Tower of Fantasy: Preview of the new free-to-play action RPG that challenges Genshin Impact

Today, August 11, was opened by the global servers of Tower of Fantasy, the free-to-play MMO action RPG for PC and mobile devices iOS and Android. Hotta Studio and Tencent Games’ publishing company, Level Infinite. After three years of development, the game was released in China at the end of 2021 and has finally arrived on our shores thanks to success at home and experience gained thanks to feedback from the Chinese community.

Just as there are those who describe Tower of Fantasy as the main rival of Genshin Impact, there are also those who describe it as a shameless copycat. The impression we make is that the truth is somewhere in between. Admittedly the two productions have more than one thing in common, and it’s clear that Hotta Studio drew inspiration from the work of Hoyoverse (for the record, accused of duplicating The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild), but it goes beyond that. In appearance, it is possible to find significant differences that make Tower of Fantasy a unique title in its own way and that can attract a diverse audience.

We had the opportunity to attend a closed presentation of Hotta Studio and preview the game through a pre-launch build. Unfortunately, our trial ended prematurely due to a progress-related error in one of the first missions, preventing us from progressing further, but we are still ready to present our offer to you. First impression preview in Tower of FantasyNow, with the opening of global servers, it is waiting to be able to test it more comprehensively in the coming days.

Setting and Gameplay

Tower of Fantasy, a science fiction fantasy universe, where spaceships, robots and laser guns are the order of the day. Our adventures take place on the alien planet of Aida: Here humanity has built huge towers to mine Omnium, a mineral as valuable as it is dangerous because it causes animals and humans to turn into monsters. This resource is at the center of the interests of different groups between those who want to control and those who want to prevent its use, and we as “Traveler” will be involved in these power struggles despite ourselves.

We’ll be able to choose to impersonate a hero or heroine through some kind of QTE in the opening sequence, a design choice that will certainly be familiar to Genshin Impact players. And not alone. Radial menu, inventory, etc. for quick access to the map. It’s easy to spot other similarities, such as the one-button combat system, as well as other similarities, even just in training. However, it only takes a few minutes to discover the first big differences between the two productions.

The first is that we can fully customize the aesthetic appearance of our virtual avatar. Thanks to’editor In case of a female character, body, skin color, facial features, hairstyle, tattoos, accessories and even the size of the breast can be changed if desired. A handful of outfit presets are also available, and others are unlocked as you progress through the adventure or through premium currency. The developers of Hotta Studio explained to us that the editor is one of the features they are most proud of: the possible combinations are endless and players have completely free rein to create the avatar of their dreams or create characters from anime and manga. If you want, you can share your creations with the community or import a model made by another player. Then there’s “Simulacra”, a type of unique character-based skin that completely changes our character’s appearance, unlocked by acquiring the rarest and most powerful weapons through Tower of Fantasy’s gacha mechanics. In short, the developers pushed hard on aesthetic customization, a feature we’re sure will appeal to many gamers.

Another aspect of Tower of Fantasy, where it is clear that the development team at Hotta Studio is passionate about: battle system. Unlike Genshin Impact (sorry to bring it up again, but the most logical criterion), we control a single character, but this character can always equip three different weapons and switch between them. Each of the 12 weapon types available in the unlock, including swords, spears, whips, pistols, and bows, each have a special ability and unique moves. Variety is certainly not lacking, and the combat system gains depth thanks to the “Unloading Skill”, powerful shots with the most different effects, activated by switching from one weapon to another after filling a special bar, while “Ghost Time” is slowed down. Time out by performing a perfectly timed dodge that lets you punish enemies similar to Bayonetta’s “Witch Time”.

However, for the time being, we’re not particularly impressed with what happened.open the world Tower of Fantasy. The dimensions of the game world are enormous, almost overwhelming in the first few hours, and the map is filled with secondary events such as small environmental puzzles and enemy camps to clear in exchange for chests and various rewards. However, the level design overall looked uninspired and there were elements such as resources and enemies that seemed to be placed in bulk in the scenarios. However, it must be said that we only had the opportunity to explore one of the six regions available at launch, so it’s definitely early to summarize from this perspective. As for the dynamics associated with exploration, Tower of Fantasy is particularly distinctive without any notable jitters: it’s possible to climb almost any vertical wall, glide thanks to a jetpack, and buzz even at full speed as the adventure progresses. , bipedal robotic vehicles and mechanical unicorns. In short, nothing new under the sun.

Multiplayer and monetization systems

The main feature that sets Tower of Fantasy apart from Hoyoverse’s direct competitor is a lot more focus. multiplayer activity. The game world is shared by dozens and dozens of users connected to the same server; they can team up to take down bosses or simply explore the world of Aida in the company. It is also possible to establish guilds and create friends lists with the players we meet during the adventure. For more competitive users, there are also PvP mods to add more spice to the whole. Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to test the multiplayer component of Tower of Fantasy concretely, as we were both stuck in the early stages as originally described and our sessions were sparsely populated given the game servers were up. just flying today will undoubtedly be one of the main aspects that we will deepen in the coming days before publishing the review.

Inevitably, however, another element that we can give a concrete idea by trying the game in more detail is the monetization systems and what effect they have on the game economy, especially by the end of the game. By browsing the game menus, we can guess that the full package is: gacha mechanics Battle Pass with multiple sets of rewards and resources and progressively cheaper items to purchase with premium currency to “pull” the most powerful weapons and associated Simulacra.