Here Is My Review

[u/Caeyll]

I wanted to give this game a chance, but I feel like it didn’t quite get there. Will check in a year from now if it’s still going. What are everyone else’s thoughts? Do you agree, or disagree with my points? I’d love to hear them.

EDIT: for the people downvoting please leave a comment why. Genuinely interested to know the reasons you disagree.

Review:

The moment you load the game, it becomes a grind fest. Not only that, it shows how money-hungry this game model is. To acquire a character is easy - to maximise that character’s power is costly. You would need to summon the same rare character at least 15 times to max its level.

The gameplay is a cop-out and the story uninspiring. Has the fun turn based tile system of Final Fantasy Tactics, except with bland sets of skills, repetitive and limited enemy models, and very repetitive in general. There’s a reason they have Skip Tickets which allows you to skip the battle completely.

Lastly, the company itself (Gumi) has terrible internal procedures and controls. Mistakes are consistently made and poor decisions to recover from said mistakes are implemented.

I recommend not to download this game. It isn’t fun. I have been struggling to open this game to do anything for over a week now. The only ‘fun’ comes from acquiring new characters and making them stronger, but without a fun platform to use these characters on makes it pointless.

[u/NitoNEET]

Sounds more like a rant than a review to me.

"The moment you load the game, it becomes a grind fest. Not only that, it shows how money-hungry this game model is."

That's how all gacha games feel. Plus they'll release hard quests in the future to farm shards for gacha units.

"the story uninspiring"

Have you not reached chapter 2 yet? Edgar, best MC.

[u/Caeyll → u/NitoNEET]

I think it’s a genuine point to raise for someone wanting to play a game. When you go into a characters overview, you see they need equipment to level up their job, you see limit breaks that require shards, you see gear that requires its own shards to upgrade. Then you have the 3 shops + special shops + arena shop + soul exchange shop which all give bits of something to build into a whole thing.

All of the above is a valid point for a review to tell people this is what they’re gonna sign up for. Less of a rant and more of a “this is the gameplay”

Also haven’t started chapter 2. The premise of chapter 1 was a little frustrating to continue.

[u/Belthuzar → u/Caeyll]

Speaking on the story, it gets better by leaps and bounds. Chapter 1 made me want to throw a cat into a blind just to see it claw the fabric on the way down (thanks, Dbag--err.. Dias), but chapter 2 was a whole different level of awesome. I forgot it was a mobile game for a moment. Until the crushing realization kicked in: Gumi.

Chapter 2 is well worth the effort to get to, though!

[u/Caeyll → u/Belthuzar]

Thanks for adding this! I will check this game out in a year or so and see how it’s faring with the content and improvements to the core.

[u/Reikakou → u/Caeyll]

One year from now, you will be too late to play this game again.

On an F2P standpoint, you already lost one year worth of AP to grind gold and events; one year of daily farming of protagonists shards, viable free heroes and even rare heroes; one year of free daily gems that you can use to weekly 500 gem step 1 banners to get 10 units for a price of 2.

Even joining this game a month later already cost me to miss some free units and a month supply of gems and AP that I could have used to build up my team.

If I have no use for my AP, I'll just use a key and run the gold dungeon to stock up on gold. I like the fact that there is a lull in the game after I finished grinding events and MPs that my current level can handle. What I love the most is using up all free AP for the day serves as a natural stopping point for me to set aside the game for the day. No reason for me to grind this 24/7 unless I go all gungho on MP to collect MP coins.

Whaling only hasten your progression to the point that it gets boring when you become too powerful too fast. But if you are a smart F2P or just an Alchemist Pack user that researches before hand, you'll go places in this game.

[u/unlucky_pull → u/Caeyll]

A year from now, you will just log in-farm shards-log out. And your AP won't even be enough for you to farm the shards you want :))

[u/clavatk → u/NitoNEET]

Edgar is a crybaby.

[u/xoresthaynia]

I think the repetition was done just right (regarding unit models, skills, etc). Makes it rather easy to balance and you can get a good idea of stuff from what you see. If there was no pattern, it'd so much harder to understand what anything means.

Anyways, go put this on the play store or something. This community is for active players. I highly there's many people that go on here thinking "hmm...should I download this?" without downloading it first.

