Arknights is a Fun New Tower Defense Mobile RPG

Have you ever wanted to be a part of a drug lord’s mafia, do your parents want you to be a doctor, and have you craved to be surrounded by cute anime girls and boys? Well now you too can be in control of your animated medicinal destiny as a pharmaceutical company based in Rhodes Island where you murder countless people that are trying to stop you from solving the world’s infection problem. This game is basically a tower defense RPG with beautiful graphics and a gacha system that was created by Yostar Limited.

You begin by finding yourself in a room with some strange bunny girl telling you that you need to wake up for some lady that needs us. So of course, you are slammed back into your body only to hear the mutterings of what you’d assume were medical staff around you in a hospital, and quite honestly….as a nurse, some of the things this mobile game said just….yeah, from a made up drug and basically hinting that I am experiencing open heart surgery, I don’t really know how my character made it out alive and instantly began fighting. But anyway, here we are, with a case of amnesia and the title Doctor Mrs Stix. It is our duty to gather our operatives and begin trying to fight our way to freedom. 

So as you look at the main screen you’ll notice quite a few things crowding the view. For one, you have your combat, which leads you into various ways of farming supplies or through the main story. Which, by the way, the main story is actually quite cute if you follow it and the voice acting is super adorable. The combat itself is tower defense with varying waves of enemies coming at you, and it’s up to you to determine what you need to take them down. This by no means, is an easy feat. I’ve had to restart and level my operators more before moving onward. The easiest way to do that is to grind under supplies for XP items to help boost your squad,  which is your main group you’ll go into battle with. Once you clear a level with basically no hiccups, you’ll be able to run that level multiple times for supplies on auto-deploy as many times as you like until you run out of sanity. You’re limited the further you go along in doing runs though by your sanity, which is basically your stamina to continue onward for the day. You can design up to four separate squads to pick from depending upon what you’re going to be facing. And nextly you have your operator management, this allows you to slide through your list of waifus and husbies and begin leveling them up. 

As you can see, once you click one of their cards, you have their level, which is easy to boost just by farming the supplies and completing daily, main, and campaign quests. You’ll also be able to boost them to elite status once you have the supplies to do so, something I’m in the midst of farming. And also you can raise their potential which boosts their stats. You’ll also be able to raise their skill, which will help immensely on the battlefield. Then you’ll see that the operator has a specific trait that is unique to them, be weary when selecting your squad member as I feel some of these traits are more useful than others. Like for instance, one of my healers heals up to three allies simultaneously, while another heals one ally at a time within their range. So suffice to say, be aware!

Now for collecting your cute anime operators you need to recruit more by going to recruit, which of course takes supplies to run this gacha system in hopes you get someone even remotely good. There are a ton of guides out there on how to recruit with purpose though, that way you’re not getting trash or duplicates. But duplicates are viable as well as they can be put towards your potential.Then of course, headhunting, where you can end up spending money. I didn’t spend a single thing as you farm something known as Originite that can be used to unlock some pretty spiffy operators, so just bide your time, you’ll be able to unlock a lot of them. And of course, farming can be done, as I mentioned, by doing the missions. You’ll have daily, weekly, and campaign missions that’ll give you supplies to upgrade your skills to increasing your XP. 

Though, if you’re looking to relax a little, you can go over to your base of operations where you can chill and stare at your adorable operators and also work slowly on collecting useful items as well! Although, if you feel creative, you can decorate your dorm, but this won’t be for free, so in the meantime, my characters are going to walk around staring at boxes. Within your base, you can also build a reception area where you can visit with friends. The folks over on my Twitter were sweet enough to add me as friends on Arknights because like most games, there are friends with benefits. To divulge a little more on this, your friends can come assist you in battle beyond the tutorial, and you can be used to help them as well. You’ll also receive credits from visiting them to use in the shop. And most importantly, you’ll be able to search for clues in their bases, and also share clues with them, which also give you credits! And these credits are extremely precious as these give you the option to buy the materials to upgrade your operators. 

So, I mean, overall, this is a great looking tower defense game. Though if you’re not into grinding, then this is probably not for you. I’ve personally enjoyed unlocking and leveling my squad and trying to figure out how to survive the waves of attackers, this is harder than it looks! You actually have to put some thought into who you’re going to use, how you’re going to use them, and where to place them. Yes there’s a cash shop, but I feel like I say this a lot, you can just grind pretty much the same outcome by recruiting and biding your time for free currency to buy yourself a chance at something better, and there’s no rush.