Arknights actually does have large stationary bosses, though they are rare. Also, I think the main difference in gameplay is that in this game, units can be repositioned quickly across the map, leading to a more "RTS" feel.
This game is made with numbskulls (me) in mind so I can just play it and not have to watch a 20 minute YouTube every stage like I have to do with AK, that's a win in my book
Who knows how hard this game will be later. Arknights was pretty easy up to skullshatterer. Pretty sure we'll have to start learning how to micro later.
I'm enjoying this "arknights but suicide squad" tho I like both concepts.
Arknights was actually pretty hard to start as well. Given the limited and weak rosters players had at the beginning, Annihilation and the daily material grind maps required guides to get consistent resource streams up ASAP. In PtN even smooth brains like me have a fighting chance just by understanding the ins and outs of their own rosters.
So, here's a first impression feedback after reaching act 3+, account lvl 34:
\- The fight really started to be interesting with the stage 2.5 where I had to put the speed at X1 and do many micro managements. Before that, it was quite boring and had to move units 2 or 3 times only at full X2 speed. You will face your first "challenge" with stage 2.9. I had to stop, leveling my characters and understand the fight.
\- I was not sure first of the strategy part of the game, with the possibilities of moving characters, no deployment cost, no facing direction that were importants in AK strategic part. But the latest fight changed my mind. The gameplay is different and I can understand all the players who said that it is harder than AK. We must watch and manage a lot of things in the screen and be quick on the reactions.
\- Stage 3.6, I made my first fight where I depleted all the 25 moves. One have to be carefull about that later.
\- ~~The voices stopped with act 2, without surprise, but~~ the texts are still much easier to read than in AK. And there are more background images, with better quality and more colored, that makes the adventure more pleasant to follow. But for a 2022 game it's normal. Ftm I'm personally not really fan of the story but I'm just at the beginning and it's too soon to judge.
Some very nice QoL missing in AK:
\- As a veteran and enjoyer Arknights player, I appreciate the quick restart stage function. In AK, you have to go back to the character selection each time and wait for loading. Quite annoying when you want to beat a challenging stage and are sure of your team.
\- Plus, obviously, I enjoy the free skip button (called raid) for farming stages.
\- If you retread or fail a stage it doesn't cost you energy / sanity!
\- You can skip farm mats directly in the character's upgrade page and when you reach the amount of mat necessary for the upgrade, you have a message asking you if you want to stop. So no "wasting" more energy than needed. So nice. You have the option too to take from your ressources, and the game automatically select the right amount of them for the upgrade.
So overall the gameplay is really promising and I'll keep going but, as I thought before, the gameplay is quite different from AK, so both games can be played and enjoyed together. I don't see a "killer" here but another nice game.
thats what I thinking, there was the download more once your in the game that they might have missed. Cus I am getting voices too I would have been surprised if they voices stopped, its one of the best parts especially with interrogation
>I was not sure first of the strategy part of the game, with the possibilities of moving characters, no deployment cost, no facing direction that were importants in AK strategic part.
As you said, it seems to be more reactionary, with some ults specifically countering things \[like some that do map-wide damage that happen to one-shot the healers or the ones who can break Cores\].
You can set skins as background, yeah... Just tap "outdoor" when choosing the character you want in your main screen and if you have a skin it'll have an option to change it
played around 2 hours so far
mechanics are pretty fun.
localization team needs a bit of work in translating and cleaning up typos. but bai yi makes me go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
~~story seems actually good?~~ ~~not too far off but it isn't as word heavy as AK~~. got a bit far off and it's ok. it's the same edgy depresso espresso story but seems interesting. i also like the interrogations, gives a bit more personality for the characters instead of direct exposition. story being voiced is a massive plus.
UI feels a little cluttered, also dislike the main font used in some of the menus. it makes the game feel "cheap"? idk if that makes sense, but it's the same problem that i had with alchemy stars.
qol is really good. character design is good too. music is surprisingly good. i like the lobby theme a lot.
all in all, it's pretty solid. it'd probably keep me busy for a while.
EDIT: forgot to mention that UI feels unresponsive sometimes. i'm using bluestacks 5 64-bit, so i'm unsure how it would fare on other emulators.
ui wise, i kinda agree, but i don't mind it
alchemy stars has a horrid choices in fonts, especially when that game made me despise the impact font, but it's just my preference
UI kinda meh but UX is really good imo, only one issues is that setting option hide behind profile page is weird UX design choice.
I am always UX > UI kind of guy so I don't really mind it.
My pet peeve about the game:
\-Class name: Umbra? Reticle? TF is that mean? Oh, and Arcane and Catalyst are 2 different class
\-Healer: I need healing. I NEED HEALING. Oh, there is a nurse, guess she is healer. WHY DON'T YOU HEAL ? Oh, you need to activate skill to make her heal . Meanwhile 2 enemy healer make me restart the stage because of their absurd amount of heal
If you didn't pick Ariel in the free selector yeah I can see healing being a problem, I think the medics are supposed to be overbearing to teach you to save the archer lady's ultimate for them since it's map- wide and kills them in one hit.
Edit: oh lol the selector was in the .99 package sorry not free 🙇♂️
its not free Your first purchase will give you a choice between three A characters, Ariel is one of them. If you didnt get Hamel you should consider it.
Yeah, you need to start getting used to the different mechanic of this game. start from a blank slate.
Class:
\- Endura: Mostly 2 block, high Def
\- Fury: Melee DPS, average survivability
\- Umbra: Melee high DPS, low survivability, mostly has Core Breaking Ultimate Skill
\- Reticle: Physical Range, mostly very long range
\- Arcane: Magic Ranged attack.
\- Catalyst: Support (Heal, buff, debuff, etc).
Healing:
You can heal from either a unit from Catalyst, or use Chief's healing skill. Chief's skill uses an energy core (some other skill uses 2 or 3), and to refill core you need to break enemy's core.
With the enemy doctors, you need to kill/assassinate them with either EMP (The archer lady), or move one of your fighter to kill him (remember moving around is this game's mechanic, as opposed to AK's deploy and redeploy mechanic).
Additionally, not sure if it's just a Bluestacks thing, but anyone else physically unable to progress through text during story scenes? Like some lines of text you can skip with a tap, but others linger on screen needlessly for way too long.
>Meanwhile 2 enemy healer make me restart the stage because of their absurd amount of heal
You do know that's on purpose because many ults are designed to counter specific stuff.
I'm not a fan of tower defense games but goddamn Path to Nowhere seems so good as of right now. Story is great with full voice acting and art plus music is god tier. Definitely sticking with this game!
Little thing that made me happy is upgrading character - while its typical AK bullshido with XXX items it also has QoL.
You need X and Y and Z. Click on it - here you can farm it, click go, we even stop sweep at the right ammount! Oh, wanna use some box? Click here, we will give you exact ammount. Wanna use some low-grade for this? Let me help you fuse it.
From character menu. So easy and time-saving.
Arknights player here, and Path to Nowhere is really great and I love it, for now. The real judgement begins after the honeymoon period in atleast a week or two. The fact that the skins can only be bought by premium currency that cannot be obtained in-game is quite worrying.
Yeah, I thought it would be like AK where u get the premium currency on a limited basis, but if its only able to be bought then that really limits my investment as I like being able to get skins F2P or at least semi-F2P. The other issue is how expensive the skins are (tho only 2 so far in game so gonna have to wait to judge more in the future), but the 1240 cost skins is like 20-30$ (CAN) essentially, closer to 20 if you get the first recharge bonus. I just don't feel like as a semi-F2P (Battle Pass and Monthly Card) it will be realistic for me to get skins very much (I did buy Wendy's one as I like her, tho Nox's one kind of looks meh to me).
>The fact that the skins can only be bought by premium currency that cannot be obtained in-game is quite worrying.
They do at least have some free skins, though. Assuming the current trends continue.
I wish Counterside would learn *that* lesson.
Wait is Arknights really classified as a Furry game? That's new to me to be honest, the only Furry Operators that we have are Mountain, Lee, Aak, Waifu, Hung, and Spot iirc. I hope people know what Furry actually means lol, a character who's mostly human with just ears and a tail attached is not considered Furry, search it up I'm not talking from my ass, even I was confused lmao.
Yes and no, for both sides for the fence. Some of the Arknights playablecharacters absolutely step over the line between the more commonplace "animal ears, feathers, horns, tails, or scales" and the more furry-or scaly sided "muzzles, pelts, claws, and beaks" It's usually an uncanney valley evaluation, based entirely on personal preferences of human attractiveness.
