, "Some" units have oath skins which needs you to increase the unit's affection. I think you can earn it by putting the unit on dorm, putting the unit as your game home screen unit and just by using it on stages. Don't just keep using them though because there's a mood system where if you use a unit too much it won't get affection and might even decrease.
After you 100% affection them you'll need a ring. I think there's 1 free and they also give 1 free every anniversary. Again only "Some" have oath skins. While some just have additional dialogue.
Some units also have this "Retrofit" thing where they became better and they have a Retrofit skin. You just need to farm for retrofit mats which takes time because you can only farm it 3x a day in general and it's on hard mode.
-Third: Is it grindy?
Yes, pretty much for PR exp, affection or if you want to get a specific unit/gear blueprint drop on map.
Yes, you need gear on this game.
In the older version of the game, we needed to really farm maps for exp for our new ships which was a pain but now we have exp cards, although we only earn a few but it's now there. Although I'm not sure if it's fast accessible by new players.
You need to 3 star a stage first before you can use auto. The auto here is fine because I think they lessen the enemies that kinda needs fighting and if it's on hard mode, you'll only fight the boss.
I think the only thing that I don't particularly like is the dock space because we can't play a stage if we have full dock space and you'd really need to either remove units or buy dockspace. Granted that joining a guild will give you more dockspace, but that's not exactly enough. That's all I can say for now.
-Worth trying?
Short Answer: If you want a complex and energy based anime version of plants vs zombies that sometimes needs trial and error with gacha that has only auto for grinding that uses 2d chibi art when playing a stage then you should try it.
Long Answer:
-First: The gacha. Is it good?
To be short, there are a good amount of ways to get pull currency or get units.
It's rng as usual. The pity system will start at 50 pulls and will increase till you get a random 6* guaranteed at around 80-90 pulls.
We can possibly earn around 20 pulls a month if you're end game but way lesser in early game because you need to do this Annihilation mode to earn a good amount of pull currency which can't be finish quickly since you need higher leveled units or at least a really good strategy and all stages can't be unlocked by early game players because you kinda need to progress through story.
Sounds pretty low for some but fret not. There's an Enhancement pack which could give you a good amount of pull currency and other mats as you level your account up. You'll need to use your Premium currency which we can earn by 3 starring and 4 starring a stage and there are plenty of stages out there so don't be afraid to use it there.
Also you'll earn more if there's an event, a premium currency by finishing stages and around 2-3 pull currency on event shop. In addition as we pull new units or 5* and 6* dupes or if we max potential a 4* and earn more copies of it then we can earn Distinction points where we can use it to buy a featured older units on rate up of 5* or 6* or use it for more pulls. It would take time to earn those but we can.
Just so you know, unit potentials which needs dupes aren't necessary to have and not a game breaking thing. They're appreciated, but not necessary. Not like on other games that you'll feel like you're missing out on something if you don't have those... Cough... Constellations.... Cough...
There's also a recruitment system which you can get units using a different method. You'll only need this Recruitment Permit and wait for the timer to end. But don't get your hopes up in getting high rarities because it usually only gives you 3-4*. I myself rarely get a 5* and super rarely to get a 6* like only 5x or less in a year.
I forgot to mention that there are Limited Banners in this game. We do get a free 10 pull and 1 free daily pull on the said banner until it ends. 24 pulls all in all. Full pity for guaranteed limited unit is 300.
Note that Limited Banners have separate pity than Regular banners. However I'm not sure if regular pity that starts on 50 will be carried over.
But I can say for certain that the 300 hard pity doesn't carry over because we get a unique currency when we pull and we need to spend it on store to buy the certain unit in the banner. If you don't spend it, it will transform into a different mat after the banner ends, which you can buy high tier mats. Which is at least useful for end game players who doesn't like grinding.
If you missed a Limited Unit. They will return after at least a year or near a year. But it will not be their own banner. The old Limited units will become an off banner rate up unit. At least that's what they're doing as of the time of this review. Of course, collab banner is probably excluded but we'll see.
There are 2 types of Limited Units as of now.
A Limited New Character and An Existing Character but with Different Role and better base skin. Also L2d E2 skins for all those. Including skins of limited characters on store. More info below.
-Second: Skins, are they good? Accessible by f2ps?
It's subjective but it is. There are actually free good skins. But there are of course alot of skins that needs that Premium currency.
However, like I said awhile ago. We get 1 when 3 starring and 4 starring a stage and there's just a lot of stages there so I'd say it's very accessible to everyone. Unless you use the currency to pull.
There's even a different skin after limit breaking your unit twice. They call it E2 (elite 2) And that's a free one of course. You just need to farm mats, no need to get dupes. All 4* and above have those. And those skins are well made. No chibi changes though, just art.
The main unit which is Amiya is unique by having E1 and E2 skins. And when you reach a certain chapter and you already E2 her, you'll be able to change her class from caster to Guard that has 1 special skin which is completely unique to her.
Any other units that have different class is a separate unit.
I almost forgot, limited units are now getting l2d base skins. And I think all the limited unit skins will also become l2d as well. Which means previous skins price will be higher when they release the l2d effect.
-Third: Is it grindy?
I have to say yes if you're going to main the game.
There's no skip here, just auto so it's what I and others don't like about the game. It's also energy based game so yea. You also need to wait for energy to grind again.
A stage can take a minute to a few minutes then there's Annihilation mode too which will probably take 15 minutes but I never timed it so it's probably exaggerated.
