Fantasy War Tactics (iOS) Review

When starting up an SRPG and the first word to slip into the mind is "Disgaea", it is certainly a good sign. Fantasy War Tactics starts right off with a bang when the protagonist known as "Lord" sets out on his quest to take over the entire world. This might sound like a big task for a wizard who got himself kicked out from the wizard school, but he has discovered a new kind of magic to retrieve ancient genes from fallen heroes to aid his side.

This is the moment where many might do an eye-roll and think "oh boy, another poorly written story to excuse a terrible gacha character system". Ironically, this is not true (well, technically the game is a gacha, but only gear is obtained from it), which allows the story to become slightly better than that of an average gacha game, and allows the cast of playable characters to take a much larger role in the storytelling.

It is certainly a happy surprise to be met by a colourful cast who stands on their own personality and watch them interact with each another throughout the story with their varied and, with various successes, entertaining personalities. One of the most remarkable being the bodybuilding principal of the wizard school who thought it was a good idea for young wizards to lift weights in the gym, and therefore contradicts the entire squishy wizard trope in the most hilarious of ways, while others are extremely forgettable such as the golem.

It does not only deliver in the character gallery, but also in the gameplay. The gameplay feels exactly like one would expect it to do on a full-scale console release, and one would be forgiven if they thought they were playing a Disgaea game when playing through Fantasy War Tactics. The depth is far deeper than what people have come to expect on smart devices, yet with the battles strongly shortened down to better fit into the format.

So far everything feels good, but as always there is a but. Namely the F2P elements, and those have not hit Fantasy War Tactics nicely. While fans of SRPGs are used to excessive grinding, Fantasy War Tactics takes it to an entirely new level with each day unlocking a specific dungeon with special orbs that are used to upgrade weapons, which is nearly a mandatory thing to do to progress through the game. The drill is: either spend all your stamina and time to farm these orbs, or good luck progressing through the story. To be fair, Fantasy War Tactics has been out for a while, but catch up mechanics should even at this point help players at least get up nearly to speed with the rest without having to spend entire days farming items to upgrade gear.

It goes without saying that Fantasy War Tactics is what many SRPG fans have come to expect out of the genre delivered on smart devices. Over the top characters, a fun and engaging tile based combat system, and grinding. But on the last one they totally overdid themselves by creating something that more often than not just feels obnoxious and annoying. For those who have no problems with grinding, over time it might become quite an expensive experience though.