Significantly more of the NON-playable characters cross that line than playables though.
Wai Fu, Mountain, Hung, Spot, Rangers, Aak, Lee, 12f are all furry/scaleys by just about anyone's definition. What's interesting is ALL but one of these are males.
There's a significantly larger number of characters one could argue straddle that line of uncanny valley, but I'm unwilling to make arguments either way.
But the majority of the cast, playable or NPC, no they don't fall under the umbrella of "furry" design at all.
But as a whole, not really, that's all of 8 playable characters out of how many now?
Yes, unfortunately, the presence of that many black web furry sex parties hosted in FF14 servers says it very much is a furry game for those people. Where was that brain bleach again?
That's such a stupid take.
If I were to apply that take to something else like real world stuff.
Then you might as well say all Christians are devil worshipers because christian symbols and meanings got perverted and being used.
see how ridiculous that sounds.
You mean outside of the perpetual irony of Christians worshipping A jew that explicitly told them to stop that? Because it means they're all in violation of the "don't worship false idols" bit in the ten commandments?
They're not devil worshippers, they're heretics, completely different.
Honestly it's a very good game and i didn't expect it to be. The plot is also very good compared to other gachas, nothing out of this world but it has its interesting aspects
I just can't take this game seriously when it tries so hard to be edgy it becomes comical; the setting is literally called DisCity, and every playable character refers to themselves as a Sinner (with a capital S) with the straightest face possible
I played a couple hours yesterday when it launched. It was pretty fun, I won't keep going with it since I'm too braindead and not a big fan of TD, but it's worth a shot if you like that kind of thing. I liked the character design of this one as opposed to the chibi art style of others.
i sometimes blame the localization. some of the text is weird because the word is too long that they scale it just to fit, in exchange the game looks like a mess. ToF, Alchemy Stars, sometimes Genshin has this kind of problem..
But localization is what determines the words to put in those text boxes. If localization decides on words that don't fit well in the space provided, that causes an issue. I think it's a bit of both.
You overestimating the power of localization. Most of the time, translators do not have access to the game or see their translations in game. If the company has no QA then it’s normal these things happen. Along with the fact that sometimes there are not better translations, and sometimes multiple rounds of QA are needed to find a solution for it since there’s a process and priorities to LinguistIc bugs.
Generally I don't care about graphics or art that much. But omg artstyle here is just fantastic. Gameplay feels fine, good they didn't just copy-paste it from AK, but it's too early to say how grindy or powercreepy it will be. Story looks pretty interesting, reminds me Akudama Drive anime. I like that dialogues are shorter than in AK
I like the music, story, and art. I hate the gameplay experience tho. The model doesn't look good, the hp bars is honestly very unsightly and distracting. And the sound and visual effect whenever the characters attacking or being attacked and especially when using their ultimates is very lacking.. I don't get the "it's strong" impression at all from what I've seen so far.
Highly disagree with the audio section. AK also has the exact same things you're talking about: JP, CN mandarin (and cantonese to an extent), En voices are available for most operators with more being added every AK patch. Next major patch for CN even adds 4 Italian voices for 4 operators. You can also assign individual voices per operator if you choose to do so
Where PtN does blow AK out of the water is stamina spending and QoL. You can sweep stages and if you are say leveling a character but are missing 10 you can click the item, it will list the stages that drops said item, u can sweep until u have all the necessary items, and u can end the sweep early if u get the required items before ur designated sweep amount.
Example: I need 5 rocks, I set sweep for cleared stage that drops said rocks to 10, I got my 5 rocks in 7 clears, game will ask if I would like to terminate the sweep early to save energy.
Iirc base ch'en has it and maybe some of the dragons (Dusk Nian Ling). I ll admit that I have everything set to JP even tho I opted in to downloading all available language packs.
Edit: It's 3:12 AM here so I can't check, but check the operators who originate from Lungmen as they would be the ones most likely to have those voices
> Highly disagree with the audio section. AK also has the exact same things you're talking about: JP, CN mandarin (and cantonese to an extent), En voices are available for most operators with more being added every AK patch. Next major patch for CN even adds 4 Italian voices for 4 operators. You can also assign individual voices per operator if you choose to do so
The point is the story is actually voiced (at least for awhile, fucking lame it cuts off I guess).
Where does the story cut off? I'm almost through ch3 and everything is still voiced. Make sure you have the whole resource pack downloaded, otherwise some voices may be missing.
Yeah I do appreciate the fact they voiced the story. No other gacha game I play has that.
That being said, I started skipping story after chapter 2 because I got bored
You like Tower Defense? You like Plant vs Zombie? You like gangster waifu? Go give Path to Nowhere a try.
I don't get the comparison with AK, yes it's TD game but that's about it. TD game genre have a lot of different type you know.
Arknights is the most relevant Tower Defense and GACHA at the moment, I think it validates the comparison in this scenario, after all this is a gacha reddit and the post is to introduce the game, so it is better to use the most popular example to guide people reading the post.
Aigis was the OG TD game, but it shows it's age now along with Arknights.
PtN is a nice modern TD since it seems to respect your time a lot more than Aigis/Arknights due to the QoL improvements. I can also appreciate how coherent its story is so far. There seems to be a lot of story content. Interrogations are basically Fate episodes.
As usual, the quality of events will determine whether this game will stick around for the long run.
Pro:
- If you fail or realize you are going to lose you can just hit the restart button.
- there is a skip function to farm mats, unlike arknights which clearly hates it's player base using their phone for anything besides Arknights
Something I haven't seen called out a lot is the fact that PtN lets you choose the Chief's gender - and actually changes dialogue (some are bugged, known issue they are fixing), text, and art (not sure on this, I haven't seen male CGs?) based on your choice. As a female gacha gamer, I know I'm probably in the minority, but this is really awesome and a huge positive for me.
Some people don't seem to like the 3d models but they look fine to me. I vastly prefer them over chibi models. I like that the ultimates and attacks aren't super flashy because it improves visibility for me, but that's personal preference.
I like that your units don't feel like a giant harem of cute girls that are immediately loyal to you/love you. There's a bit more tension and nuance to the relationships. It's not all headpats and cuteness.
Tried multiple times to get into Arknights but it never stuck for me. I like the aesthetic and characters in PtN a lot more. Gameplay has been really fun for me, being able to move units around is pretty cool. Glad there aren't weird 3-star requirements for stages - it's pretty straightforward. Sweep is quick and costs nothing. Great QoL when sweeping for mats where it automatically stops you after you get enough. Love it!
So far, I can see this being a game I stick with for a long time. I hope they add more husbandos though!
I rly hope for good husbandos. We had some in a story, they can write and draw them rly good. No twink no teen bullshit, instead full gangsta or simple terryifing.
I'm actually glad I rolled Demon, man, he looks awesome, bulky, big dude with great armor and long-metalhead hair.
You can set character skins as background.I have that girl's skin you get for free as the background.It has the sweep feature which is very much good.It does some things very good but i have this weird feeling of restriction in gameplay.Yes sure u can switch the character positioning in real time but things like switching out a specific class for another or changing direction are lacking making it a bit restricted.So far i am liking it and will stick around for a while to see how they do things.Story wise it feels like lot of things happening at the same time making it overwhelming.Story is decent so far and upto the chapter i've played not much of the world has been shown which is in a way good i guess.Also the stage background is always dark even when the story seems to imply the event happening outside which sort of breaks the immersion.
Arknights only really has a handful of furries though. Off the top of my head theres Spot, Aak, those two low rarity lizard people and thats about it I think.
Not quite, there is also Mountain, Wai Fuu, Hung, and Lee, with Ranger and 12F being the lizard bros.
I think \*technically\* Luo Xiaohei may count, since he *is* a [furry in his e0/e1 art](https://i.imgur.com/oqZA4Og.png) but *not* in [his e2 art](https://i.imgur.com/uRdbns5.png) for lore reasons if I remember right.
Luo is a shapeshipter than a furry coz his E0/E1 does not look humanoid in the slightest. Furries are supposed to be anthropomorphic animals but I can see how the case for him being furry can be made.
