MeinMMO reader Paladirah has written an extensive review of the mobile game Arknights (Android, iOS). We are publishing the review on our site as a guest contribution.
What kind of game is this? Arknights is a free-to-play mobile tower defense game with a touch of RPG. It mainly targets single-player players. Developed by Hypergryph, the game was released in its global version in January 2020 for Android and iOS.
Here’s what Arknights is about: Arknights takes place in a modern, post-apocalyptic setting where conventional firearms and even magic come into play. In the world of Arknights (Terra), many different humanoid races exist, featuring traits of animals, angels, or dragons, spread across various factions and countries.
However, the world of Terra is plagued by natural disasters, mutated beings, and diseases, leading some factions or splinter groups to be at war. Many cities are abandoned and destroyed. Things are not really peaceful in Arknights.
Each character not only has their own personality and background information but also a story that is often touched upon or deepened in the story or during events. One could almost say that pretty much everything has lore, and the background story can be quite deep if you read through everything.
It’s worth taking the time to follow the story. However, you can also skip everything and catch up later. The only criticism is that while Arknights tells a lot, it unfortunately shows too little. Maybe that will change with the upcoming anime or the spin-off Arknights: Endfield.
Consoles were initially my favorite platform, whether Xbox, Gamecube, or PlayStation. With Phantasy Star Online and Final Fantasy 11, I switched to PC. Despite a constantly growing Steam library, I’ve been more involved in MMOs. When TERA went free-to-play, when Bahamut destroyed the servers of FFXIV, when the first English community formed in Japanese PSO2, and when the rifts first appeared in Fortnite – I was there!
Tower Defense or Strategy RPG?
This is the gameplay: The game principle follows the classic tower defense, where the goal is to stop incoming waves of enemies from reaching your own base. But instead of simply placing 5 or 10 of the same unit, in Arknights, you must assemble a team of up to 12 characters, of which there is only one of each character. Each character is categorized into one of 8 classes and brings their own skills and stats. The right team composition is already half the battle.
At the beginning of the game, you continuously earn points, which you can use to place characters on the map, with each character having a different cost. This way, you build up your defense over time while also dealing with waves of different enemies. Depending on the situation, you also have to unleash the abilities of your placed characters.
Admittedly, the beginning of the game is relatively slow and boring. The first levels consist of tutorials, where it’s enough to just place your level 1 characters and wait. Once you perfectly complete a mission, you can repeat that mission anytime in auto-play mode. This is great for farming resources.
However, it doesn’t take long before you have to deal with effects and enemies where every mistake could be fatal. Arknights really shines when you have to not only place characters with precision but also pull them back and reposition them.
The use of the right ability at the right time is key to victory. And when facing one of the powerful bosses that can cut through the entire defense with a mistake, you momentarily forget that it’s actually a tower defense game or even a mobile game.
This is how leveling works: Another aspect is leveling characters. Progress typically involves leveling a character to the maximum and then promoting them to the next level (Elite). With each level up, values like attack, defense, and so on increase. These values also improve a bit the more often you use a character.
Upon promotion, characters usually learn new passive talents or new abilities or enhance their existing ones. Most characters can be promoted twice, after which they can be leveled up to a maximum of level 90. Additionally, you can also strengthen each character’s abilities, leveling up all abilities simultaneously.
Base Building, Rogue-Like Mode and Other Features
These features are also available: As a little side activity, you can build your own base. There, you can set up a few rooms. However, the main use is the production of resources and materials. At the end, a training room will be unlocked where you can further specialize your characters’ abilities.
Arknights is a single-player game; there is no PvP or real co-op mode. However, you can borrow characters from other players and friends, which provides a small help for tougher missions. Besides the story mode, there are missions to gather resources, such as for upgrading the base or characters. There is also a weekly mode where you have to face 400 enemies and receive premium currency as a reward.
Newly added is a rogue-like mode where you must collect random items, make decisions, and unlock characters. There are also dailies and weeklies that can usually be completed on the side. Lastly, special events packed with new missions, quickly earned resources, and usually free characters or skins appear every few weeks.
It’s also worth mentioning that each mission, aside from the new rogue-like, costs “sanity.” When your sanity runs out, you can no longer play missions. You can refill this with premium tokens or must wait. While this may sound a bit alarming, it’s not that bad in reality, because missions usually don’t cost that much sanity. Additionally, you have your own account level, and with each level up, the sanity limit increases and is fully refilled.
Sanity potions can be earned through weeklies; they can be saved for several weeks. Additionally, you have 30 tickets per day that allow you to practice missions. As a beginner, however, you will have more sanity than you can spend. The sanity system is primarily designed so that you cannot continuously farm expensive resources. But for completing the story, it is certainly sufficient.
The Look of Arknights
In terms of graphics, there isn’t much to say. The maps are 3D models, while characters and enemies are 2D graphics. Some skill effects are nice to look at, but it’s usually manageable, even when there’s a lot happening on the screen.
