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A Handheld Hack N' Slash - DanMachi BATTLE CHRONICLE Quick Review

3K View2023-08-30

DANMACHI BATTLE CHRONICLE, IS IT WORTH IT?

Hey There! Well, I'm back at it again with a new mobile game, as today I'll be covering DanMachi BATTLE CHRONICLE. As a long-time follower of the show, I was a fair bit curious to see how the world was treated, and just how well they could translate it to a stage-based Hack n' Slash. And as far as my first impressions go? It's not that bad, really. For those familiar with the story, it runs players through summary-size versions of the various arcs, throwing players through various bite-sized battle stages, and interspersing them with enough story segments to tell the story. Obviously, the narrative does suffer a touch for this- but, given it's appealing to people already familiar with the show, I wasn't overly bothered.

Frankly, I was here to beat up monsters- and on that front, the combat isn't too bad. Each of the various characters you unlock has a basic combo, as well as a pair of skills and an ultimate attack that charges as you whack monsters. What's more, you're able to bring up to 3 playable characters into each dungeon dive- so there's a neat bit of strategy involved with figuring out who you want to bring in based on their skills, elemental affinities - or, whoever you feel will prevail with the power of violence.

Overall, it's decent enough- though, the way enemies' defence and offence scale if you're under-levelled, in tandem with the time limit on stages, does make things a bit aggravating at times. Also, PVP turns the game into an auto-battler, which is an admittedly weird design decision.

TIME PLAYED

At the current Juncture, I've put about 6 hours into this title- which has given me an adequate amount of time to get to the end of the current event, clear several of the story segments, dabble in PvP, and fiddle around befriending the characters to see the start of their character stories. Overall, progression has been continuing at a fairly steady pace. Which, I'm sort of surprised about, all given - but then, I'm also getting hard carried by a pair of Ultra rare characters in my party. I've also had the opportunity to cut my teeth on a few of the hard mode maps, which are -substantially- harder than their peers.

THE BITS OF BATTLE CHRONICLE THAT BOPPED

*Party building. Specifically, I enjoyed mixing and matching the various characters and finding people who complimented each other well. I think the potential for making some interesting synergies definitely exists- though, it's entirely possible to get cursed with more passive pulls, such as the 'scenes'.

*The voice acting. Surprisingly, I didn't get tired of this, even after I binging the dungeons incessantly, as the various characters chattered. I think that counts for something.

*The more complex enemy types. I actually found myself in a few tense encounters that forced me to use the full range of my character's movement, which actually got me invested in the boss fight. There are a few of these you can poke into, and they're accessible early enough, that it's left me surprisingly hopeful for even more complex encounters as you press deeper into the game.

THE BAD BITS OF BATTLE CHRONICLE

*The Automatic play. So, one of the game's options is to allow a level to play out automatically. While this is -functional- for areas that are below your level, it's less so in the case of stages closer to your relative strength level, even if it estimates you should clear it. Partly because the AI will just derpily stand in absolutely -every- AOE that happens.

*An inability to spark. While you can earn pity pulls by trying and failing to acquire a character from their Gacha 200 times - realistically, you don't have any other means of acquiring resources in order to force the acquisition of a specific character.

*Time Limit. While you -can- hypothetically challenge a stage that is a significant level higher than you, in practice, you'll often find yourself in a losing position not because of the strength disparity, but because you have a fairly limited time frame to clear it. (Which is -especially- notable if you pop into a stage with an elemental disadvantage, and wind up dealing severely reduced damage.

*There is a -lot- of repetition, and while there are certainly highlights among the fights, there are countless others that just degenerate into very similar mob fights which blur together. Filler, in other words.

So yeah- that's my thoughts as they currently are. I'm going to poke a bit further into the game to see if it has any other surprises left, but- Let me know if you agree or disagree with me in the comments.

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