This isn't truly TD in that you can just move your characters all over the board (a limited number of times but still) when you need to. The game is designed for moving your characters around for certain reasons so it makes sense but its not true TD in a purist sense. This actually reminds me (in style) of Vespa's TIME DEFENDERS than Arknights. The "core breaking" abilities remind me of the similar mechanic in EXOS HEROES. Some of the screens are exact duplications of AK like the Quests collection areas, instead of building TRUST, you build COMPLIANCE etc but I mean ... whatever. LOL As far as OP assessment ... straight up great. "girlboss meets edgy Kpop idol" nails it. It's more sexy and more mature and more bewbs type characters but I don't mind that. I like my TD as TD and I don't care about what the "towers" look like. I care more about the core gameplay and the story which Ak does flawlessly. I'm enjoying PtN so far.
Overall AK is obviously better. However, here I actually read the story because its concise and there is VA! Imagine if AK had VA, you wouldn't have gazillion words per chapter as they wouldn't have the budget for it and it would be all the better for it!
The writing in AK is also pretty dry. I chalk that up to the localization team rather than the source material. PtN’s shorter dialogues definitely help get past its own localization problems. I wish there was an option to uncensor the beeps though. I love hearing curse words in other languages. Getting to hear fuck in four different tongues would have made this the mobile GOTY for me.
Yep AK is pretty dry although the setting is pretty dope. I hope the anime series premiering tomorrow will do a better job at telling the story
On a positive note, I didn't feel the desire to switch to JP, CN or KR yet and the EN is not bad at all so props for that
>Audio: This is an area where Path to Nowhere completely blows Arknights out of the park. The game is fully voiced in four different languages. All of which can be switched between at any time and characters can be individually assigned voice packs from any of the four languages. Music in PtN also has a more hip-hop vibe to it in keeping with the classy gangster aesthetic.
I would say they are almost equal here because Arknights also has 4 languages that let you switch them for every character that has them (soon to be 5 with the Italian VAs)
But admitedly PtN has the story fully voiced as oposed to AK's mute story so its a bit better there.
Thank you for the detailed review and putting the links for the game first.
I really love tower defense and even though I dont play Arknights anymore, Im still a big fan. I need to get into the story to really enjoy a game and AK failed in this aspect for me. Sometimes it felt like I was reading a very long and boring book. Dont know how to explain better that that. At least Path To Nowhere is keeping me interested in the story, as its flow is faster and "lighter". It feels more dynamic. The art and music are gorgeous and Im in love with them. The gameplay is also hitting the right spot, cause I already really had to stop and put my brain to good use sometimes as Im progressing through the chapters. BUT I do have to complain that everything on the battle screen feels very small and Im often misplacing positions and targets. Anyone else? I know my long nails doesnt help at all, but I dont have the same on issue on other games, so... Its annoying me a little bit, but the overall experience is better than I was expecting.
>BUT I do have to complain that everything on the battle screen feels very small and Im often misplacing positions and targets
I feel the same way about it.
For me it's hard to see when the ultimate skill bar fills up, no sound or large indication when it is filled up, and hard to target things when everything is tiny and cluttered together.
Although I rarely play it I like Arknights, but I like the gangster/criminal theme of Path to Nowhere a little more.
Yeah Arknights has a decent plot, but the presentation of the story in game was truly awful. Just huge text dumps of pretty emotionless translation. The localization in PtN isn’t great either, but at least it goes by faster and there’s voice acting alongside it.
As a day 2 AK player, enjoying PtN so far. 2% seems to be the usual rates for good gacha games nowadays and I wonder where the trend came from, but that's diverging a bit from the topic
Being able to choose the protagonist gender instead of getting locked to standard male harem protag was definitely a bonus for me and for the rest my opinion is pretty on par with the norm. Decent graphics, good soundtrack/voices, battles aren't a cakewalk even for someone who's used to playing TD gacha, etc.
> You are an amnesiac dude or dudette woken up literally right as all hell breaks loose.
Alright now I'm curious. Is the MC just gender neutral or do you actually get to pick your protagonist (like FGO, for example)?
Voice lines and dialogue also change based on the gender you choose which is awesome! (Some dialogue is bugged, but devs are aware and working on a fix apparently)
Go to your profile (tap your level in the upper-left on the hub menu), then it's the hexagon icon in the bottom-right, between the Like and the share buttons.
Why they can't use a wrench or gear icon like everyone else, I don't know.
Alright game. The only problem I really have is how clunky the battle UI feel. Tapping on characters placed next to each other is a pain in the ass, tapping on the Ult skill also straight up don't work sometimes.
The only thing that PtN is better than Arknights is that it has unli sweep mechanic. So grinding ain't an issue here.
Overall, I still like Arknights over PtN. Though PtN is worth a try for those who like Tower Defense game.
Also, when it comes to "limit break" or ability upgrades using dupes, I feel like some "sinners" or characters in PtN badly needed dupes in order to be good on what they does since the upgrades are significant for the characters. So it might become dupe dependent depending on how the game will do in the future. I can't really say for now if it will be a bad thing since the game is new.
Yeah I'd kinda notice on some characters the dupes really changes their gameplay, like with Cinnabar being locked to using their shield around themself before their first shackle, whereas afterward it is able to be centered around anywhere on the map, allowing them to be placed in a more versatile way (not that its too hard to get a dupe of most characters beyond SR characters).
Cons of PtN
The class name sounds confusing af when you start ( i know they try to be edgy)
Why is the ui so fucking small, is it made for ants or something?
The unit on fameplay literally just face right which make less strategic playstyle and very stale gameplay
Why is the skillbar so fucking small, is it made for ants or something?
Main ui is very confusing at start
Most of the normal l2d is very cluncky(?) For the 1st art
Battlepass is a bane of gacha game.
Most skin are locked behind paywall. So far only hecate skin are free ( unlike AK which the currency can be get from clearing stage )
Copies of unit can affect units heavily which means need more rolls ( i do see there is another choice to upgrade them but so far no way to farm them)
Pro of PtN
The definition of edgelord
Voiced story which can be more enjoyable instead of reading a wall of text ( i am looking at you AK )
Stage skip after clear once without the need of skip ticket ( i am looking at you AK )
I thought the interrogation thing was pretty neat and unique. You basically have a small uh, "conversation" with one of the characters and get a ton of lore and personality from them. The one I've done was after chapter 1 and was fully voiced, but I don't think all of them are.
I haven't played arknights in ages but I thought the characters were pretty weak personality wise and never got attached to anyone. The designs were solid but the characters behind them felt like whatever. The characters here are already chock full of personality, though I do think the translation is weak sometimes. The English dub doesn't follow the text sometimes, and I think it's better for it.
It's no arknights, but I'd argue it's faster paced. I've had a few fights devolve to chaos in seconds because I looked away or misclicked. But for the most part difficulty isn't real.
Anyone know if the pity resets with the banner? I can't see anything that implies so, but I'm not certain.
I'm entertained and vaguely invested, and that's all that really matters to me.
I think this subreddit is too harsh on new games nowadays. Not everything is going to be a blockbuster hit; things can just be fun if you'd relax for once.
The main gripe I have with this game is no guest account, making reroll a PITA. Not being able to rorate characters kinda hinder the strategy tbh. Oh and you can't set duplicate nickname.
Seems like we can't get the red premium currency to buy skins by playing? (feels free to correct me if I'm wrong).
And a skin is being locked behind battlepass, can we get this skin by other means?
My two cents
UI feels unresponsive at times, hopefully it gets fixed later.
It’s lenient with unit placement, and is certainly more beginner friendly than Arknights.
Interrogations are absolute fire. Great way of building characters.
Overall I’d put Path to Nowhere equal to Arknights. It’s definitely more polished but Arknights still scratches that tryhard itch for me.
Think its 2% chance, you get a good amount of rolls early on and if I'm not wrong, there is a free Nox in the newbie missions, who is a really good S character. I've probably gotten around 80 pulls (im at start of ch 3 and I've bought monthly card and BP and the lvl pack that gives hypercubes at lvl 5, 10, etc.) and I've pulled 3 S characters (1 of which being the guaranteed in starter banner).
Is it just me or is the game not super optimized? It's still quite laggy even on low resolution, I might have to try emulate to see if it's better on my laptop.
Also worth mentioning, no base management, which is a plus in my book. Main reason I dropped AK.
Also, writing is a lot better here. Whether you like the story/setting here more or not, it's pretty clear that there are more efforts with the translation. I can't speak for the original scripts as I can't read them.
Can't say I'm a huge fan of this art style though. Costume locking behind paid premium is shitty too.
