I’ve been playing a LOT of Arknights. I play it every single day, for anywhere from 10 minutes – to just run through my daily stamina exhaustion, to hours, if a new event releases and the stages are complex or difficult.
This is – to me – one of the greatest Gacha games on the market right now. There isn’t a tower defense or strategy game out there that I think compares to Arknights. Which is why I’m so excited for Arknights: Endfield, Endfield is the spiritual successor to Arknights – but taking it in an entirely new direction.
Where Arknights is a strategy game that takes place within small, instanced grids – Arknights Endfield is going to be set in a large, open world, feature real-time combat, and fully 3D graphics as opposed to the smaller, sprite-style aesthetic it currently utilizes.

Now I know a lot of you guys are sitting there scratching your heads wondering exactly what kind of game this is. I’ve received DMs asking me – “Stix, is Arknights Endfield an MMO?” “Is there character creation?” “Is it a Gacha game like Genshin?”
And that’s what we’re here today to discuss. What exactly is Arknights Endfield? And should you be excited?

So what is Arknights: Endfield? Hypergryph revealed that Endfield is going to be a fully 3D real-time RPG. It will be set in a large, open world with lots of varied environments to explore.
Neither a sequel nor a prequel, Endfield is going to be set in the same world as its predecessor, Arknights, featuring its own distinct stories, and characters. Now if I recall – Arknights is set on Terra. Endfield is going to be set on Talos-II, a name I’m sure a lot of you immediately recognize.
Talos-II is largely unexplored, and very dangerous. Meaning that players will be responsible for surveying and exploring the world with Endfield Industries operators as we attempt to uncover the mysteries hidden away on the planet.

Yes, yes it will. If you’ve played Arknights, you’d know that the devs are actually quite adept at crafting a good story. That’s something you can’t say for the majority of Gacha games. Most games built for the mobile platform feature honestly.. quite pathetic stories that most of us skip.
There are few exceptions to this. As Hypergryph noted, it’ll be our duty to uncover the mysteries of Talos-II. From what little information we’ve been given, it looks as though we’ll continue unlocking new Chapters – each more challenging than the last as we continue to play through the game and explore the world at large.
The world and subsequently the narrative will also feature additional factions – some good, some bad, that will have a direct affect on the outcome of your story.

No, unfortunately, as much as I would honestly love to see an Arknights MMO, this is not it.
In Arknights: Endfield, players are capable of deploying several different characters – with direct control over each character. Having other players occupy the same world as you would likely be incredibly difficult, which is why I’m assuming the devs have yet to confirm whether there will be any kind of multiplayer functionality present.
I honestly hope for some – I would love to explore Talos-II with my wife Mrs Stix, with each of us possibly controlling half the team each. Cooperative multiplayer games are incredibly enjoyable, and this is a gargantuan missed opportunity if they don’t take advantage of it.

Given this is going to be an Anime RPG as opposed to an MMO, it’s unlikely we’re going to be able to customize our character.
Like in Arknights, we’ll likely play as a faceless commander of types, sending our Waifu’s and Husbando’s out on missions. But, hey. Nothing is set in stone right now. Who knows – maybe we’ll be able to create our own custom character. We’ll need to wait and see. It’s just highly unlikely.

Hypergryph describes their combat as such: “Arknights: Endfield is currently in the early stages of development, and much of the contents have yet to be finalized. With regards to the combat, players will encounter epic experiences, featuring real-time combat with various tactics.”
Real-time combat does not necessarily equate to action combat. It merely means the combat will operate in real-time as opposed to turn-based. This means the combat could be action-oriented like Wuthering Waves or Genshin Impact. Or, it could take on a strategic style like in StarCraft.

Yes! Arknights: Endfield is confirmed to be in active development for PC, Android and iOS devices. This is going to be a completely cross-platform compatible game. Meaning you can play it on PC, or on your phone.
They haven’t elaborated on whether they’re going to take a Genshin or Tower of Fantasy approach, however. And by that I mean, whether they’ll follow Genshin’s formula and develop the game for each platform in mind, or if they’ll follow the Tower of Fantasy formula and develop the game for mobile, and port it on over to PC at a later date.
I’m hoping for the former, because it is going to have to compete with Wuthering Waves, which is shaping up to be one of the best looking upcoming Gacha on the horizon.