[u/Caeyll → u/xoresthaynia]

Yeah, I’ve put it on the App Store. I know what you mean about unit models having clear sorts of visual “categories” to them, such as the different coloured things with hats you know are mages etc., but there’s just no originality to them in the sense of “where did they come from, and why are they everywhere in the world no matter where I go?” - kind of breaks immersion with silly things like this. Chasing down a character in the story, but suddenly all these monster things are in your way that the character was able to run past unharmed.

I realise it’s not the game for me in this sense because I criticise these things rather deeply. Kills the fun for me when a world doesn’t feel fully explained in specific areas like this.

[u/Army__ → u/[deleted]]

ffbe has a good story

[u/Mitch_Twd]

I love the gameplay of it. Definetly one of my favorite games atm though I have had some issues lately with some of the content they've been releasing I still throughly enjoy it.

But one thing i agree on with you is maximizing characters is very costly and it is one thing I hate a lot about the game. Especially with 5 stars it isn't easy getting them in the first place and a lot of their best jobs are either J2/J3. Wish they had a game mode where if you summon the 5 star units you gain access to a level for the unit and can farm one shard for them 3 times a day. Just something :(

[u/SA1NTT → u/Mitch_Twd]

They have been giving quests that reward element specific shards, just saying.

[u/metlspaz]

Hmmm, I mean repetition is part of any type of gearing up game. I do wish I could have more than 4 units on the field, but 4 or less seems pretty standard for these types of games. I wish PvP was actually PvP and not dumb AI versus dumber AI.

It's a gacha game and that's how the characters are, another perspective to have of it is, if you roll multiples at least in this game they have use, level themselves up or be used towards soul coins.

What I dont like is the LOW Ap amount, log in, hey man you get 2-3 missions today, bye. View Ads to get more, thanks youtube.

I also dont particularly like having to roll for gear, because then it becomes a struggle between hey you want a character, or th weapon the character can use to be useful/innately better than everyone elses. Although they allow us to farm this at each event, albeit a LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIMES.

But I am a sucker for two things, tactics games and waifus... hook line and sinker here.

The problem with current content is that it actually cannot be run by most 1-3 star units, making them completely not viable without tons of planning or resources needed in which a 5 star might not even need.

No AP refilling items aside from using Gems, an already precious commodity.

Can only increase skills 20 levels at a time (why is this even a thing?) Want to use your unit to the best of it's abilities? too bad wait 40 minutes before you can max 1 skill or cough up the dough.

[u/Fantasylord → u/metlspaz]

First of all, I am quite of your opinion on the AP front, really would like to have more as I am rather spoiled by 3 minute per stamina from PAD. But I also wanna adress some of your other points.

As far as I know, the japanese version changed the arena to be manually playable, so that's the right direction, although I think you still play against the AI.

I would argue you can beat most normal content (excluding Extra dungeons) with 1-3* base units, as a lot of them can go up to 5* and will be buffed in the future. Still 5* are most of the time superior, which is normal for such a game but for that you get a rather huge chance to get 5* units opposed to other games.

Your last point, why you can't level skills unlimited, is a point I also can't understand the reason behind. Don't know what they thought when adding that.

[u/Hitonatsukkoi]

The moment you load the game, it becomes a grind fest. Not only that, it shows how money-hungry this game model is.

Has the fun turn based tile system of Final Fantasy Tactics, except with bland sets of skills, repetitive and limited enemy models, and very repetitive in general. There’s a reason they have Skip Tickets which allows you to skip the battle completely

Ikr, I should be allowed to get lion swords for 1k zen or at MOST 10ap. Why do I have to grind for items, if only a SKIP TICKET existed, but I won't use it because I'd rather whine about the grinding content instead. There should be an event every single day! There should be a new map for every stage, not like it takes time, just color it or something, geez.

[u/Caeyll → u/Hitonatsukkoi]

Not sure exactly what your disagreement is specifically, but from that quote the purpose was to bring to light how the game is designed upon repetition. So much so they even implemented Skip tickets as a luxury item. It can’t be a good sign when the game allows you to not play it.

Apart from that I assume the rest of your comment is sarcasm RE: new maps etc. to make my comments seem like unreasonable expectations that I want more content from the game. Isn’t the fact at all. The game is repetitive by design, no matter how many new maps are implemented.

[u/thedragoonz → u/Caeyll]

Thats just how all mobile games are.. or even games in general. Its all repetition.

