IMAGE CREDITS: creativeuncut.com & wotvffbe
OVERALL IMPRESSION:
War of the Visions is a 3D grid and turn based tactical strategy game. The defining feature of War of the Visions is the strategic combat and the various character skills and ways to augment power through equipment, truststones, visions cards, and espers. There is some truly challenging PVE and PVP content here. This is due to a combination of synergies based on weapon types and elements allowing for mixing and matching of team compositions. Together this allows for deeper combat strategies compared to other mobile games. Although much work has been put into the story and various side stories, the combat, art style and music are the standout features. Progression of your units and overall power is slow to progress but it is possible to do so without spending and those that can embrace the pace of team building will be able to create stronger teams over time. Overall players that enjoy strategic combat, slower paced story telling, long term progression and challenging content will find a home here.
GAMEPLAY:
The basic gameplay features are what will keep most players engaged in this title. There are challenges for those interested in either PVE or PVP content. Story campaign missions are fairly straight forward and designed to be completed without having all the current meta characters. Other gameplay modes are where the challenges come in. Compared to most other mobile games there are a variety of gameplay modes that allow you to develop different team compositions and gain access to gear and characters. Understanding your team composition, how to counter various status effects, expose enemy weaknesses and developing an overall combat strategy is key to overcoming challenging encounters. Progression through more difficult content is dependent on developing your units and augmenting your teams strengths and weaknesses.
Most long term players are drawn to PVP. Even as a casual and free to play player by being selective with your choices and team building you can develop a team that is capable of winning most of your PVP matches at a casual/semi-competitive level. Similar to most gacha games, the highest level of play is contingent on staying up to date with the latest meta units. Although meta teams dominate the field, there is still room to customize your team and gear and enjoy PVP at a casual level.
STORY:
It’s evident that a lot of work and focus has been put into the main story and side story content. There are several hours worth of story content at this point. The overall story pacing is slower and focuses on establishing an array of characters from various kingdoms and showcasing the conflict and political drama that ensues. Many of the story scenes include voice acting. Enjoyment of the story will be heavily dependent on your own personal taste for pacing and your connection to various characters and interest in the plot. Overall the story may not be for everyone but it does have it’s moments and many characters are likeable and have interesting personalities.
ART & CHARACTER DESIGN:
The 2D art is outstanding and establishes itself above the competition in a mobile gaming era of generic and replicated designs. This is showcased in the design for new characters like Jeume the Spring Celestial, Ashen King Mont and Veritas of the Heavens all displayed in the slideshow above. Characters overall feel unique, memorable and fit the overall world and design aesthetic. The game’s art is designed by veterans Yoshitaka Amano and Isamu Kamikokuryo. Both have worked on numerous Square-Enix games including some of the original Final Fantasy titles. Distinct and memorable character design goes a long way to creating a world and game you want to explore and engage with. Animations for character skills are unique and contribute to the overall polish of the game.
MUSIC:
Once you open up the game and the main theme song plays it feels both nostalgic and in alignment with similar games from a final fantasy series. Much of the music is reminiscent of songs found in classic titles and contributes to the feeling of engaging in grand and epic battles. Along with the gameplay and art design, it’s one of the best features of the game.
NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE:
Compared to most other gacha style games there are quite a few resources that are given to new players . There is also an array of free characters that can be acquired by completing certain side stories and character missions in the Farplane archive. The Farplane is one of the unique features of this game allowing past content to be accessed by any player regardless of when they start the game. These free units are quite valuable as a new player. Even certain common rarity characters can be very helpful for specific missions especially in the early days of your journey though the campaign and in event missions.
Many collaborations and special events include a free unit and a good amount of resources especially for anniversaries and live letter rewards. The gacha system does include a pity system. With careful planning on what units to pull/pass and the type of team you want to build it is possible to build powerful teams and slowly build them completely free. Doing some research on upcoming banners will help a lot to planning your team compositions.
TIPS:
Build free units from both the Selection Quests and the Farplane Archive as well as Lucio (from Another Story missions). These units are very helpful and easier to level up to the level cap of 140 with resources that you can usually farm or gain from completing certain missions. The Farplane also offers a lot of premium resource you need to pull units. Even after almost a year I still have missions to work on. Don’t forget about multiplayer missions as well.
For missions that have an elemental party milestone complete as many as you can. This requires a full mono colored team and you can use more powerful units from your friends list to complete them. This provides you with a lot of gil and resources to level up your espers. It’s not often talked about but helps tremendously when your account is new.
Plan which units and vision cards to pull and pass on. There are a couple of good unit review content creators out there. You can save up enough premium resources to guarantee you will get that unit/card. From my experience DPS with good self sustain (healing/defense) and utility (buffs/debuffs) are valuable units for both PVE and PVP.
Don’t underestimate the value of espers, vision cards and gear. These can all impact your team’s performance. Attention to agility (ex. agility tuning so your units turns all occur back to back) and forms of damage mitigation should also be incorporated along with ways to increase damage.
CHALLENGES:
Long term like many gacha games the challenge is creating new and interesting gameplay modes and not just new units. Repetitive and grindy content like raids should also be re-examined and updated as they require a great time investment instead of offering a real challenge and an interesting gameplay experience. Although many long term players are interested in PVP, proper power level match making leagues and more PVP modes (for example a cost cap league that utilizes common rarity units only) would create more interesting options. In addition, new and challenging PVE content that utilize a diverse range of team compositions should be developed.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
Fans of tactic and strategy games should check this out. It’s free to play and the closest thing we have to a new Final Fantasy tactics game. I started to enjoy this game more once I understood how to play it. Building teams slowly and taking on more challenging content when I had the right units/gear and power helped immensely. These types of games are meant to be played alongside other games as long term power progression is slow. With careful planning and keeping an eye on upcoming banners it is possible to pull and build the teams you want. The combination of selectively building your team and the various ways to augment power along with the basic gameplay, music and art make this a hidden gem in the mobile space.
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GAME DETAILS
PLATFORMS: Android/iOS
RELEASE: 2019 Japan/ 2020 Global
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER: Gumi/Square Enix
GENRE/TAGS: RPG, Turn Based, Tactics, 3D Grid Combat, Strategy, PVP, PVE
TARGET AUDIENCE: Strategy and tactics fans especially those who played Final Fantasy Tactics