Japanese studio Mistwalker, led by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, have just put out their newest release, the free to play mobile RPG Terra Battle.
Mistwalker describes Terra Battle as a tactical rpg in which “players embark on a journey across several stages to experience fast and strategic gameplay with powerful warriors and heroes.”
Terra Battle uses a flanking system in which players have four seconds each turn to position their characters in tactically advantageous positions and attack. Battles use a rock-paper-scissors approach in which weapons and spells have very specific strengths and weaknesses.
Each of the game’s chapters are broken up into ten stages, and along the way a plethora of new and recognizable characters can be recruited into the player’s ranks. Some of these include popular characters from Sakaguchi’s previous titles, such as Bahamut from Final Fantasy.
All in all, there are 165 characters in the game, but Mistwalker have plans to throw in new creations as one of several milestone rewards as more and more people download the game. Other rewards include a new musical track by Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger composer Nobuo Uematsu, a versus battle and co op mode, and at two million downloads, a console MMORPG set in the Terra Battle universe.
Being a free to play title, Terra Battle‘s choice of microtransaction includes a rather controversial energy mechanic. Players have a reservoir of 100 energy that is tapped into every time they initiate combat. This energy bar is refilled to the tune of one point every three minutes. The further into the game players get, the larger the energy requirement becomes to initiate battles. The bar can be refilled through real-world money purchases. Mistwalker have said that they will sometimes drop redeemable codes to fill the energy bar on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, but there’s no denying that this form of monetization won’t sit well with some players.
Terra Battle is available for download on both iOS and Android systems.