In the sphere of gacha games, presentation is everything. You get about 3 seconds to impress someone to not swipe away to the next mobile ad, and it’s not exactly an enviable position.
To it’s credit, the upcoming Tribe Nine by Akatsuki Games has style oozing out of its pores. From its HD-2D overworld to its flashy visual effects and unique art style, it could easily dominate the mobile game space with how good and unique it is.
Based on the Tribe Nine multimedia project, it’s an RPG about death games, baseball and the power of friendship- themes that could almost get it confused with a Persona entry.
With its broad net, you start seeing how much the team stretches themselves thin for these ideals. I won’t lie, I love just how much you get out of Tribe Nine. The game has basically two combat systems, one for regular dungeon encounters and another for its XB- Extreme Baseball- segments. They’re not particularly anything like each other, which gives the game a good sense of variety.
Zero Zen Combat
And yet, that’s also the big problem. The regular combat makes up the biggest chunk of Tribe Nine’s gameplay. You’re crawling around dungeons set in a gorgeous futuristic Japan, but the actual button-mashing is the game’s altogether lowest point. You have a party of 3 but you’re not really switching between them- instead you’re letting the other two autopilot alongside you, and at best you only control them to do Chain Attacks or activate their Ultimates.
I wouldn’t mind it if it didn’t expose just how barebones the actual combat is- you’ve got a basic attack and a special attack, and most fights will either be easy enough for you to mash through or be slightly hard enough that you remember to dodge. if you’re low on health you’re at the whims of Donald Duck- hang back and wait for your healer’s AI to kick in and top you up.
It’s annoying because it’s right in that dead zone of autoplay and full manual control. You can’t order your teammates to do skills unless they’re chain attacks or ults- so having to back off and watch your teammates play the game instead of having a way to force a heal feels very vibe-killing.
The team building aspect, however, is really interesting. Characters are more than a single type- instead they’re tied to certain debuffs, and can chain into other debuffs. Your party building is centered around this- get a blue>red character in slot 1, a red>purple in slot 2 and remember to close it off with a purple>blue in slot 3 to finish it off.
Rather than having a per-weapon system that most gacha games, you’re instead building a deck of cards based on the game’s Tension system. Cards have different effects activating at different Tension levels, which basically asks you an important question: would you rather always have miniscule but present buffs, or only get big buffs in harder fights?
Everything Looks And Feels New
It’s something that I really have to applaud for Tribe Nine, in that it’s designed with very little regard for the mobile game orthodoxy. Its ideas are new and fresh and presented gorgeously. Sure, it doesn’t always hit but once you realize the root of it you can’t help but chuckle with the product you have.
Of course, the other half is the Extreme Baseball. Surprisingly, Extreme Baseball itself requires very little actual Baseball knowledge. These are more choose-your-dialogue sections, where rebutting your opponent’s arguments allows you to either strike them out or hit their own balls.
While the specifics of how it works doesn’t always make sense there’s no doubting that it’s one of the coolest parts of the entire game. The animations are clean, the presentation is top-notch and the dialogue choices feel appropriate for the characters involved.
The Perks Of Tribe Nine Being Unique
If it can iron out its kinks before launch it looks like we’re in for a good time with Tribe Nine- it’s an interesting setting with a visually fresh presentation. Given the tendency for mobile games to blend into each other when left unsupervised, it’s great to see that Tribe Nine was designed more around its brand identity than chasing any particular trends.
Sure, that does create some problems that feel like the genre had already solved, but once you see another stylish cut in or sick beat drop it’s hard ot not just smile playing Tribe Nine. Every character oozes personality and every frame screams appeal, two very important currencies in such a competitive genre.
