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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.
-Worth Trying?
Short Answer: Basically you deploy or drag and drop units via a shared resource where they do auto attack and you can either auto or manual their ult in a 2d-fighting-style-environment-anime-like graphics and usually to destroy the enemy's flagship and preventing yours from getting destroyed. There's a good amount of waifu units, fewer husbandos and mechs/vehicles. The Game's original VAs are Korean, but they are adding Japanese now. If you like the description then I think it might be worth trying for you.
Long Answer: I started playing this game since launch. And the game has its ups and downs.
I'll be straight, the game is fun like 4.3 rating until you reach the end game. And the end game makes my rating drop.
The end game is just full of endless grinding for better gear and you really have to for end game contents which is just a chore for me. But hey, if it's not a chore for you, then this is really the game for you.
Whales will always dominate because of this. Not only can they max lvl a unit, but they can also do endless gear grinding or gear rerolling and get those good gears equipped for pvp.
All in all, if you're just going to try it out then there's no need to worry about the end game or even competing a whole lot in pvp.
-The Units
Like I said on short answer, there are good amount of good lookin units although some looks pretty similar, but still good lookin. There's also mechs and vehicles however, most of those aren't in the meta and some aren't even useful to begin with.
The units have this typical roles like other games where this unit role is weak against this unit role but better against this unit role.
There are 3 unit types.
Counters which usually are the units with powers.
Soldiers, well, they're soldiers.
And Mechs which consist of mechs and vehicles.
These unit types are important because the gear they equip are different from one another and usually it's better to use a full team of 1 unit type.
There are also Flagships that are specifically good for a specific unit type team.
-The Flagship
It's your main hp and has active and passive abilities. There are different types of flagships as well. Some are for defensive, offensive, supporting type. You'll need to build the other flagship so that will take some time. Also you can't exactly build some right away even if you get the mats since you need to finish a specific stage to unlock and be able to build those.
-Skins
This game has well made skins but most are paid. Still, you can view and try out those skins if you have the unit.
-Story
It's pretty good for me, however I dropped it overtime.
-Gacha
The regular banner rate feels decent however that could just be my luck. If you're unlucky you'll need to do 150 pulls for full pity.
Only use the blue tickets to pull on regular banner. Don't use your Quartz currency for it if you can.
While the awakened banner rate feels awful. I have 5 of those and I had to do 4 full pity.
Awakened banner needs a separate currency and for f2p you can get it little by little via weeklies and dailies. A few from pvp shop that refreshes and a few in daily shop if you're lucky then in weekly offer which you need almost 3k quartz for.
If you're thinking of playing it and see what the and game is then this game has:
-A grindy gear system
MOST units needs Cooldown or attack speed set. Only few needs a different ones, which means other sets are just for experimental or niche use.
To make it worse as I said above, there are 3 types of units: Counters, Soldiers and Mechs. All 3 have different gear and can't be equipped by other units. Not to mention 1 unit needs 4 gears and Cooldown and Attack speed set are a 4 gear set.
Not only that, but after having the 4 gear set, the next problem will be the substats, you can reroll the substats with specific mat but you really need good rng to get what you want. You can also reroll the set but honestly, there's just plenty of gear set to really get what you wanted.
For more end game, they added a more ranked up gear system where you need to max lvl the gear to rank it up. It also needs mats and you need units with good gear to unlock skip farming for that stage.
-Max limit breaking that takes a whole lot of time
As f2p it takes a long time because you need a specific material which can only be bought on store which is in limited supply every week as f2p. Unless you're lucky to get plenty of dupes.
However, you might want to save those high rarity dupes due to an end game mechanic which is called "rearm". Where you need to sacrifice those dupes(Preferrably 5 high rarity with the same role) to earn the mat to rearm which is basically making a specific high rarity stronger.
I almost forgot to mention that those units for rearm needs to be at lvl 110. You also need specific unit fragments to increase their skill lvls more but I'm not sure where to farm those so the best way to get it is in shop. The currency for it is the currency you get after pulling.
-Worth trying?
Short answer:
It's a fast paced action game where you can switch between 3 units on your party with unique use of skills which works well and has a good dodge mechanics which probably needs a decent hand and eye coordination since you need to look at the enemy to dodge and attack while also looking on your skills that you're going to press. However it has a slow earn of pull currency at the start and it's an energy based game. So if you like the description and have some patience then yes.
Long answer
So just like I said, it will take some time to earn pull currency at the start.
