Billed as a shared world Sci-Fi fantasy adventure role playing game that is slated to launch this year (the game is already live in China where the developer Hotta Studio is located), Tower of Fantasy is also aimed at the same demographic that played miHoYo’s Honkai Impact and Genshin Impact. The Unreal Engine 4 based game runs on PC, Android, and iOS. Graphically, the game looks pretty (it automatically chose “Extreme” graphics setting for my PC setup which has an RTX-2080).
Like Genshin, you select your traveler at the beginning (male or female wanderer). The prologue and very basic initial tutorial is played as these default characters (you can apply your customized preset once the actual main story quest begins). And no, there is no floating assistant like Paimon; instead, it’s a robotic walking one named Mi-a (that from what I’ve experienced so far, is less annoying).
The monetization for this title is unfortunately gacha based (you pull for weapons which are tied to specific characters) like Honkai Impact and Genshin Impact. Some of the currency can be earned in game (but the target is of course whales who will purchase larger quantities of that virtual currency once the game goes live). Unlike Genshin, you only play one character at a time when you switch weapons. Character customization is also fairly decent (you can use your personal customized preset over the default appearance for any characters that you acquire (this is a huge one up on Genshin Impact). The following is the preset I created.
The global closed beta test launched on April 18th and is expected to run for around a month (no specific end date noted yet since everything is subject to change). I personally signed up for this CBT with low expectations. Sort of like how it was with Genshin Impact though, I’m pleasantly surprised so far with the quality of the game. It’s not perfect nor it is as currently refined as Genshin Impact, but the PC UI and controls aren’t just a simple slap on to a mobile game either. It feels good on PC including freedom to set your own keybinds (I changed a few around). The movement and combat are smooth with the latter feeling impactful. There are also some nice QoL options (like you can automatically engage the conversation and questing with quest NPC’s without having to press “F for example) in the settings.
The graphics style is cel shaded (more like Soul Worker or Honkai than Genshin) with a much more anime style flavor to it. I’m using the Japanese voice pack and the voice acting is on par so far with Genshin. The story line itself isn’t out of the ordinary (I only played around 2 hours and am only at level 12ish); it’s decently engaging so far with the dialogs voiced. What will likely be very difficult to top though is the music (miHoYo has HOYO-MiX; it’s music studio arm that has some of the best gaming OST’s around). Nonetheless, competition like this is welcomed.
I’m still trying to get a feel for the game systems and combat flow. The open world environment looks pretty good while the gameplay has enough of a hook early on; this isn’t like an initial try where it’s giving me clues that it isn’t worth continuing. Matter of factly, I had to keep myself in check before I went down the exploration route (I purposely chose guided mode over the more free form adventure mode since I’d end up “exploring just that next area” (and keep doing that). I did some other players in the game world; I haven’t looked into the technical aspects but I’m presuming this is sort of like how Torchlight Frontiers was originally setup; not a completely persistent open world but one where a smaller subset of players are loaded together into shards for co-operative play (I could also be wrong but don’t have the time to look into this yet).
Initial impressions at this juncture is very favorable in terms of the visuals and game play. I haven’t yet ran into serious bugs or show stopping issues (there are some missing voice dialogues in the JP voice pack). Like Genshin, I’m not going to participate in the gacha part (in terms of spending a lot of money on that part) if this ends up being something that I actually end up playing at launch (where it is not kneecapped in terms of progression without requiring top tier weapons and their associated characters). With this being at least a month long, a lot more of my own questions will be answered as I play through the available content.
