Oh boy. It's been a long layoff for me as I've been working through some longer games lately. I'll be hard pressed to make my 50 games goal by the end of the year, but I think I'll make it, as I've got this one complete as well as 3 more nearing completion, with 13 days left to go. I still need 4 to go after this one, so I'll have to crush the remaining three and then tackle a short one for the 50th, but I think I can be creative and find one.
Anyway, Terra Battle is, a mobile phone game that I've finally completed several years after it launched in 2014. I took several years' worth of breaks from it, and came back to start from the beginning three months ago, and due to some changes in the game, I was finally able to get over the hump this time.
Terra Battle has many of the hallmarks of mobile games, including daily login bonuses, chance based "draws" to obtain new heroes, and a far easier path for those who are willing to drop real world cash to augment their team. The combat system is extremely fun, as you control your characters on a grid, and must slide them around the grid to reposition your allies around an enemy to attack them. Each character has certain abilities that trigger according to a certain probability, and the more you use those abilities, the higher likelihood there is that your abilities will trigger in the future. This is accomplished through a "skill boost" mechanic, in which each ability use has it's own probabilistic chance to increase the likelihood of that character using any skill by .1%. That's all pretty confusing, so here's an example:
Character X has a 50% chance of using Megasword, and an 11% skill boost, meaning that each battle that character enters has a 61% chance of using Megasword. The more that character uses skills, the better chance of triggering a skill boost, increasing that global 11% to 11.1%.
Terra Battle is, thus, delightfully grindy. Your characters will grow stronger in tiny increments, but once you trade them out for other characters, you will find yourself really missing those gradual boosts. As you build skill boost, your characters will use more abilities over time, thus increasing the rate at which you build skills. This gradualist mechanic plays itself out over tons of different mechanics in the game, and really rewards you burning time and energy into the game (or, the cynic would say, rewards those who pay real cash to build their team artificially). I personally loved the grind, but also found it wonderful that they have tweaked the game in many ways recently to make character recruitment and development far more reliable.
For example, you now can recruit two premium characters per day for free, whereas before it would take weeks to recruit two premium characters. Each character costs 5 energy, and you'll be lucky to build 5 energy/week. You also now get one free energy a day, ensuring a more reliable stream of premium characters entering your roster.
You also have full access to all of the hunting grounds, whereas before access to these was restricted by the day or time. Before, if you needed to train a character that was between levels 40 and 50, and the Metal Zone 4 and higher wouldn't be open for three hours, tough luck! Now, all zones are open all the time, which encourages players to spend more time in the game, and also allows you to build your team when you have time, as opposed to scheduling your play around the game's schedule.
The game was developed by former Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, and also features a soundtrack by my favorite video game composer of all time, Nobuo Uematsu, also of Final Fantasy fame. I have to confess that I never listened to the soundtrack, as I never use audio on mobile games, but given his renown, I have no doubt but that it is excellent.
Terra Battle was extremely addicting and fun at launch, and is even better now. It still feels a bit "pay-to-win", but I was able to start from ground zero and complete the main campaign in roughly three delightful months, so I'd recommend you pick it up as well, particularly as it's free. It's even more imperative you do so now, as the ill-designed and ill-fated Terra Battle 2 has already closed its servers, and the original has shuttered servers in several countries already. Jump in now, or you'll really miss out on an excellent gaming experience that I really treasure. I'll give it a 9.0/10.
Up next on the handheld section of What I'm Playing is a fun game that I've burned over 60 hours into already. Here's a teaser below:
-TRO
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