FINAL FANTASY BE:WOTV 12+

What makes this game so great? 1) The game is very generous. I’ve just started and I already have a handful of UR characters. 2) The combat is complex and interesting. It reminds me of the good old days of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. 3) The story and its characters are all very good. I had trouble falling asleep because I couldn’t stop myself from progressing through the story. Some suggestions: I used to play Covenant of the Plume, so that has shaped my expectations quite a bit. I feel like more should happen when you strike the enemy from behind. Maybe there can be an Ambush buff/de-buff that increases damage/lowers defense or maybe there can be an Off-guard de-buff that increases the time before the next turn. I also feel like there should be formation buffs that reward grouping and positioning units together. For example, maybe something can happen when a unit attacks an enemy and there’s an ally unit on the opposite side or the enemy is surrounded on all fours by allied units. There should be something that rewards teamwork. For example, maybe when a unit acts, allies that are in range join in with preset actions that have reduced effectiveness or something. Overall, still a great game that I would recommend.

Good things first: the game itself is fine (an FFT clone basically), and the gacha is actually quite generous and reasonably f2p friendly, with all the free crystals they give you (unless you want to be seriously PvP competitive of course). The way the gacha works is weird (upgrading characters to the point of them being useful is far more expensive & time consuming than actually getting them, so you need to spend all your crystals on upgrades, rather than the gacha itself), but I can live with that. The UI is not great, but passable. Graphics look a bit wonky on my iPhone 7, but perhaps that’s what I get for not having the newest model.

My main problem is that the amount of mindless grinding it wants you to do is far beyond any other game I’ve played, and I’ve played a few. Raid events are the worst, but even beyond that, you, for example, need to play 1000 battles for each character/esper pairing to reach full potential (skip tickets don’t count, and don’t work outside of story missions anyway), grind for mats/gold/etc. Be prepared to leave your phone on & playing itself for many hours daily (at least the game has auto play, to its credit). Weapon upgrade system is complicated far beyond any reason, requires tons of luck, and yes, more grinding. And if that wasn’t enough, material drop rates have recently been further reduced. I don’t have time for this, so back to Langrisser mobile (which is a much better game anyway).

Didn’t play for long but unfortunately will already uninstall.

Overall, the game seems very well done. Graphics, music, and gameplay paying homage to old-school FFT, with similar mechanics with added features/materials to drag out character and ability growth. Plenty of quests to stay busy. Very impressed with much of the game. UI and movement on battlefield needs some minor tweaks but does not ruin the game. Voice acting and dialogue is worse than a bad high school Shakespeare play. Don’t download voice acting and just read the dialogue to avoid the pain. Overall, the game itself is very enjoyable and well done.

The reason I’ve uninstalled is the gacha/summon system. It’s why I rated this game 3 stars. At first, Free/earned gems will work on a new-user summonx10 banner that offer one guaranteed mega to ultra rare unit or skill to get started. After that’s gone, the chance of ultra rare is 2%. Guaranteed ultra rare is thereafter available with paid gems only, not free gems. 10xsummon for the one guaranteed UR will cost 2000 gems, about $40! This is pretty shameful and a completely gross manifestation of what mobile games are now. With only 2% chance for great units and skills with free gems, it’ll seriously limit you down the road after investing serious time into the game. Or pay ~$40 per 10xsummon but NO mobile game in this planet is worth that much money for every gacha pull.