This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
I was semi-interested in this game, because unless you count the night TheThing and I sacrificed Love Live idols to the Blood God, Rin, I never played a free-to-play game before. But all Terra Battle did was validate my former abstinence.
Gameplay
Terra Battle is a puzzle game with RPG elements, created by Final Fantasy “legend” Hironobu Sakaguchi. Damage is dealt to enemies by flanking them with your characters, of which you can only move one per turn (though depending on how you move your character, you can modify multiple characters’ placement in one turn). Your own characters’ abilities and the enemies’ affect the board placement and area of effect for attacks, which lends an aura of strategy to the game.
Real talk: could you even read that description without your eyes glazing over? Even I couldn’t and I wrote the damn thing. That’s how awful this game is.
Terra Battle’s base gameplay is not particularly engaging, but it can scratch RPG fans’ “I’m progressing!” itch via meaningless level ups.
Of course, like any puzzle (game), you need the right pieces to complete it. And in Terra Battle, that means you need the right characters. Depending on how much money and time you put into the game, you can get more chances at getting the right ones (and hence, the puzzle pieces you need). Of course, they’re just that — chances. Should the RNG gods decide to forsake you, there ain’t no way you’re gonna get very far through Terra Battle.
Ultimately, if you don’t have super rare characters, your party will not be viable for completing the game. You’re not gonna finish a thousand-piece puzzle if you only have five pieces, regardless of how “skilled” you are.
No need to take my word for it; see what the suckers who are already heavily invested into the game think.
Amina is an SS-rank character, so Fluffles is saying that for as long as Terra Battle’s been out (it’s been available since September 9th, though the official release date was October 9th), he’s only heard of one person who was able to beat the game without paying money, and they “only” had one super rare character.
Oh, and since it’s an always-online game, if you aren’t playing it somewhere you can get a strong wi-fi or mobile data connection, you’re simply not allowed to play.
I guess there’s something to be said for the game saving you from itself, though.
Story
It doesn’t exist.
This is your sole impetus for fighting on one of the chapters’ stages. I wish I could say I picked the least wordy battle introduction, but this is what you’re going to get on average. Quite a few one-sentence introductions appear as you trudge through the game.
With a plot so barebones, you’re right in assuming that there isn’t any character development (you get a couple background paragraphs on each character if you check their profiles, but that’s it) and character interactions are rather non-existent. Great way to motivate players to continue playing, indeed.
Characters
If you want to catch ’em all, you’d better make sure you hate yourself enough.
The following section is sorta lengthy, so feel free to skip it if my sugoi-tier writing already has you convinced the game sucks. Be warned that if you’re still undecided, you may be illiterate.
(Note for the following calculations I’m using very lazy layman’s math. Yes I could write better formulas, and yes Caly is a math professor whom I could beg for help in exchange for finally lending her FFXIII-3… but some sacrifices have to be made for readability. Also, I haven’t beat FFXIII-3 myself, so you can’t have it yet, Caly.)
Time Cost
Each new character roll costs you five energy. If you roll a character you already have, you don’t get another re-roll; instead, the character you already have gets a 5% bonus gauge boost. Since that ends up being a waste of a roll, you can circumvent the issue by boosting all your characters’ bonus gauges up to 100%, which forces the game to search for a character that’s not one of your 100%’d.
Of course, you’ve gotta grind for it. Per our friend Fluffles again (via the Terra Battle Forum), it’s not a quick grind.
Math time. Let’s be generous and say you’re gonna do some heavy grinding, bringing the grind down to 8 days for a full party. Now let’s say you grind a character as soon as you get them, to ensure you don’t waste your next roll. Grinding one character is going to take the same amount of time as grinding a full party, because all fights take place as Party vs. Party.
Conveniently, after 8 days you can then get a new character because of the login bonus. (Every 8 days, you get one free roll essentially.)
You get four characters at the start (Grace or Bahl, Kuscah, and two rolls). There are milestone bonuses as well, that add up to 18 energy, or ~3 rolls. So the remainder of characters (59 characters, minus the 7 you get otherwise = 52) need to be pulled via this method.
52 characters X 8 days = 416 days. Take away 8 days (since the goal here is to get every character, not to maximize them all) and you’ve got a year and two months of constant grinding.
With the free route out of reach for anyone with a life, the only remaining option is the in-app purchase route. But I can’t say it gets any better on that front.
Monetary Cost
Unless you’re willing to bleed for this game, your money doesn’t have much value at all. At 100 energy for $60, you can get rolls for only $3, which seems reasonable until you do the math. 52 characters * $3 each is gonna run you $156 for a mobile game. In case that didn’t process for you, let me connect your synapses: that’s fucking insane.