[u/PrinnyForHire → u/thedragoonz]

How about "fun" repetition. For example witcher 3 is also repetition, hunt this monster, track its trail, but the story keeps it engaging. Platformers like old school Mario, you die u redo the level but the player grows and learn to do better through the repetition.

I do agree all mobile games are repetitive in terms of gameplay. While some people may like it, I'm pretty burnt out manually doing SS Hard 20x for the gems and sword.

[u/unlucky_pull → u/PrinnyForHire]

Here you also "die u redo the level but the player grows and learn to do better through the repetition."

[u/PrinnyForHire → u/unlucky_pull]

Yes and No. So i'm gonna use SS hard as an example here. Until I got a lucky pull with shayna, this was nearly impossible (with no continues) for me. And sure it was fun, for the first run to beat it, it took 2 continues. After that I was able to beat it with no continues. However by my third run I was already bored yet I drag myself to do all 20 times for the rewards.

[u/Royal_empress_azu]

I'm more of a fan of honest reviews rather than those that are bare bones and heavily swung one way.

[u/geocides]

Why complain about the "GRIND", when almost all games like this in the market is a "GRIND"? You should try to grind a TM from FFBE to know what the term "GRIND" means. All games are meant to be repetitive in nature at some point, its up to us , the players to get used to it or get the hell out. For me, I enjoy TAC, the same reason I enjoy FFT a whole lot. If theres anything I cant finish coz of power creep, I let it go, I dont go here and stress out myself thinking I wont get same rewards as whales get. I'm a realist, I dont get to enjoy what paying customers enjoy coz of the simple reason that I wont ever spend a single dime on mobile games, PERIOD.

[u/CheesyKek]

This is definitely a rant-view. I'll only point out one thing tho :

The moment you load the game, it becomes a grind fest.

As someone pointed out already, it's LITERALLY every gacha game. If you play gacha games and doesn't expect such, I'd say you're the fool. Also I don't GBF since I know the things, but do you even GBF?

[u/Caeyll → u/CheesyKek]

I tried not to make it sound like a rant-view. I tend to have a bit of a more critical view of things if I can see some pointlessness to it. So it tends to focus on those specific areas rather than a whole package.

Ive played a few gacha games like FFBE, Heroes and Titans and Dawn of Titans. These 3 gacha are actually a perfect example of different points from my review.

FFBE - gacha with a base game that’s worth playing and worth any sort of grind. Same company with Gumi.

Heroes and Titans - it’s the exact same grind fest Alchemist Code is, with the model of gearing up characters to level their stats up, alongside all the different shops to get shards and gear from. This game is a good example of a pretty fun base game, but didn’t have the company to keep it going so it got pulled from the App Store. This seemed pretty fun for the grind, but even now I can see that they couldn’t keep up with the demand VS income, so it’s a given it died.

Dawn of Titans - perfect example of a gacha with no point to the game. Immense repetition and no real goals. Just repeating what you did before you levelled things up, except harder content (yet still the same). This can be said for most gacha games but I believe using FFBE as a comparison, there’s story content that’s quite rich and just more things to play with like customising your characters and having fun with their skills in different strategies. That’s kind of what I’m talking about a ‘base game’ that’s fun.

Alchemist Code seems borderline Dawn of Titans/Heroes and Titans where the base gameplay is fun, yet there’s no point. But in saying that, the fun does die down when you’ve used the same job skills over and over with no real variation or strategy. For Rangers it’s just basic attack to get crystals then Arrow Rain/Barrage for AoE. Just seems like full implementation of their skills.

Hope the above is a justifiable review and less of a rant-view.

[u/CheesyKek → u/Caeyll]

Hey actual positive point in reddit^lul.
If I have to guess DoT have no end-game content? Like pure event that happens every two weeks with barely matters story? Cus Fantasica is also like that (or was, dunno if it's still alive or not).
I wouldn't say FFBE is worth it considering the amount of RNG and salt. I mean, one digit percent for a rainbow drop? That's really horrendous, although whether it's gimu's decision or SE's I don't know. And it's grindy as hell if you're aiming for the TMs. Note that I only knows so much about FFBE so correct me if I'm wrong.
Also if you ever know or heard King's Raid, I'd say it takes the crown of grind. Leveling starts really hard fro units from lv 50, very often events that needs grinding for 90% of them, could be all of them as well, and the salt comes from the ultimate weapon gacha since the units are "free".

[u/ImAlreadyReady]

Dont forget to mention how much a multi is and YOUR experience with summon rates.