The character images are generally quite nice, though 99% of them are static. Only very rarely do characters have animated character portraits (Live2D). However, that doesn’t mean the characters are cheap anime waifus. The character design of the now over 200 characters is varied and very detailed. Furthermore, the style is unique, as the characters themselves could come from a fantasy setting, yet are equipped with modern or futuristic gear.
The story is almost exclusively told in the style of visual novels: background, 2 or 3 characters, and a text box. The texts are all in English; unfortunately, there are no German texts available yet.
How is the game financed?
First of all, there is the premium currency Originium and the premium tokens Originite Prime. The currency is mainly used for pulling (gacha) banners, while the tokens are used for refilling sanity or buying skins. Refilling sanity doesn’t get more expensive, and only one of these tokens is needed. The tokens can also be converted into currency, where 3 tokens equal slightly less than one pull.
You can obtain characters in two ways: through recruitment or headhunting (banners). Recruitment is a kind of free gacha. You select up to 3 keywords, wait a few hours, and usually get a character of low rarity. With a bit of luck, a rare character can also be included. Headhunting involves the typical banners with rate-up and pity system.
In addition to the banners, there are also skins, packs, and a monthly pass. Essentially, it’s the standard monetization like in most gacha games.
Pay2Win or not?
Arknights proves generous and doesn’t enforce real-money spending. Just by playing the story, you are rewarded with various characters, resources, and premium tokens. The dailies, weeklies, and achievements are almost done automatically. It’s also common for developers to send skins or other items as gifts through the mail.
The events are particularly popular, as you can often earn new characters, skins, and premium currency through the event shop without having to invest much time or real money. The rogue-like mode also introduced a battle pass, but it cannot be influenced by real money.
Another point is the gacha itself. First of all, with each new banner, you receive a one-time 5-star character or higher after a maximum of 10 pulls. A pity system also ensures that you feel you can get a 6-star character with just a few pulls. Furthermore, for each duplicate character, you receive a currency that allows you to purchase additional pulls or resources.
The twist: With enough of this currency, you can even buy rate-up characters from the current banner directly. And with the rare limited banners, you get the first 10 pulls for free, and 14 more distributed during the event period without lifting a finger.
In Arknights, it’s “Waifu over Meta”
This is how gacha works: Unlike well-known representatives in the gacha genre, it’s enough if you draw your desired character just once. Of course, there’s also the possibility to enhance your character further once you have obtained it multiple times. However, this enhancement (potential) is pleasantly minimal.
A character with full potential is a “nice to have” but nothing more. The rare 6-star characters are not game-changers either. Characters with lower rarity (4-star) are cheaper to level up, can be deployed earlier, can be repositioned faster, and sometimes do their job even better than comparable 6-star characters.
There are many guides showing that even the toughest missions can be almost completely completed with low-rarity characters. So far, there isn’t a bad or useless character. No resource invested is wasted. Here it’s “Waifu over Meta”.
Of course, you can also invest money, but that has nowhere near as strong an impact compared to other F2P games. You cannot instantly max out a character with money; you still have to farm the necessary resources. Moreover, you miss nothing if you happen not to pull a character. The banners and events come back repeatedly. And by then, you have enough time to save the necessary pulls, if you even need that many.
However, there are also problems
Arknights is not perfect. There is no multiplayer, no open world, no animated cutscenes, and no German texts. Moreover, the RNG in gacha can sometimes work against you. Furthermore, the game is only playable on mobile.
If you want to play Arknights on PC, there is no way around an emulator.
And lastly, there’s the gameplay. If you’re not a fan of strategy or tower defense games, you might not find happiness in Arknights.
The cure against (greedy) gacha games
Arknights nevertheless shows how it can be done right. While it seems superficially to be just another tower defense or gacha waifu collection game, it is more than that.
It offers plenty of story, challenging battles, very good music, a fair gacha, and no pay2win. It’s ideal for a few quick missions, but also for deeper engagement in the roguelike. And you need not fear missing out on anything should you take a break for a while.
It’s always fun to try out new strategies or team compositions. You appreciate every new character with whom you can try out new things, whether they are 4-star or 6-star. In this way, Arknights isn’t excessively complicated, yet complex enough.
You can also get help from the friendly community, which can be found on the official Arknights Discord server.
Finally, there is Hypergryph, one of the few developers who care more about the community than their own profit. There’s no power creep where stronger characters are introduced in banners. Even the strongest 6-star characters are useless if you don’t know how to use them properly. And in the latest rogue-like mode, 4-star characters are more important than ever.
Arknights should be recommended to anyone who doesn’t mind anime characters and the lack of an open world and online multiplayer.
Have you played Arknights yourself? Let us know in the comments.
A new anime MMORPG has been released, and a major hope for 2022 has been postponed.