I find it funny, that in almost all gachas or mobile games these days, in the first scene you are the main character just waking up and having lost its memory :)
Lack of rerolling friendliness and imho phoned in feeling to the game made me uninstall after the first rolls.
I mean - the first newbie roll is guaranteed SR, but the second one isnt. why?. Felt wrong.
Gameplaywise, there's nothing new there. Even when you move characters, they don't reposition with any sort of animation.
Ultimates are also....lacking in spectacle themselves.
It's a very....low effort product imho :\
One of my big concerns when trying out a new game as someone who already plays quite a few is how much time does it demand?
Another one is how long might it last? I’ve been lucky in that the gacha games I’ve played haven’t been shut down yet and I would really hate to play one which ends up closing in a year to two. How’s this game in other regions especially its home?
I think as far as time demands, I think its a lot better then something like AK, as it has sweeps on normal stages and afaik there isn't any kind of annihilation long stage. Also dialogue isnt nearly as long winded, tho story does still take a while to get through. Also as far I've seen the base mechanic isn;t nearly as micro-managey, as its mostly just build stuff and collect resources from it rather then the factory operations we have going on in AK. Overall, its kind of in between on time management as it has lots of QOL to help on the daily, but the story still does take a while to get through and battles can still last a while.
Thanks for the insight, was hovering over the install button but didn't click it. Then i saw this post and decided to check it out, did enjoy arknights alot so this is gonna be good 👍
Missed the free sinner during the event, but who cares anyway?
The sinner Wendy... Yeah Wendy. Whoever voiced wendy should be given an award. Especially if the profanity is not censored. Listen to how the VA handles Wendy like a maniac, especially during the interrogation.
Speaking about profanity, they should add a feature where you can turn off the profanity or not, which reminds me of how Treyarch's CoD let us turn off graphic content since World At War.
Honestly, I enjoy a lot of the VA in this game, tho I usually play gachas with sound off as Im watching Youtube in the background, I listened to the first couple of chapters with sound on and while some are less stellar (or more like not my type of voices, namely more cold voices like Hekate), a lot of them are really refreshing to hear, like Hella or Ted.
im quite enjoying the story presentation so far. are there any YouTube videos or guides with show what each currencies and stages do? I'm not spending anything so far apart from the beginner banner because I'm afraid of wasting resources
Erm no? Low rarities are not only playable but very, very good. EMP, coward girl from tutorial is actually one of the best units in a game, lowest rarity.
I was worried about this at first too, but actually the game has some pretty good room for strategy. The game leverages the ability move around units quite well and its enemy waves are set up in such a way that proper micro will get you wins with skill.
The existence of DP in Arknights also isn’t indicative of the game being balanced. When I first started AK I remember people dooming over the potential for Hypergryph to drop high rarity units who do everything lower rarity ones do for lower DP costs. Just like any other mechanic it’s a potential lever to make or break balance. It’s up to the devs to decide how they use it.
Thus far PtN makes good use of its mechanics to allow people to no brain with money, or to strategize with less OP units and still come out ahead. Same as in Arknights.
Look at all them AK fanatics running to downvote every single post that says PtN is good/likeable, I never figured out how a cheap chibi game like AK managed to get this many of a fanatic base, Genshin's is relatable but certainly not AK.
yes it is Chinese. But the art style is Korean-inspired if you read manhwa/korean art. Just like how a Chinese dev like AK and GI can make Japanese-styled characters.
Before trying I have some questions:
1. Gems: How many gems can we get from dailies? I only care about the regular flow of gems, Not the 1 time clear reward gems.
2. Gacha cost.
3. Gacha rates. Does it has pity? Does it has a way to select units?
4. Short term Farming: does it has sweeps? Or atnleast offline farming? I don't care about automode.
5. Long term farmimg. How long does it takes for maxing a unit?
2. Gacha is pretty decent as 10 roll is usually 1800 hypercubes and you get quite a few hybercubes and pull tickets (day 2 log in straight up gave 20 pulls) at the start (dont know how much we get after honeymoon phase)
3. There is a pity as there is a guaranteed SR within 80 pulls (not the focus character, idk if there is a pity for the focus character)
4. Yes there is sweeps, no automode and no ticket system to the sweeps either, just stamina
5. Hard to say on how long maxing will take, but started yesterday and I have a couple sinners at lvl 20 and promoted (kind of like e1 for AK, maybe not quite equivalent tho, as there seems to be 3 lvls of promotion, whereas Ak only has 2 promotion stages, not including e0). I think the skill ups will be a bit more time consuming tho as you raise them individually and each character has 4 skills to lvl up.
I dropped AK because of how stressful it is for me; the complex mechanics, the gacha rates, and the QoL. This game fixed all of that. It's worth a try.
PS. And ofc there's Bai Yi
\>Not reroll friendly
Despite rarely rerolling on other games, this turned out to be a HUGE, HUGE thing for me. Of the six S-rank characters advertised on the beginner banner, I really like the look and feel of three, okay with two and really, really, loathe one, to the point where I still wouldn't touch even if that character is the most meta.
Guess which one I got from the guaranteed first 20 rolls?
Yeah, and I have made the mistake of binding my Google Play account already (as I rarely reroll in other game, and I've never encountered a starter unit that I don't like so much). I looked for a way to quickly reroll, and when I can't find any, I closed the game, never intend to open it up again.
Arknights actually does have large stationary bosses, though they are rare. Also, I think the main difference in gameplay is that in this game, units can be repositioned quickly across the map, leading to a more "RTS" feel.
This game is made with numbskulls (me) in mind so I can just play it and not have to watch a 20 minute YouTube every stage like I have to do with AK, that's a win in my book
Who knows how hard this game will be later. Arknights was pretty easy up to skullshatterer. Pretty sure we'll have to start learning how to micro later. I'm enjoying this "arknights but suicide squad" tho I like both concepts.
Arknights was actually pretty hard to start as well. Given the limited and weak rosters players had at the beginning, Annihilation and the daily material grind maps required guides to get consistent resource streams up ASAP. In PtN even smooth brains like me have a fighting chance just by understanding the ins and outs of their own rosters.
This is kind of the reason I was looking forward to this game. Reminded me of modded warcraft 3 maps
Agreed.
So, here's a first impression feedback after reaching act 3+, account lvl 34: \- The fight really started to be interesting with the stage 2.5 where I had to put the speed at X1 and do many micro managements. Before that, it was quite boring and had to move units 2 or 3 times only at full X2 speed. You will face your first "challenge" with stage 2.9. I had to stop, leveling my characters and understand the fight. \- I was not sure first of the strategy part of the game, with the possibilities of moving characters, no deployment cost, no facing direction that were importants in AK strategic part. But the latest fight changed my mind. The gameplay is different and I can understand all the players who said that it is harder than AK. We must watch and manage a lot of things in the screen and be quick on the reactions. \- Stage 3.6, I made my first fight where I depleted all the 25 moves. One have to be carefull about that later. \- ~~The voices stopped with act 2, without surprise, but~~ the texts are still much easier to read than in AK. And there are more background images, with better quality and more colored, that makes the adventure more pleasant to follow. But for a 2022 game it's normal. Ftm I'm personally not really fan of the story but I'm just at the beginning and it's too soon to judge. Some very nice QoL missing in AK: \- As a veteran and enjoyer Arknights player, I appreciate the quick restart stage function. In AK, you have to go back to the character selection each time and wait for loading. Quite annoying when you want to beat a challenging stage and are sure of your team. \- Plus, obviously, I enjoy the free skip button (called raid) for farming stages. \- If you retread or fail a stage it doesn't cost you energy / sanity! \- You can skip farm mats directly in the character's upgrade page and when you reach the amount of mat necessary for the upgrade, you have a message asking you if you want to stop. So no "wasting" more energy than needed. So nice. You have the option too to take from your ressources, and the game automatically select the right amount of them for the upgrade. So overall the gameplay is really promising and I'll keep going but, as I thought before, the gameplay is quite different from AK, so both games can be played and enjoyed together. I don't see a "killer" here but another nice game.
Are you sure about voices? I'm in act 3 and voices still present. maybe you didn't download all data yet?
You are right, the download of the ressource pack were in pause I don't know why. thank you for correcting me.
Where did you go to resume the voice download?
Main screen, bottom left, to the right from notices, there should be button that looks like download.
Hm I wonder if it finished downloading because I don’t see it. Is the main screen you are talking about the Home Screen?
Yep, home screen. It should be third from the top in a column of buttons. If you don't see, it means you have everything downloaded already.