Arknights: Endfield is going to be releasing Globally. There’s absolutely no questioning that. Hypergryph are already looking to localize the game into English, and they’re only in the early stages of development.
It’s unconfirmed if the game will have a simultaneous release around the world, or if a Western launch will come after its Eastern release.

Unfortunately, the devs are not nearly far enough through the development process to release a playable Beta. Not in 2022, anyway. They will definitely be holding various test phases ahead of the game launching – which I honestly hope to get into.
But those test phases will be available in 2023 at the earliest. Keep an eye on the channel though – as I post videos whenever games I’m anticipating are playable!

Arknights: Endfield does not have a confirmed release date at present. 2022 would be expecting a little much I believe, but hey, I don’t think 2023 is entirely out of the question. They could be much further through development than when they last made an announcement several months ago.
It would be safer to assume a release date of 2023, at the earliest, though.

And finally, yes, this is going to be a Gacha game. I know that isn’t something everyone is interested in, and that’s more than fine. But at the end of the day, if you don’t like it, you can just not play it.
Given the track record for Arknights though, how fair the game is and how successful it has been up to this point, I can say with certainty that this is going to be big. Very, very big. This could be one of the biggest open-world RPGs of 2023.
Its only competition is Wuthering Waves.

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to coexist in a world filled with millions of other players, masterfully crafted by Level-5, the very same group of talented people behind the incredible Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle games, Dragon Quest 8, and set within the magical universe of Ni no Kuni?
Because that’s what I feel like we all expected from this. Regardless of whether you enjoy the game or not, for better or worse, what we were ultimately presented with was quite different.

Hey, my name is Stix and welcome to another episode of “Worst Gacha Ever.” A video series where we play through every single Gacha game and analyze what the game does right.. and what it does wrong.

Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds is a gorgeous new MMORPG developed by Netmarble in collaboration with Level-5 Studios.
It is currently available on PC, Android and iOS devices, but to play the game on PC you need to download it on your mobile device, connect it to something like your Google account as an example, proceed to download the PC client and connect to it via your PC to the same Google account.
You cannot download and play the PC iteration of the game on its own. You are 100% required to connect via Mobile first.
This is quite the topic of contention online. Many potential players don’t want to have to download and install it on their phones first, and I can relate. I’m already recording footage for Azur Lane, Epic Seven, Arknights and Blue Archive. My iPhone has very limited storage left!

Whichever platform you choose to commit to, upon logging into the game you’ll be presented with 5 unique classes, all of which are unfortunately gender-locked. As is popular in Korean MMOs.
The Swordsman, a melee damage dealer. The witch or Mage, a.. well, a magic damage dealer. The Rogue, who.. despite what you’d think upon first inspection, is an archer. The Engineer, which plays the role of support, healing DPS that stand in AoEs. And finally, the Destroyer. The meat-shield.
Choose your class wisely though! Because if you have regrets later, there’s hours and hours of tutorials you’ll be forced to sit through in an attempt to catch up.
You’re presented with a basic selection of customization options when creating your character. Eye and hair colors. Skin color. Hairstyle. This is elaborated on as you unlock Outfits later in the game.
After unlocking Outfits, you’ll have a selection of full-outfits, hairstyles, hair decorations, accessories, and makeup to unlock and equip. You can also dye your costumes, adding a slightly deeper layer to customization depth. And that covers customization.

After logging in, you’ll be greeted by an immensely large open world. The intro is something right out of Breath of the Wild. Ganon is upset with Zelda. You run in. Stuff happens. Fast forward a few minutes. There we are, on a grand adventure.. with.. the dollar store Navi.
Immediately, you’ll be greeted with a message telling you to use auto-pathing. And let me stop there for a moment. I know what you’re thinking – “wait, auto-play? I hate auto-play, this is trash!” I dislike auto-pathing in my games, too. I don’t loathe it like I do with auto-combat, because at times auto-routing definitely has its uses.
But this game priorities utilizing it. If you don’t, you’ll often find yourself lost with no real direction. You’re given the option of disabling each and every single auto-feature within the game. So before some of you complain “But you can disable it, so you don’t NEED to use it,” I’m aware.
But when a game is built around auto-mechanics, it is often limited by them. There’s a noticeable difference in terms of quality between a game built to play itself for you, and a game built to have you play it.

