Terra Battle

Logo from Gamezebo

The first game I'd like to review is called Terra Battle, an RPG made by Mistwalker, the studio behind Final Fantasy.  And you can certainly see the Final Fantasy influence in both the art style and music.  For being a free game, Terra Battle has great production value with both.  It is refreshing to see something in the Play Store that has a veteran touch.  I love supporting the new guys, but one can only play so many stick figure tower defense games before craving an honest-to-God game on their phone.  But I digress.

The game is a strategy RPG played by dragging characters across the game grid:

Image from Game Informer

It's that simple.  And yet, it's not.  Every character has different attributes and abilities, or lack thereof.  In order to attack an enemy, two party member must surround them.  Combos and special attacks are then activated depending on the alignment of other party members to the attacking group.  Believe me, it sounds much more complicated than it is.  To make matters better, they include an interactive tutorial as the first batch of missions.

You start off with about half a dozen characters as your party, but you can add more characters as well.  The easiest being through purchasing more team mates, either with premium currency ("Energy") or through regular currency ("Coins").  You can also occasionally add defeated monsters as team mates after battles.

Characters are classed as one of four different warrior classes (Swordsman, Lancer, Archer, or Mage).  They can also have an element type, although most characters do not.  Swords beat Arrows, which in turn beat Lances.  Lances are strong against Swords.  This creates a strategic cycle to think about when attacking.  Element types also play a factor, as Light attacks are strong against Dark types and Fire is strong against Ice.  

Some characters can unlock different Job classes, which leads to new unlockable skills.  Each Job class levels up separately, but the best part is that you can copy-paste a skill from an existing Job class, provided you have an open Skill spot. 

That is really the meat and potatoes of Terra Battle.  As of right now, there is no PVP mode, although the app states it will be added later.  There is also no way to equip, purchase, or forge weaponry.  What the character has is what you get.

The game play, as any smartphone game, is a little repetitive, but the game does a great job of keeping things interesting.  Each match is comprised of between three and five rounds, and each enemy has its own attack pattern, moves, and element types.

I highly recommend playing Terra Battle.  Great game play, great artwork, great music, and addicting RPG action on a platform that is sorely lacking in the RPG department.  Give it a download and enjoy!