Summoners War: Chronicles Review

Com2uS Studios looks to bring the hugely successful gacha formula of Summoner’s War to the massive market of the MMO with the release of Summoners War: Chronicles, a casual blend of mobile-infused gacha mechanics with a broader, more open-world style RPG environment.

Summoners War: Chronicles Review

With other games like Genshin Impact, arguably one of the most successful releases of the last few years, bridging this gap to near-perfect execution, there’s clearly a largely untapped audience for such a game but the monetization driven nature of the gacha experience is often shunned from the more traditional gaming space.

It’s very clear, within a few minutes of booting up the game, Summoners War: Chronicles is mobile-styled gacha before it is MMO. You’re instantly inundated with enticing red exclamation points all over the screen, each hinting at a possible reward or progression unlock. Swapping through various currency menus, checking out the daily mission tabs, grabbing your free daily summon; it’s a formula that’s instantly recognizable and one that will make Summoner’s War fans feel right at home.

Much like Summoners War and its competitors – like Raid: Shadow Legends – much of the game can be entirely automated. The traditionally boring and unimaginative, but entirely necessary, MMO fetch quests play a huge role as you go from NPC to NPC killing monsters and grabbing supplies but you can complete entire quest chains with the occasional push of a button or click of a mouse. Running between quest-givers can be done manually or automated, fighting much the same, it follows the same formula as its mobile counterpart.

The more mundane aspects of advancement, completing story missions, and unlocking new features, is quick and streamlined thanks to the automation options, but these kinds of systems can often be off-putting for the more traditional MMO player that enjoys the grind of the journey as much as the destination. For several hours I was having the game run through the quests for me, grabbing my rewards as they popped up, and navigating the various menus as I was killing enemies. The game has a wealth of information to take in, with mechanics hidden within mechanics. Being able to progress while disseminating that information feels very rewarding.

Then I got to the first boss fight and got absolutely destroyed – several times. This is very much the beloved aspect of these games. Automating the boring grind and then testing your mettle against challenging boss fights. Working out the best team composition, and deciding what builds to use, all in the hope of eventually being able to automate these challenging battles to maximize progression and rewards.

In that sense, Summoners War: Chronicles bridges the gap between the MMO and the gacha-style mobile game. You can, if you wish, manually run through the entire adventure or perhaps, if you’re on the commute to work or need to sort out dinner, you can setup a series of quests to slay 150 creatures and let the game run it for you. Once you’ve begun to progress far enough to start unlocking the dungeons and PvP or group content, there’s endless activities to keep you occupied.

You can raid dungeons with other players, farm for Runes and other upgrades for your own character and your monsters, dive into PvP and test both your offensive and defensive team setups against other players. It takes all of the loved features of Summoners War and throws them into a lively, vibrant, and exciting open-world game.

One of my personal favorite aspects of the game, outside of the gacha adrenaline rush of summoning a 5-star Monster, is the Monster Stories. It’s a very simple system, one hidden away in a journal that some players may often overlook, but it provides a unique and immersive take on the gacha formula. In most of these games they are simply tools to get a job done. Sure, some are far stronger than others and look way cooler, but the stories told are often left to the players as they share huge advancements. In particular, these include dungeons and other areas of progression after pulling an awesome 5-star.

The Monsters Stories offer a more narrative-driven direction as players go on quests to learn more about individual monsters. How did the Vagabond come to be? What are his drives and ambitions? Fundamentally, it’s just another fetch quest, but the insight into characters that are otherwise quite shallow and lacking, well, character, is a really rewarding idea and one that I hope to explore with new additions post-launch.

Summoners War: Chronicles is a fantastic new addition to the Summoners War franchise. While it may not appeal to all fans of the MMO space, it’s definitely going to entice more fans of mobile gaming into bigger and broader open-worlds. There’s already a lot to love about the game, but I cannot wait to see where the developers take it after launch.

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