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Arknights, the basics and my thoughts on it.

764 View2023-09-21

Arknights

9.6

TacticsStrategyCasualAnimeCard

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Ok, this one will be quite difficult. I will have to admit this before I start my review. I SUCK at tower defense games. Like, I REALLY suck at them, so take this review with a grain of salt.

Arknights is a tower defence game. A genre know for its mostly strategic gameplay. In most tower defence games you place down towers that shoot incoming hordes of whatever the game classifies as an enemy before they reach the end zone where you take damage. Usually, these enemies don't shoot back at the towers and only walk 1 set path. In Arknights you have something brand new. Your towers (called operators in-game) have health bars and there operatorars who can be placed down on the path.

GAME CHANGER, I KNOW. Sarcasm aside, you can also choose the direction of which these operators are facing. Choosing which way your towers are looking is already of massive strategic value, especially because there is also levels with 2 or even 3 end zones. These levels force you to think about how you want strategize your placement, and it also forces you to think a little bit more outside the box.

As much as I want to dive into the nitty gritty of the gameplay, I also don't think people would want to read a college essay about videogame mechanics. So I'll summarize it a lot.

Gameplay

There are 3 types of enemies. The first is the normal type of enemy, these goofy goobers are the most basic of the basic and their main purpose is to be sacrficed for your bloodthirst. These basic enemies are weak but there are times when they can also be no joke, and become a serious threat to you and your operators. An example would be those "friendly" spear throwers that do extra damage but also bleed out. (I hate them with a passion)

Second type of enemies are the elites. These will have higher stats than most other enemies and will ALWAYS be a constant threat. There's not much to say about them so I'll leave it at that

Third type of enemies are boss types. Oh great heavens do they know how to make a man beg. These enemies will have a trait connected to them and will have a PAINFULLY long health pool. They will have mechanics such as, spawning drones, creating clones, eliminating placement spots, turn invisible etc.

Along these enemy types are the damage types. Your operators can do either physical or magical damage, otherwise known as "Arts" damage. Arts completely ignores all defense an enemy has. Pretty neat but there is still enemies that will be equipped against that.

That's about all the beginning stuff. I haven't even gotten into classes or niches yet but I'll leave that to the expert Kukkikaze over on youtube to explain. Check him out!

Story.

There's an anime of the game you can watch if you are really interested in diving into the story. Here's a quick summary of what the game is about.

The main character, referred to only as the Doctor, is awoken from stasis after what we can assume is a long time. In the time of their awakening they learn from a donke- I mean rabbit girl, that the hospital they are currently in is being attacked. As they try to escape, they learn that the Doctor has amnesia which is the worst possible outcome because the Doctor is actually a master tactician. To the point where they unironically have a following purely because of how good they are at strategizing.

They understandably consider the situation, to put it lightly, entirely [REDACTED]. Oh boy were they right, because when they left the hospital, they also learn that the country they are in is about to be hit with a catastrophe which is a massive storm that can tear apart a city. While that's happening, they also learn that the country is at war with a group called Reunion. Reunion is a group of people with oripathy going around and destroying countries that treat people with oripathy like crap.

That brings me to the next main point of the story, Oripathy. Oripathy is a disease in game that grows black crystals on or in a person. Their bodies will crystalize into a large cluster of oripathy and will release dust that will infect more people.

I wrote a lot so I'm just going to list a few pros and cons about the game and let you be off on your day.

Pros:

+ The game is perfect for anyone who likes strategy or tower defence games

+ The story is great from the start and progressively gets better. Although it does also get dark. Just a fair warning, there WILL be sad and straight-up depressing moments to the story.

+ There are plenty of operators to choose from in the game which leaves a variety of tactics. Get creative!

+ F2P friendly.

+ THE MUSIC. LISTEN TO IT. I LOVE ALL THE CONTINGENCY CONRTACT LOBBY THEMES AND PALLAS'S OST. BANGERS I TELL YA.

Now for the Cons:

- Oh god the difficulty spike. Several levels after the first chapter feel REALLY hard at the start. Try not to let these missions discourage you.

- The game is a gacha. If that aint your thing, then fair enough, but I would just like to say that the game is mostly fair with droprates of 6 star characters.

- The grind...holy [REDACTED] the grind. There's no auto-clear, just auto-play. Levels take 2-4 minutes to beat at times.

If the game looks to be up your alley, try it. I gave you some of the basics to the game, while also listing what you should expect from its best and worst moments. I didn't go too deep into this, since you will probably learn it all right at the start of your game.

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Arknights

9.6

TacticsStrategyCasualAnimeCard

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