What makes it worse is that you’re not guaranteed a unique character for your rolls. In fact, based on the rarity of pulls (each tier of character has different odds of appearing in a roll), you’re very unlikely to get a unique character with each roll. As I went over before, the only way to guarantee not receiving a duplicate character is for that character to have a maxed-out bonus gauge. And as each duplicate pull adds 5% to that character’s bonus gauge, a worst-case scenario is that you’re going to need to spend 21 rolls, or 105 energy ($63) per character (1 to pull them, and 20 to max them). The amount it takes to guarantee a full harem is therefore $3213 (51 * $63).
Fuck, for that much money, I’d suggest alternate means of building your love den.
Time & Money – Best Case Scenario
Now I know some of you are gonna say “But Dark_Sage, I plan to play the game fairly regularly and only pay for pulls when I think it makes sense. There’s nothing wrong with paying money for a game I enjoy! So what’s it gonna cost me to end up with the game’s full roster?”
The answer to that is “still too fucking much”. What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Are you really crossing your fingers that with 200 days of heavy grinding and $500 into the app you’ll finally be able to say you completed the game?
Dumbass. Free to play games can never be completed. You can never win.
I mean, hell, they’re already talking about adding new characters to the game. As long as the game’s supported by the devs, you’re never going to get off this crazy train. And when Terra Battle finally stops having “content” added to it, you’re going to be left with goddamn nothing, since the servers won’t be around to let you access the megabytes of nothing you wasted your life on.
Get your shit together. Jesus.
Final score: 0/10. F2P games are predatory cancer, but that’s no excuse for being stupid enough to fall prey to them. Anyone who supports this industry deserves to be excised from the planet.
Before you start the waterworks, four previews in a row would be boring, so I split ’em up with a mobage post.
…okay, you can start the waterworks now.
>so feel free to skip it my sugoi-tier writing already has you convinced the game sucks
Sugoi-tier indeed.
My wallet and I like free to play games, though neither like pay to win games.
Try explaining this to people in real life, I dare you.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php
The paper aged rather well over the last year.
If you want something F2P, play Kantai Collection or something.
Would play if it wasn’t such a pain to get into. Also don’t know enough Japanese to get by though I do remember seeing Commie working on a English patch for the game, not sure how far along they are.
It was working fine and translated much of the game, but the devs made it unusable with one of their updates and banned a load of people while they were at it. Stuff like KancolleViewer has an English localization and translates at least the equipment and the ships, so you could check that out. KCV is also legal. KCV might also translate some quests these days, but I’m not sure about that.
Yeah KCV pretty much translates everything nowadays including the quests (Only like 5 are not translated). Yeah the commie translation got a bunch of people banned.
For me it only took 2 lotteries to get into the game.
The time is always an issue for me since it always seems to be at a time when I am either unconscious or when my attention span is that of a goldfish (not that my attention span is any better at any other time). Also I glance over the process of getting on and it looks a bit complicated though in reality, it is probably not.
Guess I should give it a try sooner or later.
You’re missing one important thing at the end, particularly after “F2P” in “F2P games are predatory cancer” and that is “mobile games”.
This particular one sounds fucking horrendous, more “modern” or whatever f2p games don’t have this kind of bullshit once Koreans realized their games would get shut down if localized if they demanded too much money = skill in their microtransactions, which they actually did for actual quality games, IIRC, or something.
These days, They rely more on cosmetics or have the “cash shop currency” easily obtainable through playing normally without spending moolah these days, for the most part, surprised shit like Terra Battle still happens
I recommend Kritika Chaos Unleashed, cool f2p mobage beat-em-up, tutorial’s a bit slow though
(Note for the following calculations I’m using very lazy layman’s math. Yes I could write better formulas, and yes Caly is a math professor whom I could beg for help in exchange for finally lending her FFXIII-3… but some sacrifices have to be made for readability. Also, I haven’t beat FFXIII-3 myself, so you can’t have it yet, Caly.)
Well then hurry the fuck up.
