In the last few years, free-to-play mobile games have all taken a fairly similar model and approach. How many games can you think of use a stamina/energy system to determine how often you can play, has characters/units/monsters that are attached to an element that have strength and weaknesses to one another, and has a randomly generated system to use real money to get new characters/units/monsters? Probably more than an entire handful. Mistwalker’s Terra Battle doesn't stray from those models, but it does stand out in some absolutely stellar ways.
Terra Battle brings some powerful names to the table. It's created by Hironobu Sakaguchi – the guy who invented a little well known RPG franchise called Final Fantasy. Oh, and those really amazing and memorable songs that Nobuo Uematsu composed that you still nostalgically listen to from said Final Fantasy games – he’s written a whole slew of original songs for Terra Battle as well.
While Terra Battle does not stray from the stamina/energy system, it does it much faster. Each point is received after only five minutes compared to the 10 minute average of other titles. If you think about it, that’s literally double the game play. On top of that, each of the regular chapter levels take a fair amount of time to complete and actually requires your attention to play – no mindlessness or auto pilot here. For a free-to-play mobile game, Terra Battle actually feels like a game that is actually fun to play. While this seems like it should be abundantly obvious, it is far from always being the case.
Instead of characters/units/monsters being attached to an element, they are attached to a weapon type in a rock/paper/scissor style. The ‘staff’ characters have their own rules. Think of these characters as your mages, support bros, and healers. While they are all staff type, they also have an element, support, or heal attachment. Ice is strong vs. fire foes as much as fire attacks are strong vs. ice foes. Don’t expect a physical damage output from staff guys but it’s their magic that makes them go above and beyond on the field of (Terra) battle.
Combat, on the most basic level, is done through flanking your foes. In true RPG style though, you want to keep your staff characters away from the front lines. Any of your units that has direst line of sight either vertically or horizontally join in the attack of both flanking units. So if you have AoE slinging fire ball mages you can keep them safe from the melee while hurling them safely from the edge of the map. This of course applies to support characters and healers as well. If you haven't caught on, strategy is key in the gameplay.
On a more advanced level, there are buffs and ailments. While an enemy may poison you, one of your units could have an antidote ability. If there are pits on the board it would sure be helpful if you could bring a support unit to levitate your troops to totally ignore them. Are enemies leaving bombs behind them where even they move? Why not use a troop to specifically disarm them. These are all real situations in the game. Every turn you get four seconds to move, manipulate your other units, and set up powerful and multiple flanks on your foes – ALL with only moving one unit a turn. So on top of taking the right characters and having a solid strategy, you need be skilled and quick to maximize each of your moves.
As anything with the free-to-play model you can pay real-life money to get more energy. The only other way you’ll receive energy is from certain consecutive log in bonuses, completing a chapter, and through promotions. Every five energy can be used to pray to the RNG god for a new character ranging somewhere from Class B to class SS. One energy can be used to resurrect all your units in a dungeon or to refill your stamina. This system is pretty much identical to other free-to-play mobile games which if it ain't broke, don’t fix it I suppose.
Non monster characters have three jobs that you can mix and match abilities from. This adds a whole new tier to the difficulty and customization. Each job has 70 levels attached with four abilities. As the character levels, you’ll unlock four additional slots for abilities you can take from their other jobs if they’ve also been unlocked. Unlocking jobs requires coins (in-game currency) and unique materials which have to be farmed fo. The SS characters even require special weapons to be granted their third job. So how you level these characters, which abilities you use, and which characters you use is all up to you. If it wasn’t for the overwhelming RNG elements, you’d have massive massive control.
Terra Battle has a lot of actual gameplay, and it's fun too. If you’re a fan of Sakaguchi’s work and/or Uematsu’s compositions, give this game a download already if you haven’t yet. You can grab it on iOS and Android devices. While I’m personally not at the end of the game, I can for see their not being much to do once you finish the last chapter. There is an arena and co-op moods coming which may debunk this funk. I don’t know yet. No one knows yet. The combat increases drastically in difficulty the further you progress in the chapters. Currently, we’re in a very early version of the game so in the next few months we’ll have a better idea of the direction it’s heading. I've got hope. I’ll put faith into Mistwalker. So far so good.
