Tales of Crestoria has finally been launched globally and its safe to say that both fans of the series and newcomers would enjoy this Mobile Game that is available for both Android and iOS.
Here are some of the first impressions when starting off this game.
Tales of Crestoria kicks off strong with a stunning opening animation done by the famous Wit Studio, who are also known for working on previous anime titles such as Vinland Saga and Seraph of the End.
Once the opening animations is done, the game then begins the optional tutorial while your game downloads the rest of the files. It is certainly nice to see the amount of detail and care they put in with the majority of the game being fully voiced over by the Japanese Voice Actors and Actresses.
The tutorial begins with Kanata, an enthusiastic young lad who inspires to be a great hero under the guidance of his mentor Cress. The game will then teach you the basic stuff that you’ll need to take note of, such as element affinities.
Unlike the previous entries of the Tales series games where the combat system was more free-styled, Tales of Crestoria offers players a turn-based combat system with some of the skills having turn-based cool downs.
During combat, players are greeted with top notch voice overs as well as pretty 3D combat animations. The combat for Tales of Crestoria is slightly different from other turn-based RPG is that there is a gamplay mechanic which has this build-up system where players would normally want to align their character’s attacks where their weakest attacks would go first to slowly build up damage for their biggest attacks since their last attack would end off dealing the most amounts of damage.
Once the tutorial is done, the game then switches over to the main menu screen.
At first glance, the main menu seems neatly organised with the main features all at the bottom with bigger icons sizes than the rest to attract the player’s attention. I would like to take a moment of your time to express my gratitude to the game’s sound direction. Both the main menu background music as well as the icon selection sounds are super crisp and smooth. All of these are also accompanied by the beautiful background scenery and the featured character of your choice!
Other than the main story as well as the character side stories, the game also offers various of game modes like Arena battles where players climb the rank and earn rewards from their rank standings.
A CO-OP PvE game mode in the form of Raid Battles where players can join up with other players online to battle strong raid bosses for rewards.
Another game mode is the Phantom Tower, a scaling difficulty PvE content where the floors gets harder and harder throughout your climb. The Phantom Tower also gives out rewards to players that complete the tower within a time limit of one month. After the time limit is up, the rewards will then be changed to another set of rewards.
Players are then brought over to the summoning screen and are given a choice to free summon one unit from a pool of characters, some new and some returning favorites from the previous Tale games. And yes, even SSR rarity characters are included in the pool.
On the topic of summoning. The game offer a 5% SSR drop rate for the majority of the banners with some exceptions which is considered to be very generous in comparison to other gatcha games titles.
Once that is done, player are then given the freedom to progress through the main story mode of the game.
The story missions so far don’t prove to be a challenge since majority of the time you can just let the game go through Auto-Mode and you’ll be just fine. Although, don’t be fooled because the game has some challenging trials in the form of Arena battles as well as the Phantom Towers which can be unlocked through progressing the Story mode.
Through the first impressions, Tales of Crestoria is definitely worth trying out for players who are fan of the franchise as well as players who are looking for a decent gacha mobile game!