You should play PAD. Just make sure you roll a good god monster for your first roll that can take you to at least mid-game or you may have to reroll (start over) until you roll a better monster or dump money into the game and hope you get something usable. I’d recommend starting on a godfest (the 2-3 days a month where you actually have a chance at pulling something useful haha) F2P tactics in action for you huehue
Damn you guys and getting everyone into PAD…
( ¬‿¬)
I play Guild Wars 2, it is buy once and free to play afterwards. All of the things you can buy with real money can be bought with gold you get inside the game. And it is not too hard to get gold, just don’t expect to have all the account upgrades in just a month, there are a lot xD. None of these upgrades are necessary to play the game, just to make your gameplay easier or simply cosmetic (like more space in your bags or bank that you already have, armor/weapon skins, pets, fun items, everlasting harvesting tools, etc.).
They do have something called “black lion chest” that can only be opened with “black lion keys”. Chests drops form everything, but the keys are a really, really (i mean REALLY) rare drop (though some special quest and some level ups give some), thus, most of the times you have to buy them to open chest. Chests have an assortment of useful or useless items inside, and the possibility to get tickets you can exchange for exclusive cool looking weapons skins, but the chance to get the best stuff is really low. So, buying keys to open chest end up being a lottery, and can be addictive, a lot of people pour all of their money in it, even their real money.
Rin worst raibu – jenny
>2014
>game still has pre-ICS pop-ups
Oh wait, I forgot feature phones are still a thing there…
Someone sure has a huge grudge against Mistwalker / Sakaguchi. Please let some unbiased reviewer do a review nexttime Crymore.net
You are absolutely right. That’s the reason why I’ve stopped playing.
That was easily the shittiest review of all time. Stop reviewing games, everyone who read this probably got cancer from your autistic “points”.
Moral of the day: If you have downs syndrome, don’t attempt to review games.
So salty.
Top-tier b8 m8.
ayy lmao
ayyy lmao
Poorly written review, it is biased and full of logic fallacies.
From what I understand though this was review was done closer to launch.
What got me into this game was Sakaguchi/nobuo uematsu and the fact mistwalker worked on this, I personally think he is a JRPG genius.
Other f2p games suck so this game will suck logic. Yeah if you actually believe this you are an idiot. I have played tera, warframe, vindictus, and in the case of mobile games rage of bahamut and castle age to high level end game. The latter were playable but I got bored of them, the former I still play.
Obviously this game is in it’s own niche because of it’s various mechanical differences from other f2p puzzles.
Yes and though its f2p and will never really be completed but so are sandboxes and mmorpgs. In the case of completion this game people talk about event and special bosses and ch 30 the last story chapter right now. At which point you have 100 stamina(if that was a problem) and an extra 6 pulls from storyline energy+2 free story characters and a bunch of decent monsters.
This game has an okay story holding it up together, its a way to justify who you are going to fight. However each character has a story with their own motivations which is more interesting the n the main story line.
The game is really fun, as a full f2p experienced player for a few months I have about 6 SS class and about 20 named characters from both coin and energy pulls, and specialized teams for every challenge.
I am only at stage 21, but only because I’m focused on grinding, and job levelling. If you can get one key mechanic character from a pull, you can build a team of monsters around it to get to end game. This review barely got past the intro which is in no way comprehensive. It takes about 10 minutes to try the game yourself, and get to a good grasp of what it’s all about.
I don’t know what this guy is talking about yes this game can get completed(finishing up the story and beating the event monsters) without unlocking everything. There are farmable characters with instakill mechanics if you can get the combo right. Stat wise most final level normal monsters can take you to at least ch 20.
Free to play is here to stay, and this model is not a bad way of doing it, yes you can get everything for free, and the dev wants to keep it that way for years to come. Where as games like clash of clans take up over 12k in micro transaction or something like I think it was a calculated 20 years. This with all the give aways, and a conservative play style(if you get character boost to 100 you wont ever redraw them)
Out of all the points the internet one made the most sense and though I agree. The way it was written was still was too subjective for me to take seriously. Also at this point multiplayer co-op is supported though pvp is still in developement.
This is not for people who tend to already dislike JRPGs or who arent patient, or dont like to lose games due to challenge.
This is for people that like FF art and music or enjoy the character lore and world building. Gameplay wise its more for those who like strategy or squad based tactics and/or puzzle games. If want a free game that you can play at work or at school in between breaks if you have internet its a pretty good game. /rant
Whoa, wall of text appeared!
Based on your name, I’m actually rather disappointed you didn’t start off with “This review smells and is full of HOLES”.
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!
>From what I understand though this was review was done closer to launch.
What tipped you off to that? The “October 12, 2014” post date?
I was gonna greentext the rest of what you said, but essentially you wasted paragraph after paragraph to say “Well *I* enjoyed this game” without addressing my actual concerns. Try again.