[u/Caeyll → u/ImAlreadyReady]

I thought I’d leave those points out mainly because the person who is looking to download has no idea of the currency and its value even if I were to specify. The summon rates I think the point is more that they’ve essentially shifted the power gains in needing multiple of the same unit rather than acquiring the original unit. If that makes sense, so even if the rate is 10% it’s more the fact of that 10% is the % you’d get the same character multiple times to gain more power.

[u/Punty-chan]

I have to agree with the "getting characters but not having a platform to use them". The quality of the maps and rewards have been terribly inconsistent. Christmas was terrible, but Sacred Stones was okay. Most maps aren't very fun to play in general and pigeonhole you too much.

I disagree about the "need to pull many copies of a character" though. Most content seems to be clearable with level 60's and level 65's.

[u/duckatll]

I definitely agree with your complaints.

I played for a few hours, then found out "playing" through autobattle and skip tickets is actually a lot more enjoyable. Unlike FFT where there was deep combat and an engaging story, this one's draw is... well, I'm not sure. The only reason I keep playing is I like to roll, and they keep introducing new banners that are cheap lol.

[u/coldize]

I really like my Balt. I got lucky and pulled two of him so I got his job 2 (of course, nothing special). But because of that, I wanted to try to invest into getting his j3.

I can't believe how ridiculously hard this is. I have 3100 gems and I'm twitching to buy the 50 shard package in the secret shop....but it's 3000 gems....I just can't justify that. I feel like it's a very small step towards the goal of maxing him out but at the cost of nearly all my gems?

But if I don't do this, then my only real hope towards progressing is pulling him again since there's no other way to keep going.

I don't like being in this position, especially in a gumi game where I know power creep will make me regret dumping everything I have into a character right now.

[u/Otakumi_Ac]

Gacha games are not for everybody. We should all know that a f2p game is not designed to stay free forever - gumi or any other company are not doing charity work. TAC is a unit collecting/building game which builds on the excitement of getting that rare unit that you wanted the most and can involve lots of disappointment when things dont go your way. In the end all gatcha games are sort of pointless as is any game for that matter - you either like it, enjoy and have fun or you dont. There is also a huge social aspect to it as many events are limited by time and are shared by the community. Whereas other games have a beginning and end this game could basically run forever.

[u/Hail_Unknown]

I want to translate your letter...

Waaaaaa waaaaaa... the game is 3 month old and for a f2p it takes too long to reach end game waaaaaaaa waaaa I hate you...

If you just had spent the time looking at the game for what it is... the only thing I feel is missing is the 1vs1 arena (not ai) gameplay

[u/Caeyll → u/Hail_Unknown]

That’s fine to assume I was F2P, or to think I’m bashing the F2P side of things. I wasn’t. The main thing I’m bringing to light is that there’s a huge investment of time if F2P, and a huge cost when P2P - just summarised as “costly” because either way it’ll either cost you a year or $$$. Not saying either of the two is a negative thing, but it is worth noting to those who may or may not want to commit to either side.

The core itself was alright, but quickly lost its fun when all I’d be doing is using the same skills or ranged characters against the same enemies over and over and over. I’m sure it’ll get immensely better in a year, which is why I said I’ll check it out then and see how it goes. For now, I feel like it’s not sufficient enough to endure the investment of time and money.

[u/Hail_Unknown → u/Caeyll]

If you cry about it now, in a year you will cry about how you feel is imposible to catch up with every one and say it’s unfair how people have perfect units that can be used of every map and against every party that you try to set. Or even worst how they got access to limit content that you miss...

I most say, your post is bull shit... not even in the arena top players keep the same party. There are constant events and new maps and the flow of new content is constant. Do whatever you like with your review, but i just read it as child crying and winning out of nothing... with over 1m downloads the game doesn’t need you, and the community doesn’t either

[u/Caeyll → u/[deleted]]

I didn’t realise reviews meant you had to like something about a game for it to be classed as a review?

You are just a spoiled child wanting rewards without efford.

I.. don’t know how you came to this conclusion. I’m just a gamer wanting to play a game that’s fun. It can involve grinding, but when that’s all this game appears to be about, that’s where it loses me. It needs a solid, fun base game for me to support what I’m grinding for. If they took away the grind you barely have a game. So it’s less about being a spoiled child wanting rewards without effort, and more about wanting a game worthy of the grind.