But as you progress, we'll get a bit more by doing weeklies. Like 1 multi every a week and a half or 2 weeks.
In this game, we have 3 unit types, attackers, supporters and tanks. But any unit can be the dps. I never used a vanguard so I'm not sure about those but if vanguards are all transendance then vanguards can't party up with the regular units.
I'll try my best to explain their unique use of skill.
It's a matching-like thing. There's blue, yellow and red. Matching the same skill will make the skills more efficient (max is 3).
Your party will also be grouped as blue, yellow, red. And if you're using your Red Unit on the field and match the yellow or blue skill to max, you'll have an opportunity to use your yellow/blue unit's qte or support skill. It has a cooldown after use though, so you can't just spam those if you're only using 1 unit.
Make sure to switch because the cooldown is different per unit.
Other than the matching like skill, there's your typical basic attack and ult.
And the dodge mechanics. If we dodge enemy's attack we'll activate the dodge mechanics but it also has a cooldown unless you switch to a different unit. It makes enemies around us go in a slow motion while we still move normally for a few seconds and our next skill pressed will automatically be on match 3.
There's a dorm feature here, but it's not for me.
The gameplay overall is pretty fun. But let's go on to the not so fun things for me.
The level scales on your player level
It's an energy based game, so yea. I'm sure energy won't be enough at the start but as you reach higher levels, you might have plenty of free energy packs that might expire after a few days.
The rarity limit break
Yes, you'll need fragments of the exact unit to increase their rarity. It'll probably take a good amount of time to max 1. Especially the higher rarities.
The gacha results
While I'm sure some won't care but I still have to include this.
Let's just say that we're not exclusive to get just units and weapons (yes, there's also weapons banner) but we also get random materials, materials we can farm easily, plus random unit shards. With all that said, there's still a pity system.
We need specific weapons for units
There's a way to get the 5 star weapons which is decent but I think we really need to pull for the 6 stars.
The memory set farm
We equip memory for the increase stats and passive benefits. It has 2, 4 and 6 piece set. (6 only for transendant units which I haven't tried using yet)
Let's just say as a new player, it'll take some time to get the piece you wanted. In addition, we need to level and max limit break those up.
Not to mention we need to level up our skills and weapon as well.
-Worth trying?
Well:
Do you like sao?
Do you like a very, very long grind? Like months or years worth of grinding.
Do want your skills to be rng? Because you need to do gacha for better skills and passives.
Do you like step up banners? (A banner where you need to pull multiple multis consecutively, usually needs 10k+ gems for overall pull). Because most banners are step up banners.
If you like all of those or if you're fine with those, then it might be fine trying it.
Personally, my only problem with this game is the grinding. Grinding levels and end game gear is just too much for me.
And I can't say for certain about guild events since I haven't participated in awhile, like a year or 2. But the last time I participated, it's very grindy. It's like you need to dedicate yourself playing for days just to be at a high rank on guild events.
-Worth trying?
Short answer:
If your phone can handle it and if you don't mind the gacha, then yes.
Long answer:
If you haven't played it yet, then also yes because there's a good amount of places to explore and things to do. Graphics is really good. Character units are well designed. The story.... Well, it was interesting at first but I tend to skip those now. There's even teapot which is the housing system.
However, I have to say that the game can get repetitive.
I'm not saying this because I want to. The game is good but this is a review and other people should know what they'll be doing especially on end game.
What I mean is:
Want to farm skill books? Domain.
Want to farm Weapon limit break mat? Domain.
Want to farm artifacts with bad rng stats? Domain.
Want to farm a bit of pull currency? Spiral abyss. Which is also a bunch of domain.
Want to limit break your character? Get more plants or rocks and fight bosses for it.
Want to increase unit skill level further? Fight the boss weekly for it.
Daily commissions also feels repetitive especially if you're not in the mood to do those, but have to for the pull currency.
Again, I'm only saying this because others should know. I know tons of games have this kind of grinding and others wouldn't mind the grind.
Did i also mention that the grind is energy based? I think that's also important to some.
-Is it beginner friendly?
Yes only if you're going to use the mondstadt and liyue units and weapons. Because believe it or not, other units needs different mats from different locations and you'd most likely have no access to those.
In terms of events then I'd say it depends. There are other events as well that takes place on other location which you won't have access to as well as a beginner.
This problem will worsen as the game gets more regions. Imagine getting a unit or weapon where you can only get the mats needed on the very last region as a beginner player.
So i hope they find a way to change this system.
Valiant Force 2 | SEA
3.0First 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.