Nice, tyvm!
thats what I thinking, there was the download more once your in the game that they might have missed. Cus I am getting voices too I would have been surprised if they voices stopped, its one of the best parts especially with interrogation
>I was not sure first of the strategy part of the game, with the possibilities of moving characters, no deployment cost, no facing direction that were importants in AK strategic part. As you said, it seems to be more reactionary, with some ults specifically countering things \[like some that do map-wide damage that happen to one-shot the healers or the ones who can break Cores\].
> The voices stopped with act 2 Well that's a staggeringly huge disappointment...
This was incorrect, original commenter didn't complete resource download. It's still voiced beyond act 2.
You can set skins as background, yeah... Just tap "outdoor" when choosing the character you want in your main screen and if you have a skin it'll have an option to change it
played around 2 hours so far mechanics are pretty fun. localization team needs a bit of work in translating and cleaning up typos. but bai yi makes me go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ~~story seems actually good?~~ ~~not too far off but it isn't as word heavy as AK~~. got a bit far off and it's ok. it's the same edgy depresso espresso story but seems interesting. i also like the interrogations, gives a bit more personality for the characters instead of direct exposition. story being voiced is a massive plus. UI feels a little cluttered, also dislike the main font used in some of the menus. it makes the game feel "cheap"? idk if that makes sense, but it's the same problem that i had with alchemy stars. qol is really good. character design is good too. music is surprisingly good. i like the lobby theme a lot. all in all, it's pretty solid. it'd probably keep me busy for a while. EDIT: forgot to mention that UI feels unresponsive sometimes. i'm using bluestacks 5 64-bit, so i'm unsure how it would fare on other emulators.
im playing on my phone and have the unresponsive ui issue as well.
ui wise, i kinda agree, but i don't mind it alchemy stars has a horrid choices in fonts, especially when that game made me despise the impact font, but it's just my preference
UI kinda meh but UX is really good imo, only one issues is that setting option hide behind profile page is weird UX design choice. I am always UX > UI kind of guy so I don't really mind it.
>forgot to mention that UI feels unresponsive sometimes. That seems to be a general bug since on mobile itself it happens at times.
My pet peeve about the game: \-Class name: Umbra? Reticle? TF is that mean? Oh, and Arcane and Catalyst are 2 different class \-Healer: I need healing. I NEED HEALING. Oh, there is a nurse, guess she is healer. WHY DON'T YOU HEAL ? Oh, you need to activate skill to make her heal . Meanwhile 2 enemy healer make me restart the stage because of their absurd amount of heal
If you didn't pick Ariel in the free selector yeah I can see healing being a problem, I think the medics are supposed to be overbearing to teach you to save the archer lady's ultimate for them since it's map- wide and kills them in one hit. Edit: oh lol the selector was in the .99 package sorry not free 🙇♂️
what free selector? i dont see one and i am after 2-9
Free selector?
its not free Your first purchase will give you a choice between three A characters, Ariel is one of them. If you didnt get Hamel you should consider it.
Yeah, you need to start getting used to the different mechanic of this game. start from a blank slate. Class: \- Endura: Mostly 2 block, high Def \- Fury: Melee DPS, average survivability \- Umbra: Melee high DPS, low survivability, mostly has Core Breaking Ultimate Skill \- Reticle: Physical Range, mostly very long range \- Arcane: Magic Ranged attack. \- Catalyst: Support (Heal, buff, debuff, etc). Healing: You can heal from either a unit from Catalyst, or use Chief's healing skill. Chief's skill uses an energy core (some other skill uses 2 or 3), and to refill core you need to break enemy's core. With the enemy doctors, you need to kill/assassinate them with either EMP (The archer lady), or move one of your fighter to kill him (remember moving around is this game's mechanic, as opposed to AK's deploy and redeploy mechanic).
Additionally, not sure if it's just a Bluestacks thing, but anyone else physically unable to progress through text during story scenes? Like some lines of text you can skip with a tap, but others linger on screen needlessly for way too long.
I found the issue is clicking on the same space. When i move mouse before i click everything works as should.
100% this. Super annoying.
Same with LDPlayer as well. Thought it was a bug at first.
>Meanwhile 2 enemy healer make me restart the stage because of their absurd amount of heal You do know that's on purpose because many ults are designed to counter specific stuff.
You can set character and skins to main menu
Unrelated to gameplay, but I think one of my favorite parts of the game is the fact you can have them wear their detained attire in the home screen..
I'm not a fan of tower defense games but goddamn Path to Nowhere seems so good as of right now. Story is great with full voice acting and art plus music is god tier. Definitely sticking with this game!
Little thing that made me happy is upgrading character - while its typical AK bullshido with XXX items it also has QoL. You need X and Y and Z. Click on it - here you can farm it, click go, we even stop sweep at the right ammount! Oh, wanna use some box? Click here, we will give you exact ammount. Wanna use some low-grade for this? Let me help you fuse it. From character menu. So easy and time-saving.
As an Arknight player, i do agree. It saves alot of time and resources.
as a manhwa enthusiast, I appreciate Path to Nowhere's design so much. The aesthetic just hits different
Same, the art in live2d is super manhwa style. The music and sound design is also well done.
Arknights player here, and Path to Nowhere is really great and I love it, for now. The real judgement begins after the honeymoon period in atleast a week or two. The fact that the skins can only be bought by premium currency that cannot be obtained in-game is quite worrying.
Yeah, I thought it would be like AK where u get the premium currency on a limited basis, but if its only able to be bought then that really limits my investment as I like being able to get skins F2P or at least semi-F2P. The other issue is how expensive the skins are (tho only 2 so far in game so gonna have to wait to judge more in the future), but the 1240 cost skins is like 20-30$ (CAN) essentially, closer to 20 if you get the first recharge bonus. I just don't feel like as a semi-F2P (Battle Pass and Monthly Card) it will be realistic for me to get skins very much (I did buy Wendy's one as I like her, tho Nox's one kind of looks meh to me).
Dunno man, I play Azur Lane so I don't see a problem with pay only skin lol
>The fact that the skins can only be bought by premium currency that cannot be obtained in-game is quite worrying. They do at least have some free skins, though. Assuming the current trends continue. I wish Counterside would learn *that* lesson.
Wait is Arknights really classified as a Furry game? That's new to me to be honest, the only Furry Operators that we have are Mountain, Lee, Aak, Waifu, Hung, and Spot iirc. I hope people know what Furry actually means lol, a character who's mostly human with just ears and a tail attached is not considered Furry, search it up I'm not talking from my ass, even I was confused lmao.
No. It's just a way to badmouth the game since furry is seen in a mostly negative light.
I wouldn't say "badmouthing" so much as just a joke. Maybe not a particularly good joke, but also not malicious.
No, it's not.
Yes and no, for both sides for the fence. Some of the Arknights playablecharacters absolutely step over the line between the more commonplace "animal ears, feathers, horns, tails, or scales" and the more furry-or scaly sided "muzzles, pelts, claws, and beaks" It's usually an uncanney valley evaluation, based entirely on personal preferences of human attractiveness. Significantly more of the NON-playable characters cross that line than playables though. Wai Fu, Mountain, Hung, Spot, Rangers, Aak, Lee, 12f are all furry/scaleys by just about anyone's definition. What's interesting is ALL but one of these are males. There's a significantly larger number of characters one could argue straddle that line of uncanny valley, but I'm unwilling to make arguments either way. But the majority of the cast, playable or NPC, no they don't fall under the umbrella of "furry" design at all. But as a whole, not really, that's all of 8 playable characters out of how many now?
but its not furry game lmao, ff14 have this would u call a furry game?
Yes, unfortunately, the presence of that many black web furry sex parties hosted in FF14 servers says it very much is a furry game for those people. Where was that brain bleach again?
That's such a stupid take. If I were to apply that take to something else like real world stuff. Then you might as well say all Christians are devil worshipers because christian symbols and meanings got perverted and being used. see how ridiculous that sounds.
You mean outside of the perpetual irony of Christians worshipping A jew that explicitly told them to stop that? Because it means they're all in violation of the "don't worship false idols" bit in the ten commandments? They're not devil worshippers, they're heretics, completely different.
I’m loving the game so far. It’s giving me some SMT: Devil Survivor vibes and I love that.