I stumbled upon this “review” when I first started playing terra battle in early December. I found it a bit disconcerting but told myself I would come back to reflect on it after a some play time.
I couldn’t disagree more with most of the things stated here. I am nearing completion of the main campaign, mid way through chapter 30 and I’d like to let you know some things.
1. Money spent on energy……0
2. Time spent grinding, very little. Never spent energy to gain more stamina to help grind, just put the game down for a bit.
3. Party composition. Mostly characters from my first few rolls, I was fortunate enough to roll a SS healer but I feel that kuskah would have done just as good a job. I haven’t pulled a single Mage which made some fights difficult, but my final party composition is 2 Bs, 2 As, 1 S( a shitty one at that)m and my aforementioned SS.
4. The game was enjoyable for me because of the awesome art work, character design and music. Most fights were easy but many of the boss fighs were challenging and required some planning and 2 or 3rd tries on my part. I never felt the need to use my energy to buy continues, rather I would regroup and try from the beginning.
I look forward to further content from mist walker and do plan on buying some energy on my completion of the game as a way to say thank you for making a great mobile product.
If all you’re in it for is pics and music, try the wiki and Youtube. Maybe you could spend your newfound free time playing something decent.
Dude, do you work for them? That almost read like a PR release :D
Well so this game isn’t that difficult to beat without paying a penny. You get so much energy(premium currency) that it becomes simple beating a game like this, there are a large majority that have done it already including me and with the addition of coop it has made it even easier.
If you want to waste a couple months of your life, sure. I’m sure you can understand why some of us don’t see that as a wortwhile investment, though.
Don’t we all waste time of our lives simply by playing videogames?
The distinction being this game takes considerably longer to finish without spending an unreasonable money compared to others which offer a better experience in a shorter amount of time for much less spent.
I didn’t like Terra Battle much, but reviews like this have unrealistic expectations and come off as ridiculously entitled.
I mean, does the reviewer have any idea how much it costs to develop and market a mobile game? Monetization methods like F2P and DLC exist because static anchor prices, piracy/free riding, and increasing CPM/I have killed the viability of the premium model.
If gamers actually want to see F2P die, they need to be willing to spend $15+ on mobile titles and $100+ on console and PC. (But, of course, we’ll never see that, so expect monetization shenanigans.)
Sigh, which fansite discovered this review, and as usual, is getting baited by D_S’s antagonistic attitude?
A site that doesn’t get jokes.
Beware!!! This game, while fun, will steal your money if you pay for energy. Game crashed after spending over $300.00 and they wouldn’t refund nor give me my account back NO MATTER what information I provided! They are scam artists who care NOTHING for their customers. You’ve been warned!
I will never purchase another product by this conman of a company (Mistwalker) again.
I can see that this review was written by someone who didn’t beat the game. I hate free to play so Tera Battle has facinated me from the moment I started with how Mistwalker made any money from this. I really didn’t see any reason why someone would feel the need to spend any money here except for support for the developers! I allways had enough stamina to waste a big amout of my time on Terra Battle and the developers are generous enough to provide me with enough free in-game cash (through daily rewards) that to this day I have over 25 characters and I will try to get two more today!
I’ve beat the game and it didn’t take me any heavy grinding. Even if I were to spend money I don’t know how it would make it any easier. All you can buy with real money is stamina for new characters or more play time (that if you aren’t tide to a bed the whole day isn’t neccesery.) So if you can’t beat the game all you can blame is bad luck or your incompetentcy.
P.S.
The story is old school, suited for the medium like the phone and very engageing for the way it is presented! And despite not seeming that way, its a great feet to make something like that work!
>So if you can’t beat the game all you can blame is bad luck or your incompetentcy.
>bad luck
That’s kinda the thing, though. I haven’t played this game specifically but I play another mobile game. If this is anything like pretty much any other mobile game and the “bad luck” is from shitty gacha (or anything where you spend in-game currency to get new units or equipment to help further progress into the game) rolls then they kinda want you to spend money to get more chances at getting the super rare item/unit. It’s kinda how the entire like, freemium model works.
All games with units with 1* 2* 3* 4* ….. you always loot shitty units but terra battle offers you a chance to get rare every time the fact is with in game money you complete the A to D(1* to 4*) characters then only s or ss (5* or more) comes with real money or every 8 days :)
Hi
Do you know? you can finish the game with D character with some skill there are some character A or B better than SS x)
I didn’t agree whit you
moreover if you play 200 day you should finish the POF so when you spend energy you always loot S or better
Terra battle is a very great game but only 1 problem … content update take time because this is a small dev company