What you are saying is mostly true, however in my opinion you go a bit too far. After all the offline “free roaming” is still a rollercoaster ride where you get redirected to the right path if you try to explore. The only thing that’s really missing is the moving bushes and no mana cost battles. It’s frustrating, yes, but not such a big issue you’re making it sound. Also the mana cost battles add your mercenary to other people’s Mercenary list so they can use it again. That and the devs not wanting you to progress to quickly are basically the main reasons that online battles cost mana.
I’ve played Neo Monsters hundreds of hours. Evertale’s foundations are basically in that game, and so many things that we as a community tried to push to be added to Neo was instead added to Evertale. Neo Monsters’ online story is not even on the same page than Evertale’s.There were no side quests. No map to move on. Just endless and repetitive battles and some poor to moderate story telling in the middle. Coming from that Evertale online is honestly not that bad.
Mana cost for battles is a huge deal. It literally locks you out of the game until you have restored mana.
Also capturing monsters was a HUUUUUGE selling point when they marketed the game. Every single ad I looked at they showed that you walked around freely and captured monsters. So them removing it in Act 2 is incredibly misleading.
I haven’t played Neo Monsters, and I don’t think Evertale should get a pass because it’s worse in Neo Monsters.
And again, like I said. I’M NOT TELLING PEOPLE TO NOT BUY THE GAME. I don’t know why I have to iterate this point hundreds of times. There’s nothing wrong with letting consumers know what they’re getting into. If this was a minor issue, then I wouldn’t make a review to inform people. But considering that EVERY SINGLE AD shows Act 1 in all its glory, it’s incredibly misleading.
Every image that shows gameplay is from Act 1. And the video attached is also entirely Act 1.
Man I was loving this game a ton until act 2. Agree @Lambi the mana system for story mode is aweful and no more capturing monsters. I would of much rather just played act 1 over but everything is harder and better items, Diablo style. You can only play three battles and locked out for awhile? Really need to have a lot less cost for battles In act 2. I would easily pay for another act like act 1. Take another .99 lol and let me catch more monsters!
Right now basically it’s Neo monsters with better graphics, art, music, UI and story. Works for me. I did beta so I knew exactly what it was gonna be.
Neo monsters pvp and online quests are still far superior obviously but Evertale pvp will take some monster releases to reach same combo potential and flow. I really like the Spirit element as well. It means you can’t mash bloodthirst or bloodfury with every monster. Events will also come with time.
I honestly disagree with the “poor to mediocre story” part, at least in terms of online story. First part of offline story with atrahasis is amazing too.
I was talking specifically of the online part and for me the good parts of story were few and far between. Most of the battles were utterly meaningless and not memorable at all (lack of bosses) . Some flashes of great story was there and Gilgan was an interesting and well written character but overall it felt too inconsistent. Of course just my opinion.
I wish I had seen your review, Lambi. I would never have bought the game if I had known, no matter how cheap it is. It’s about the time spent and how the game goes from a Pokémon clone with good strategic battles (last bosses of act 2, so cool trying to figure them out) to just another “waiting as main gameplay” gacha-is-everything waste of time.
In China’s mobile game market, there are a lot of similar games, and it needs to spend a lot of money to become stronger, but this game gives a lot of diamonds every day, very conscience.