To try to make it a bit less grindy, just make sure to finish a good amount of chapters to unlock the base system to be able to earn a few more lmds(coin currency) and exp cards passively. This is pretty vital so that you'll just need to grind other mats aside lmd and exp. But it really can't be help to still farm those in early game.
-Fourth: The Gameplay
It's a tower defense game, more similar to Plants vs Zombies but the maps are a bit complex. There are lower ground and higher ground/air terrain and certain units can only be deployed on those terrains.
Usually units with long range are placed on higher ground while melee on lower ground. There are places where enemies can fall off on or tiles that gives buffs/debuffs or damage overtime. Some stages where you place blocks to control enemy movements. There's just a lot and they also add some gimmick on events like a turret etc.
For some, this game is more of a puzzle game. Because you can't just deploy just any unit and always win. You really need to know what units to place, when to place it. When will this type of enemy appear. Just a lot of things to consider, trial and error. Either that or just watch playthroughs.
-Fifth: The Units
Like I said on my short version, it's a more complex version of Plants vs Zombies.
We have:
Vanguards- Sunflower
Defenders- Wall-nut
Snipers- Peashooter
Supporter- Snow Pea
Casters- Fume Shroom
Guards- Squash
Specialists- Tangled Kelp
And Medics where Plants vs Zombies doesn't have iirc.
And that's just putting things way simple. Arknights have subclasses like there are vanguards that gains cost (sun) every kill it does. Others earn it using skills. Then not all supporters just slows enemies, some are also buffers, debuffers, summoners. And I think you get the idea. Just plenty of sub classes. I'm not going to go and discuss each one because it's complex.
You might feel overwhelmed but the game gives free units. Mostly 3*, 4* and they're decent. Just need good strats to use them well.
-Sixth: The Graphics, Sounds and Story
For me it's subjective. But graphics is great, other people might not like chibi units when playing stages but it is what it is.
I already mentioned about skins so that's that.
Music is pretty great. Some call the game's company a music company which is kind of an over exaggeration for me. But that's just me.
Story is liked by a good amount of playerbase that they are making an anime out of it. I personally skip it overtime just because there's tons of stages that I want to finish first and just read the story later. But I still haven't read much of it.
-Worth trying?
Short answer: If you like tower defense and grinding then I guess? Personally, I'd say no because the grind feels overwhelming for me.
Long answer:
It's a tower defense game, just with a different camera angle.
We deploy our 3d units on a 2d background art environment.
To make this shorter, I'm stopping already because I can already see this being too grindy.
Sure, there's skip, but you need tickets. There's auto but I'm not willing to waste my time on those.
And what you need to do is:
Level units' main level(120 max)
Level skills (3 skills per unit (possibly 120 max)(Also needs a skill mat starting from lvl 10. Possibly need 120 skill mat or more for 1 skill)
limit break ("possibly" needing to limit break every 20 levels which is x6 with each mats being different from each class.)
Equip gear (Which I did not tried anymore because I'm not fan of gear system)
In addition I'm pretty sure I have not unlocked everything yet, so there might be more grinding than what I just mentioned.
Also, unit level cap scales with player level.
Max awakened units might be necessary since the normal stage feels more like a hard stage. It's possible I need higher levels but I'm sure the stage will be easier if the units are max awakened.
To have a clearer comparison, I have 1 ssr unit as an example.
They at least lay out the info:
Awaken 1 specific stat(seems to be hp and atk) increase by 20%. Then full awaken which is Awaken 5 increase specific stat by 170%.
That stat difference is pretty huge. Not only that, it also increases active and passive skill.
Brown Dust 2
3.8Early review
Is it worth trying?
They posted an interesting update. It sounds good on paper but I'll just wait for it first before I give my opinion about it. But they did act fast. That includes a weapon system change. We or I'll just have to see if it's really a good one or not later on.
short answer: If you're fine 2.5d-like chibi and turn based on 3x4 tiles where you strategize all your units' turn and attack in succession before the opponent's turn start while the game having weapon banner with rng stats along with its enhancement and refinement and unique character weapon can be received with different rarities and the pity of unit and weapon is 200 that will disappear after banner ends then it might be fine to try.
Additional thoughts for now:
I'll continue to play it for a bit since I'm fine with the gameplay but this is still giving me a bad impression because of the rng stats on weapons and the pity. Let's ignore weapon for a sec and hope that it's not too necessary to progress.
Let's talk characters. There seems to be a way to recruit characters without needing to pull. Few are from story completion and there's a recruitment scroll with different rarities, it's possible for it to be very scarce. You need to finish some stuff to unlock it. It's the pub. It'll be visited by random units where you're guaranteed to recruit those as long as you have the right rarity scroll for it. It refreshes every few hours. Seems like you can increase rarity of the scroll in exchange of your x amount of low rarity ones.
Back to weapon. If we get the weapon we need, it doesn't mean it's going to be the best. There's also the rarity issue as well. Like a 5* weapon can be an sr or ur with of course ur having higher stats. And normally, the sound of having crit dmg as stat is good. But if you lack the knowledge about the unit then it could be a trap stat as some units are said to not be able to crit due to it being true damage. In addition, pulling a ur weapon but having trash stat will be bad. There seem to have no weapon stat reroll to different stats yet. It just gives us 3 more rng stats that cannot be changed after weapon upgrade/refinement and that upgrade/refinement process is also rng. Upgrade does only need gold but it can fail. Refinement needs mats from dismantled gear and gold.
For now I'm really just not fine with their weapon system in general.