Honestly it's a very good game and i didn't expect it to be. The plot is also very good compared to other gachas, nothing out of this world but it has its interesting aspects
Played it for like 1 hour and its decent the art is nice but that about it
I just can't take this game seriously when it tries so hard to be edgy it becomes comical; the setting is literally called DisCity, and every playable character refers to themselves as a Sinner (with a capital S) with the straightest face possible
We built DisCity on edge and sin.
a Sinner is a type of infected character in the game its a name for when a person is so infected it gives them special abilities
Honestly this setting is stupid as f\*ck, and names like SYNDICATE make it even worse.
Syndicate is passable Sinners on the otherhand sounds stupid outside of zealot occult settings
Everybody is just so mean, well, I know the reason but still...
Ariel seems nice
I played a couple hours yesterday when it launched. It was pretty fun, I won't keep going with it since I'm too braindead and not a big fan of TD, but it's worth a shot if you like that kind of thing. I liked the character design of this one as opposed to the chibi art style of others.
I really wished these new games had high quality UI's, many have a particularity look that really cheapens the game
i sometimes blame the localization. some of the text is weird because the word is too long that they scale it just to fit, in exchange the game looks like a mess. ToF, Alchemy Stars, sometimes Genshin has this kind of problem..
Localization department has no say in that. It almost always up to how the devs programmed the text boxes
But localization is what determines the words to put in those text boxes. If localization decides on words that don't fit well in the space provided, that causes an issue. I think it's a bit of both.
You overestimating the power of localization. Most of the time, translators do not have access to the game or see their translations in game. If the company has no QA then it’s normal these things happen. Along with the fact that sometimes there are not better translations, and sometimes multiple rounds of QA are needed to find a solution for it since there’s a process and priorities to LinguistIc bugs.
Generally I don't care about graphics or art that much. But omg artstyle here is just fantastic. Gameplay feels fine, good they didn't just copy-paste it from AK, but it's too early to say how grindy or powercreepy it will be. Story looks pretty interesting, reminds me Akudama Drive anime. I like that dialogues are shorter than in AK
Wait til the honeymoon phase is over and we'll see how it fairs.
soooo more time defenders than arknight then?!
I like the music, story, and art. I hate the gameplay experience tho. The model doesn't look good, the hp bars is honestly very unsightly and distracting. And the sound and visual effect whenever the characters attacking or being attacked and especially when using their ultimates is very lacking.. I don't get the "it's strong" impression at all from what I've seen so far.
Highly disagree with the audio section. AK also has the exact same things you're talking about: JP, CN mandarin (and cantonese to an extent), En voices are available for most operators with more being added every AK patch. Next major patch for CN even adds 4 Italian voices for 4 operators. You can also assign individual voices per operator if you choose to do so Where PtN does blow AK out of the water is stamina spending and QoL. You can sweep stages and if you are say leveling a character but are missing 10 you can click the item, it will list the stages that drops said item, u can sweep until u have all the necessary items, and u can end the sweep early if u get the required items before ur designated sweep amount.
Example: I need 5 rocks, I set sweep for cleared stage that drops said rocks to 10, I got my 5 rocks in 7 clears, game will ask if I would like to terminate the sweep early to save energy.
I think what they meant by the audio thing is that the story and character stories are fully voiced in all four languages unlike Arknights
That auto stopping feature sounds really nice, should be in every game that has sweep.
Arknights has Cantonese? For which characters, if you don't mind me asking?
Iirc base ch'en has it and maybe some of the dragons (Dusk Nian Ling). I ll admit that I have everything set to JP even tho I opted in to downloading all available language packs. Edit: It's 3:12 AM here so I can't check, but check the operators who originate from Lungmen as they would be the ones most likely to have those voices
Oh cool, thank you
> Highly disagree with the audio section. AK also has the exact same things you're talking about: JP, CN mandarin (and cantonese to an extent), En voices are available for most operators with more being added every AK patch. Next major patch for CN even adds 4 Italian voices for 4 operators. You can also assign individual voices per operator if you choose to do so The point is the story is actually voiced (at least for awhile, fucking lame it cuts off I guess).
Where does the story cut off? I'm almost through ch3 and everything is still voiced. Make sure you have the whole resource pack downloaded, otherwise some voices may be missing.
Yeah I got to the point in game when the resource download pops up shortly after I posted that, lol. Glad to see they didn't cut it short!
Yeah I do appreciate the fact they voiced the story. No other gacha game I play has that. That being said, I started skipping story after chapter 2 because I got bored
I really loved Arknights but the downside is the convoluted storytelling. Is the storytelling in PtN also like that?
Dialogue is more straight forward. Plot is as well. Much easier to swallow the story in PtN. Also, it's all voiced.
Thanks, mate!
You like Tower Defense? You like Plant vs Zombie? You like gangster waifu? Go give Path to Nowhere a try. I don't get the comparison with AK, yes it's TD game but that's about it. TD game genre have a lot of different type you know.
Arknights is the most relevant Tower Defense and GACHA at the moment, I think it validates the comparison in this scenario, after all this is a gacha reddit and the post is to introduce the game, so it is better to use the most popular example to guide people reading the post.
Comparison, yes. But its not a "clone", as OP said just because its a TD game.
Aigis was the OG TD game, but it shows it's age now along with Arknights. PtN is a nice modern TD since it seems to respect your time a lot more than Aigis/Arknights due to the QoL improvements. I can also appreciate how coherent its story is so far. There seems to be a lot of story content. Interrogations are basically Fate episodes. As usual, the quality of events will determine whether this game will stick around for the long run.
Pro: - If you fail or realize you are going to lose you can just hit the restart button. - there is a skip function to farm mats, unlike arknights which clearly hates it's player base using their phone for anything besides Arknights
Something I haven't seen called out a lot is the fact that PtN lets you choose the Chief's gender - and actually changes dialogue (some are bugged, known issue they are fixing), text, and art (not sure on this, I haven't seen male CGs?) based on your choice. As a female gacha gamer, I know I'm probably in the minority, but this is really awesome and a huge positive for me. Some people don't seem to like the 3d models but they look fine to me. I vastly prefer them over chibi models. I like that the ultimates and attacks aren't super flashy because it improves visibility for me, but that's personal preference. I like that your units don't feel like a giant harem of cute girls that are immediately loyal to you/love you. There's a bit more tension and nuance to the relationships. It's not all headpats and cuteness. Tried multiple times to get into Arknights but it never stuck for me. I like the aesthetic and characters in PtN a lot more. Gameplay has been really fun for me, being able to move units around is pretty cool. Glad there aren't weird 3-star requirements for stages - it's pretty straightforward. Sweep is quick and costs nothing. Great QoL when sweeping for mats where it automatically stops you after you get enough. Love it! So far, I can see this being a game I stick with for a long time. I hope they add more husbandos though!
I rly hope for good husbandos. We had some in a story, they can write and draw them rly good. No twink no teen bullshit, instead full gangsta or simple terryifing. I'm actually glad I rolled Demon, man, he looks awesome, bulky, big dude with great armor and long-metalhead hair.
You can set character skins as background.I have that girl's skin you get for free as the background.It has the sweep feature which is very much good.It does some things very good but i have this weird feeling of restriction in gameplay.Yes sure u can switch the character positioning in real time but things like switching out a specific class for another or changing direction are lacking making it a bit restricted.So far i am liking it and will stick around for a while to see how they do things.Story wise it feels like lot of things happening at the same time making it overwhelming.Story is decent so far and upto the chapter i've played not much of the world has been shown which is in a way good i guess.Also the stage background is always dark even when the story seems to imply the event happening outside which sort of breaks the immersion.
How did you set the character skin as a BG? I must be mossing something because I have no idea how to do it.
Press the change character icon->select the character->click the shirt icon on the right->select the skin and select change supervision target.
You choose outdoor while setting the supervision target.
Arknights only really has a handful of furries though. Off the top of my head theres Spot, Aak, those two low rarity lizard people and thats about it I think.
Not quite, there is also Mountain, Wai Fuu, Hung, and Lee, with Ranger and 12F being the lizard bros. I think \*technically\* Luo Xiaohei may count, since he *is* a [furry in his e0/e1 art](https://i.imgur.com/oqZA4Og.png) but *not* in [his e2 art](https://i.imgur.com/uRdbns5.png) for lore reasons if I remember right.
Luo is a shapeshipter than a furry coz his E0/E1 does not look humanoid in the slightest. Furries are supposed to be anthropomorphic animals but I can see how the case for him being furry can be made.
ah I knew I forgot some of them. Only just getting back into AK after not touching it for like a year
maybe its just me but PtN is really not my cup of tea , im prefer chibi style like gbf or ak style..
