This mini-review was originally posted as part of the article ‘Pass The Time With These Four Attention-Grabbing Smart Device Game‘
I was first introduced to Arknights through a format many would have, through a prominent Youtube advertising campaign using social influencers to push the character designs and gameplay mechanics. Typically I ignore any advertising for mobile games, primarily because while you have campaigns for great games – there appear to be just as many if not more overselling what they had to offer. But the allure of cute anime-style of the characters wore me down after awhile, and here I am with the game on my mobile phone.
Arknights is a tower-defense strategy game which sees you taking the role of a “Doctor”, tasked with guiding an army of “Operators” through various missions which involve protecting bases from a set number of enemies. With eight different types of operator to work with, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses, there are many different ways to tackle each mission based on the units you have on you. You can protect the pathways leading to your base(s) with defender type classes, but run the risk of them being rendered useless later on if the enemy begins waves of flying foes which are best tackled by the (often weaker hitting) snipers and casters. However, the weakness of this class only being placable on elevated platforms needs to be considered. Fortunately, the type of scenarios where you are truly stuck don’t happen too often, complemented by a new user experience seamlessly weaved into the first few chapters, teaching players many beginner and intermediate-level tricks around party composition and base defense.
The game also doesn’t superpower players early on nearly as much as other games, meaning that even levels in the first couple of chapters might require a few attempts to complete with even a well levelled party. There is also a good variety of operators, and while some may eventually fall into underuse as you progress through the game, even three and four star operators can serve you well through most of the game. Despite the gritty, sci-fi tone of the game, the character designs are absolutely brilliant – and I for one would buy an artbook featuring them should publisher YoStar and developers Studio Montagne and Hypergryph offer one in the future.
Even though I would argue the developers are not as gracious with offering new players their premium currency as other mobile games, I still ended up with a comfortable assortment of 4-5 star operators to tackle most situations I was faced with. This is assisted by many of the gacha draws guarantee’ing a 5 star operator within 10 single or one 10x pull.
