It makes no sense, but I don’t care: it's fun to bounce heroes around | Review - The Wandering Ark

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✨Overview

The Wandering Ark is a mobile strategy game that features a unique pinball-style combat system where heroes, drawn from popular mythologies like Odin, Chang’e, Hou Yi, and Tyr, collide in a 5v5 battle on a rectangular arena. 🟩Pros +Brand new style of gameplay: Pinball combined with RPG? +Variety of game modes +Smooth and welcoming progression

🟥Cons -Forgettable story -Inconsistent artwork and quality ⭐️Score: 7/10

📖Story and Premise

The story casts players in the role of the captain of a massive mobile base called the "Wandering Ark," which roams the post-apocalyptic wasteland, recruiting heroes, and battling monsters. Honestly, I don’t know how the gameplay went from the story’s post-apocalyptic battle of heroes and monsters to a pinball style of combat, but it is what it is. The story is largely forgettable; it starts decently with voice-acted scenes and a manga-style illustrations for its cutscenes, but this production value largely dies down as you progress further in the story. The voice acting disappears, and the cutscenes adopts a visual novel style of text dialogues that you need to read. 🎨Visuals and Art

The Wandering Ark features a blend of hand-drawn anime aesthetics for its cutscenes and a charming chibi pixel art style for its gameplay. The steampunk and wasteland styles create a unique atmosphere, enhanced by the variety of heroes drawn from both Chinese and Western mythologies. While the character designs and animations contribute to the game's charm, some unevenness in the art quality and combat special effects could use improvement, especially when the game haphazardly transitions from chibi-like pixel art to hand drawn anime-style art work frequently. 🎮Gameplay

The core gameplay revolves around a 5v5 battle on a rectangular arena, where heroes engage in pinball-style combat. Players set trajectories for their units, launching them to bump into opponents for damage, bouncing around the walls like in billiards or pinball. It’s an entirely new kind of gameplay for me, and again, I don’t know how the in-lore explanation explains this, but honestly, I don’t care since it's fun to bounce heroes around. The heroes spawn 1 by 1 after each turn, until all participants are crowding the arena. The match ends when one team gets completely eliminated. The match concludes when one team eliminates the other. The game also features various modes, including Nuclear Garden, Dungeons, and Captain's Battle, each offering distinct gameplay experiences but all converging on the same Pinball style of combat. The combat system surprised me with its strategic trajectory planning. Initially requiring manual input for optimal damage, the game eventually allows automatic fights after a certain level. The order of appearance of heroes and their differing skills can alter the battle situation, demanding different formations for diverse enemies. 📜Game Modes

The game follows a chapterized mainline structure for linear story progression, with additional features like the Nuclear Garden and Dungeons offering varied experiences. The Nuclear Garden functions similarly to a Pokemon-like system, where you can hunt and cultivate a variety of monsters to add bonuses to your heroes. It’s a mini-game on its own that adds a nice little flavor. Dungeons are basically the farming game mode of this game that allows you to play and venture deeper into the mines, earn rewards, and progress, entirely separate from the main missions. Captain’s Battle, which is essentially a real-time PvP component with leaderboards, is a bit fairer than many PvP systems because the levels of all heroes are equalized to 240 for SSR and 180 for SR and below. It simplifies the balance a little bit, but there is still some slight pay-to-win element present. Since the mode is in real-time it requires matchmaking to find opponents, as opposed to asynchronous PvP where you just need to battle other players’ preset defense teams. ⏫Progression and Monetization

Progression comes in the form of upgrading your heroes’ level and/or acquiring new ones via the gacha system. Upgrading and progression felt smooth without the presence of energy or stamina elements, and the mechanics are easy to grasp and learn. The game is free-to-play, but there are gacha microtransactions, as expected. The game is still a bit pay-to-win, but the free-to-play experience is enjoyable nonetheless and forgiving in my experience. I already obtained some decent heroes in my first few hours of play; upgrading and progression does not feel grindy. There are no energy/stamina elements, and PvP is mostly balanced for all players. 📊Technical Performance

The game's portrait interface is well-organized, featuring a main menu that is easily navigable and adopts a no-nonsense approach. The user interface is designed efficiently, allowing for intuitive navigation. The performance was also satisfactory on my Snapdragon 888 device, with a smooth and responsive gameplay. I have no qualms about the game’s technical performance, and I did not encounter any noticeable issues while playing. ⚖️Conclusion

I would have given The Wandering Ark an 8 if the story were actually interesting and presented very well. However, the fresh enjoyable gameplay, variety of game modes, and welcoming experience compensate for it. As it stands, it provides a fun and accessible experience for gacha players seeking an unconventional gameplay experience on mobile.

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