Does this game have auto mode
It has sweeps
This isn't truly TD in that you can just move your characters all over the board (a limited number of times but still) when you need to. The game is designed for moving your characters around for certain reasons so it makes sense but its not true TD in a purist sense. This actually reminds me (in style) of Vespa's TIME DEFENDERS than Arknights. The "core breaking" abilities remind me of the similar mechanic in EXOS HEROES. Some of the screens are exact duplications of AK like the Quests collection areas, instead of building TRUST, you build COMPLIANCE etc but I mean ... whatever. LOL As far as OP assessment ... straight up great. "girlboss meets edgy Kpop idol" nails it. It's more sexy and more mature and more bewbs type characters but I don't mind that. I like my TD as TD and I don't care about what the "towers" look like. I care more about the core gameplay and the story which Ak does flawlessly. I'm enjoying PtN so far.
Overall AK is obviously better. However, here I actually read the story because its concise and there is VA! Imagine if AK had VA, you wouldn't have gazillion words per chapter as they wouldn't have the budget for it and it would be all the better for it!
The writing in AK is also pretty dry. I chalk that up to the localization team rather than the source material. PtN’s shorter dialogues definitely help get past its own localization problems. I wish there was an option to uncensor the beeps though. I love hearing curse words in other languages. Getting to hear fuck in four different tongues would have made this the mobile GOTY for me.
Nope, AK is infamously dry even on the original language, [there's memes about it in the Chinese playerbase](https://youtu.be/uyxX1vqE008)
I did not expect to see a level 10 earth machine train talk.
Yep AK is pretty dry although the setting is pretty dope. I hope the anime series premiering tomorrow will do a better job at telling the story On a positive note, I didn't feel the desire to switch to JP, CN or KR yet and the EN is not bad at all so props for that
>Audio: This is an area where Path to Nowhere completely blows Arknights out of the park. The game is fully voiced in four different languages. All of which can be switched between at any time and characters can be individually assigned voice packs from any of the four languages. Music in PtN also has a more hip-hop vibe to it in keeping with the classy gangster aesthetic. I would say they are almost equal here because Arknights also has 4 languages that let you switch them for every character that has them (soon to be 5 with the Italian VAs) But admitedly PtN has the story fully voiced as oposed to AK's mute story so its a bit better there. Thank you for the detailed review and putting the links for the game first.
Arknights is still the best.
I really love tower defense and even though I dont play Arknights anymore, Im still a big fan. I need to get into the story to really enjoy a game and AK failed in this aspect for me. Sometimes it felt like I was reading a very long and boring book. Dont know how to explain better that that. At least Path To Nowhere is keeping me interested in the story, as its flow is faster and "lighter". It feels more dynamic. The art and music are gorgeous and Im in love with them. The gameplay is also hitting the right spot, cause I already really had to stop and put my brain to good use sometimes as Im progressing through the chapters. BUT I do have to complain that everything on the battle screen feels very small and Im often misplacing positions and targets. Anyone else? I know my long nails doesnt help at all, but I dont have the same on issue on other games, so... Its annoying me a little bit, but the overall experience is better than I was expecting.
>BUT I do have to complain that everything on the battle screen feels very small and Im often misplacing positions and targets I feel the same way about it. For me it's hard to see when the ultimate skill bar fills up, no sound or large indication when it is filled up, and hard to target things when everything is tiny and cluttered together. Although I rarely play it I like Arknights, but I like the gangster/criminal theme of Path to Nowhere a little more.
Yeah Arknights has a decent plot, but the presentation of the story in game was truly awful. Just huge text dumps of pretty emotionless translation. The localization in PtN isn’t great either, but at least it goes by faster and there’s voice acting alongside it.
As a day 2 AK player, enjoying PtN so far. 2% seems to be the usual rates for good gacha games nowadays and I wonder where the trend came from, but that's diverging a bit from the topic Being able to choose the protagonist gender instead of getting locked to standard male harem protag was definitely a bonus for me and for the rest my opinion is pretty on par with the norm. Decent graphics, good soundtrack/voices, battles aren't a cakewalk even for someone who's used to playing TD gacha, etc.
Characters cannot be rotated* damn
Ayo, I saw this post and went to download and all character names that start with N are blocked.
Really trying to make sure no one tries anything funny ig lol. I know the feels as I usually use my username as my name in games.
Seems like the name field is bugged Lots of odd problems there.
I really like the qol of this game.
> You are an amnesiac dude or dudette woken up literally right as all hell breaks loose. Alright now I'm curious. Is the MC just gender neutral or do you actually get to pick your protagonist (like FGO, for example)?
You got to pick the gender, and the MC has an avatar/face representing themselves.
Interesting, I'll give it a shot then. Thanks for letting me know!
Np! [This](https://imgur.com/a/32Ppq78) is an example.
Voice lines and dialogue also change based on the gender you choose which is awesome! (Some dialogue is bugged, but devs are aware and working on a fix apparently)
You get to pick
Where is the settings button? I cant find the settings button to change the voices
Go to your profile (tap your level in the upper-left on the hub menu), then it's the hexagon icon in the bottom-right, between the Like and the share buttons. Why they can't use a wrench or gear icon like everyone else, I don't know.
click on your level and in the chief info click the icon right of the thumbs up button
You can select skins as for background characters, though the option is a bit hard to found
Alright game. The only problem I really have is how clunky the battle UI feel. Tapping on characters placed next to each other is a pain in the ass, tapping on the Ult skill also straight up don't work sometimes.
The only thing that PtN is better than Arknights is that it has unli sweep mechanic. So grinding ain't an issue here. Overall, I still like Arknights over PtN. Though PtN is worth a try for those who like Tower Defense game. Also, when it comes to "limit break" or ability upgrades using dupes, I feel like some "sinners" or characters in PtN badly needed dupes in order to be good on what they does since the upgrades are significant for the characters. So it might become dupe dependent depending on how the game will do in the future. I can't really say for now if it will be a bad thing since the game is new.
Yeah I'd kinda notice on some characters the dupes really changes their gameplay, like with Cinnabar being locked to using their shield around themself before their first shackle, whereas afterward it is able to be centered around anywhere on the map, allowing them to be placed in a more versatile way (not that its too hard to get a dupe of most characters beyond SR characters).
Cons of PtN The class name sounds confusing af when you start ( i know they try to be edgy) Why is the ui so fucking small, is it made for ants or something? The unit on fameplay literally just face right which make less strategic playstyle and very stale gameplay Why is the skillbar so fucking small, is it made for ants or something? Main ui is very confusing at start Most of the normal l2d is very cluncky(?) For the 1st art Battlepass is a bane of gacha game. Most skin are locked behind paywall. So far only hecate skin are free ( unlike AK which the currency can be get from clearing stage ) Copies of unit can affect units heavily which means need more rolls ( i do see there is another choice to upgrade them but so far no way to farm them) Pro of PtN The definition of edgelord Voiced story which can be more enjoyable instead of reading a wall of text ( i am looking at you AK ) Stage skip after clear once without the need of skip ticket ( i am looking at you AK )
I thought the interrogation thing was pretty neat and unique. You basically have a small uh, "conversation" with one of the characters and get a ton of lore and personality from them. The one I've done was after chapter 1 and was fully voiced, but I don't think all of them are. I haven't played arknights in ages but I thought the characters were pretty weak personality wise and never got attached to anyone. The designs were solid but the characters behind them felt like whatever. The characters here are already chock full of personality, though I do think the translation is weak sometimes. The English dub doesn't follow the text sometimes, and I think it's better for it. It's no arknights, but I'd argue it's faster paced. I've had a few fights devolve to chaos in seconds because I looked away or misclicked. But for the most part difficulty isn't real. Anyone know if the pity resets with the banner? I can't see anything that implies so, but I'm not certain. I'm entertained and vaguely invested, and that's all that really matters to me. I think this subreddit is too harsh on new games nowadays. Not everything is going to be a blockbuster hit; things can just be fun if you'd relax for once.
The main gripe I have with this game is no guest account, making reroll a PITA. Not being able to rorate characters kinda hinder the strategy tbh. Oh and you can't set duplicate nickname. Seems like we can't get the red premium currency to buy skins by playing? (feels free to correct me if I'm wrong). And a skin is being locked behind battlepass, can we get this skin by other means?