After auto-pathing to your first quest objective, you’re greeted by your first real quest. And your first taste of combat. The combat had my attention for the first moment. I couldn’t wait to see how this game played.
It looked absolutely stunning up until this point – but upon seeing my character begin moving towards the enemies and casting her abilities on her own, I came to the realization of what kind of game this was.
Yes, you would auto-path to your quest objectives. But at the same time, you would also auto-engage enemies in combat. And over the course of the next 8 hours of playing, I wasn’t required to pay a single second of attention to any fights whatsoever.
You equip potions in the shortcut bar across from your level and HP bar, so if you ever find yourself taking damage you will immediately heal so long as HP potions are equipped.
Despite fighting monsters, bosses, I never saw my HP drop below 80%. In 8 hours of playing, I happened across not a single moment of challenge.
Although if I’m being entirely honest, in 8 hours of playing, maybe 15 minutes was spent in combat. Approximately 4 hours was spent in cutscenes and chat windows. 2 hours sifting through all of the horrendous forced mobile tutorials.
And the final hour and 45 minutes being required to raise my reputation by running around the town talking to all the village idiots. And that was 8 hours worth of gameplay.

Don’t get me wrong – there is plenty to like about the game.
I haven’t seen many mobile games that have the aesthetic appeal that this game does. This game is astonishingly beautiful. The character models are high quality. The animations are fluid. The environments are crisp and smooth.
The game is voice acted – with the same quality English dub that you’d find within the original Ni no Kuni games. I personally loved it – but I know there are some people that found fault with it.
The narrative is better than I expected. Typically, mobile games are a snooze fest. Very rarely are you compelled enough to read through or listen to the story unfold. Which is the opposite for Cross Worlds.

Yet for what the game does right, it does so much more wrong.

On the one hand, there’s too much text present within the game. Every quest, every side quest. Every tutorial has countless windows to make your way through. So much so that you often spend more time closing windows, skipping conversations than you do playing the game.
There is a functional Skill system present within the game. You have access to Class Skills, Special Skills and Passive Skills. You can level them up, and equip them onto your incredibly tiny ability wheel. As a Mage, I had access to various elemental abilities, allowing me to focus on a specific affinity if I were so inclined.
This provides you with some freedom and unique class identity.
There is a Mount system present, which carries with it the potential to be very pay to win, as each mount provides Combat Power to your character – and as Mounts are typically sold within Cash Shops, the rarer, more powerful Mounts are most definitely going to provide an added statistical advantage, as is evident by what is currently available.
It has your typical mobile equipment system. You auto-equip gear and get bags of materials to upgrade, enhance or awaken them.
There’s a Familiar system – which is where the Gacha elements come in to play. There are varied rarities for Familiars – with base Combat Power effectively increasing for every additional star your Familiar has. As an example, I had a single 4* little tadpole thing. It provided 16,000 Combat Power as opposed to the 1* that offered only 1,000.
You can see how pay to win this system is going to be. The more powerful the Familiar, the more powerful your character. When combined with Mounts, you’re going to have the potential to be exponentially more powerful than free players. Given you can equip 3 Familiars at a time, the power gap is going to become unreasonably large.

There’s a Guild system present in the form of “Kingdoms,” allowing players to join a unified force and fight for the betterment of society, protecting your Kingdom from monstrous invasions in the Kingdom Defense game mode. Which unfortunately I didn’t get to participate in because I’m a Ronin. And people don’t like me. But more the former.

Like every Mobile game, there are Dailies you can take and complete every day, and worse than dailies: Reputation quests. Unfortunately the story – and subsequently progression is gated behind reputation, meaning if you are to continue with the story, you’re going to first be forced to complete all of the reputation quests to further your reputation.
I find this an arduous process to have to partake of. I dislike having progression be gated behind content I’m not particularly fond of. I disliked this recently in Tower of Fantasy, and dislike it equally as much here.