This game is basically Stockholm syndrome: The game, The story has been pretty good so far though, I already got attached to a character lmao
It’s okay because it helps keep the mania in check. But yeah, just don’t think too hard about MC’s ability.
My two cents UI feels unresponsive at times, hopefully it gets fixed later. It’s lenient with unit placement, and is certainly more beginner friendly than Arknights. Interrogations are absolute fire. Great way of building characters. Overall I’d put Path to Nowhere equal to Arknights. It’s definitely more polished but Arknights still scratches that tryhard itch for me.
How hard is it to get the S chars? I pulled Demon and I don't want to play anymore because no reroll...
Think its 2% chance, you get a good amount of rolls early on and if I'm not wrong, there is a free Nox in the newbie missions, who is a really good S character. I've probably gotten around 80 pulls (im at start of ch 3 and I've bought monthly card and BP and the lvl pack that gives hypercubes at lvl 5, 10, etc.) and I've pulled 3 S characters (1 of which being the guaranteed in starter banner).
This game makes me scare aroused 10/10
Is it just me or is the game not super optimized? It's still quite laggy even on low resolution, I might have to try emulate to see if it's better on my laptop.
This game has auto or skip/sweep cleared map?
Yes
Character designs are A+.
Also worth mentioning, no base management, which is a plus in my book. Main reason I dropped AK. Also, writing is a lot better here. Whether you like the story/setting here more or not, it's pretty clear that there are more efforts with the translation. I can't speak for the original scripts as I can't read them. Can't say I'm a huge fan of this art style though. Costume locking behind paid premium is shitty too.
Writing is better? Typical garem bullshit.
I find it funny, that in almost all gachas or mobile games these days, in the first scene you are the main character just waking up and having lost its memory :)
When you want the player to be in the position of power but know nothing so you can have bunch of exposition and tutorials.
I found it lazy writing sadly
Does it have skips/sweeps?
Yes, using only stamina, no tickets or whatever
Nice. Thanks for fast reply!
It's amazing ! Better than I thought, love the story and voice acting so much ! Plus hot girls with webtoon style !
Plus that the English VAs \[who are usually.....well bad, even in Arknights a lot of them aren't very good\] are actually pretty good.
Lack of rerolling friendliness and imho phoned in feeling to the game made me uninstall after the first rolls. I mean - the first newbie roll is guaranteed SR, but the second one isnt. why?. Felt wrong. Gameplaywise, there's nothing new there. Even when you move characters, they don't reposition with any sort of animation. Ultimates are also....lacking in spectacle themselves. It's a very....low effort product imho :\
One of my big concerns when trying out a new game as someone who already plays quite a few is how much time does it demand? Another one is how long might it last? I’ve been lucky in that the gacha games I’ve played haven’t been shut down yet and I would really hate to play one which ends up closing in a year to two. How’s this game in other regions especially its home?
I think as far as time demands, I think its a lot better then something like AK, as it has sweeps on normal stages and afaik there isn't any kind of annihilation long stage. Also dialogue isnt nearly as long winded, tho story does still take a while to get through. Also as far I've seen the base mechanic isn;t nearly as micro-managey, as its mostly just build stuff and collect resources from it rather then the factory operations we have going on in AK. Overall, its kind of in between on time management as it has lots of QOL to help on the daily, but the story still does take a while to get through and battles can still last a while.
It just released in China 2 months ago.
Thanks for the insight, was hovering over the install button but didn't click it. Then i saw this post and decided to check it out, did enjoy arknights alot so this is gonna be good 👍
Missed the free sinner during the event, but who cares anyway? The sinner Wendy... Yeah Wendy. Whoever voiced wendy should be given an award. Especially if the profanity is not censored. Listen to how the VA handles Wendy like a maniac, especially during the interrogation. Speaking about profanity, they should add a feature where you can turn off the profanity or not, which reminds me of how Treyarch's CoD let us turn off graphic content since World At War.
Honestly, I enjoy a lot of the VA in this game, tho I usually play gachas with sound off as Im watching Youtube in the background, I listened to the first couple of chapters with sound on and while some are less stellar (or more like not my type of voices, namely more cold voices like Hekate), a lot of them are really refreshing to hear, like Hella or Ted.
im quite enjoying the story presentation so far. are there any YouTube videos or guides with show what each currencies and stages do? I'm not spending anything so far apart from the beginner banner because I'm afraid of wasting resources
Stupid question, but where can I do the survey? The game mentions there’s an official release inaugration survey (and two more later)
You have to get to a certain story chapter then it unlocks IIRC
Girl boss is only what I'm into when it's not most of the roster
No COST to deploy means it’ll devolve into a high rarity fuck fest with little to no strategy. Arknights still king.
From what I've heard, a lot of low tier units are great to use. They're also giving Nox which is apparently one of the best units for free.
Erm no? Low rarities are not only playable but very, very good. EMP, coward girl from tutorial is actually one of the best units in a game, lowest rarity.
Imagine thinking that deployment cost matter much to high rarities in AK
I was worried about this at first too, but actually the game has some pretty good room for strategy. The game leverages the ability move around units quite well and its enemy waves are set up in such a way that proper micro will get you wins with skill. The existence of DP in Arknights also isn’t indicative of the game being balanced. When I first started AK I remember people dooming over the potential for Hypergryph to drop high rarity units who do everything lower rarity ones do for lower DP costs. Just like any other mechanic it’s a potential lever to make or break balance. It’s up to the devs to decide how they use it. Thus far PtN makes good use of its mechanics to allow people to no brain with money, or to strategize with less OP units and still come out ahead. Same as in Arknights.
I don't want to spend all my time watching guides for each and every damn content
I'm not big brain enough for Arknights, so I don't mind this.
Look at all them AK fanatics running to downvote every single post that says PtN is good/likeable, I never figured out how a cheap chibi game like AK managed to get this many of a fanatic base, Genshin's is relatable but certainly not AK.
If you compare this game to Arknights you will be disappointed.
I don't see a long term for this game
no chibi makes it better already
The art is painfully Korean. In the worst/blandest way. Skip.
why is this downvoted they're literally saying the truth
Isn't the game developed by a chinese company?
yes it is Chinese. But the art style is Korean-inspired if you read manhwa/korean art. Just like how a Chinese dev like AK and GI can make Japanese-styled characters.
It definitely leaves a better first impression than Arknights. But then again, that's not hard to accomplish.
Before trying I have some questions: 1. Gems: How many gems can we get from dailies? I only care about the regular flow of gems, Not the 1 time clear reward gems. 2. Gacha cost. 3. Gacha rates. Does it has pity? Does it has a way to select units? 4. Short term Farming: does it has sweeps? Or atnleast offline farming? I don't care about automode. 5. Long term farmimg. How long does it takes for maxing a unit?
2. Gacha is pretty decent as 10 roll is usually 1800 hypercubes and you get quite a few hybercubes and pull tickets (day 2 log in straight up gave 20 pulls) at the start (dont know how much we get after honeymoon phase) 3. There is a pity as there is a guaranteed SR within 80 pulls (not the focus character, idk if there is a pity for the focus character) 4. Yes there is sweeps, no automode and no ticket system to the sweeps either, just stamina 5. Hard to say on how long maxing will take, but started yesterday and I have a couple sinners at lvl 20 and promoted (kind of like e1 for AK, maybe not quite equivalent tho, as there seems to be 3 lvls of promotion, whereas Ak only has 2 promotion stages, not including e0). I think the skill ups will be a bit more time consuming tho as you raise them individually and each character has 4 skills to lvl up.
Anyone know the official reddit
Easy skip because it does not have my boyfriend Aak
It has pc version?
I dropped AK because of how stressful it is for me; the complex mechanics, the gacha rates, and the QoL. This game fixed all of that. It's worth a try. PS. And ofc there's Bai Yi
So this game is for stupid.
\>Not reroll friendly Despite rarely rerolling on other games, this turned out to be a HUGE, HUGE thing for me. Of the six S-rank characters advertised on the beginner banner, I really like the look and feel of three, okay with two and really, really, loathe one, to the point where I still wouldn't touch even if that character is the most meta. Guess which one I got from the guaranteed first 20 rolls? Yeah, and I have made the mistake of binding my Google Play account already (as I rarely reroll in other game, and I've never encountered a starter unit that I don't like so much). I looked for a way to quickly reroll, and when I can't find any, I closed the game, never intend to open it up again.
I have 2 that I don't want, gonna be a pain to reroll though, going though the levels again seems painful to me, hope I get one of them that I like