There are various Challenge modes you can do. Chaos Field. Dimensional Border. Labyrinth of Dreams. Field Bosses. After 8 hours I had only unlocked the Labyrinth and Field Boss modes, and honestly.. the Labyrinth was a single room with waves of enemies that you auto-battle. So it’s a game mode you let run while you’re playing other games.
And Field Bosses were just never alive when I attempted to find them. Even swapping channels.

I wish I’d managed to unlock the PvP game mode, but unfortunately after 8 hours it remained locked. Maybe I’m just slow, I don’t know.

Netmarble also confirmed that they are going to be implementing both Blockchain into the game along with NFTs over the course of 2022. Which – I get it – they want to make as much money as they possibly can. But I don’t think you could’ve made a worse design choice if your goal was longevity.
Because once implemented, any person that genuinely enjoyed this game is going to leave, and it’ll be filled with people who’s goal is to make a quick buck.

Is Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds the worst Gacha game of 2022? Hardly. The game has a focus on and prioritizes both auto-pathing and auto-combat, meaning there is little in terms of manual play required.
Again, you can disable these but why would you? The game is built around them as a feature, and it feels clunkier without it. Yet it’s also absolutely gorgeous, with a compelling main story – not all of the side content. Those forced side-conversations can go die in a fire.
Ultimately, I feel as though the game is largely filled with too much fluff. Too many unimportant things to do. We don’t need 30 poorly designed features. We need a few really good ones to keep us entertained – enthralled with what is available.
Unfortunately, nothing in Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds does that for me. At the end of the day, this is a very average game, and with the upcoming Blockchain and NFT implementation, it’s going to become a trash one.

I had no idea what to expect when I started Crossing Void.
All I knew was that the image used for the game was that of Kirito.. or someone that looked eerily reminiscent of Kirito. Then I jumped into the game and was greeted by the main girls from the Railgun Anime. Yeah, Mikoto and Kuroko.
I figured “Oh, okay, so this is an adaptation of A Certain Scientific Railgun, cool.” After which I was greeted by characters from Durarara, Accel World, Sword Art Online, Toradora, Shakugan no Shana.. and I finally knew what this game was.
It was an amalgamation of a plethora of different Anime all condensed into a single RPG. That’s an interesting concept.

From what I could tell, Crossing Void is a story-driven Chapter-based RPG.
Pretty much every single Chapter is intertwined in some form of story. There are various Stages per Chapter, and each Chapter seems to follow a different selection of characters.
I don’t really understand the premise of the story. There are different worlds, different realities, and each of the characters from their respective worlds are gathered together to.. save the world? Save their world? Save all the worlds? I’m a little fuzzy on specifics, honestly, but holy crap there are a lot of characters.
I’m not sure exactly how many there are, but I did notice that heroes are locked behind a more difficult pay-wall than normal. I couldn’t even really summon any free heroes to play with and was stuck with the basics of what was provided to me. The one hero I did unlock was Asuna, and unfortunately I couldn’t use her.
This is due to the combat system. See, each hero can be paired up with another hero acting essentially as support. This means that to fully utilize a character and their abilities, you’re required to have the corresponding hero associated with them, and I’m guessing here that Asuna’s is Kirito.
So unless I have Kirito as well, my Asuna will be not only lacking in her abilities, but also be unable to maximize her potential.

This leads me to the combat aspect of the game.
Crossing Void utilizes a turn-based combat system. You select your ability, the enemy selects theirs, and you cycle through said attacks until your next turn.
You have a variety of abilities you can learn and upgrade, and each hero seems to have their own skills specific to the Anime they’re from.
While I never really got to play as anyone other than the girls supplied to me, I did get to fight a variety of different characters, and got to see their abilities and combos in action.

Ultimately, I spent a few hours in Crossing Void recording footage.
I felt it was very limiting on who I could use in combat, which is disappointing as I typically like to deploy a group of hot Waifu’s regardless of their stats and abilities.
I also felt as though while there was a lot of story, it didn’t do much in terms of explaining the story – rather it explained what the characters were doing presently, as opposed to why we were there or what our goals were.
The game looks pretty solid – the animation for some of the characters seemed a little off, but otherwise this is an enjoyable adaptation that allows you to play with all your favorite characters from their respective Anime.