Moba Game Review: Senki Zessho Symphogear XD UNLIMITED

While I'm on my semi R&R this week from the ToyCon brouhaha before I resume working on the latter event pics, I tried to play a few games on my phone such as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links and Fate/Grand Order to get some creative juice in my system. While browsing for a new online game to download, I came across the recently released Moba game, Senki Zessho Symphogear XD Unlimited, I find it addicting and fun. Here's my review of the game.

Senki Zessho Symphogear XD (pronounced as X-Drive) Unlimited is the latest Senki Zessho Symphogear mobile app game developed by Bushimo (mobile developer brand of Bushiroad) and Pokelabo, which is based on the latter anime series of the same name. The game just released last month in conjunction with the airing of the anime's latest season titled Symphogear AXZ (Axis) last weekend. Like Fate/Grand Order, XD Unlimited is a RPG Turn based card game where you control the character's attacks and signature moves. There are 9 characters that you can play in the game: 6 (main characters: Hibiki Tachibana, Tsubasa Kazanari, Chris Yukine, Maria Cadenzavna Eve, Shirabe Tsukuyomi and Kirika Akatsuki), 2 (deceased: Kanade Amou and Serena Cadenzavna Eve) and 1 (former: Miku Konohita) Symphogear users; each with their own fighting style and attacks.

All of the character designs from all of the anime's 3 seasons are in the game, including new game-exclusive character designs. Unlike Fate/Grand Order where each character has his/her/its own 1 signature move, the characters on XD Unlimited has more than one signature move per card, which depends on the rarity of the card ranging from 3-star R to 5-star SSR which you can acquire through gatcha. You can MAX out the level and points of your character card by acquiring the same card type, signature move and design 5 times and you will unlock the final character design card. Aside from the character cards, there are also Memoria cards and enhancement material cards which you can enhance beyond the character's MAX points.

There are 5 modes that you can play in this game:

Story mode which its based on the previous seasons of the anime (with the 4th will be added later after it finishes its run), Event quest; where you can get exclusive items, Side story quest; where you can unlock via the character and Memoria cards which it has a game exclusive original scenes not found in the anime, SP quest; where you can "farm" enhancement materials for your characters

And the VS battle arena mode; where you can test your leveled-up characters in a 3 on 3 duel with other players online: gain friend points and rank up at the same time.

Other game features such as a party system which you can create your party up to three members with the online friend serves as a 4th back-up member if any of your 3 party members were defeated in battle. Like most online card games, XD Unlimited also features a gatcha system where you have a chance to acquire rare and powerful character cards to enhance and add powerful characters in your party. When I first played it last Tuesday, I was luckily acquired 3 5* SSR characters in 2 gatcha draws, which both are in their Ignite forms (2 from Maria and 1 from Chris) which took me at least 4 days to level up my user account to reach Level 27 at the time of this post, thanks to these rare cards.

Since songs are the key in powering your Symphogear characters just like in the anime, the game features a music box which houses the character's songs in the game which you can level up and you can change the character's songs to a specified character, making it more powerful. More character's songs will be unlocked as the game progresses either when you acquire more cards or accomplish certain task/s.

What I like about this game is which the story mode which you can reminisce the scenes from the anime (albeit with some minor changes) also the animations of the character's signature moves, especially Hibiki which she now has names of her special moves which was not originally present in the anime. The gameplay is so easy to learn, just with a few taps, you can easily access every characters' attacks and signature moves and you can easily create and strategize your own party which depends on the enemies' attribute is quite a challenge, ooh I love game challenges.

The downside of this game that has a few bugs since its the initial version/s release of the game: some of the scenes and animation in the story mode are sometimes delayed or not in sync with the subtitle texts. Other issues I've noticed is when you sometimes booting the game, it sometimes hangs and exits, but this can be remedied (mostly by removing its cache). There's no exit app option in the game, I hope they put a feature to quit game in this. In gameplay, what I hated the most in this part is that you cannot select an opponent to attack, it will attack on any random enemy no matter what attribute you're facing. Your party is limited to 3 characters with the 4th is the back-up; hopefully they should add 1 or 2 more back-up slots and I hate it when it gets defeated in the middle of a boss battle should all of them lose. In VS mode, you cannot manual attack your opponent: its set on auto mode, hopefully this feature can be disabled if you want to fight manually. Another bug issues that I've noticed is the energy counters (AP, EP, and BP) are not totally depleted, and if you try doing a quest for example, which only costs 15AP while your reserves still at 30, you can't play it, and will give you a notice that I have less energy to continue. I hope they fixed this issue on their next update.

The best part of this game: you can watch a nifty opening animation sequence similar to the anime with the song UNLIMITED BEAT, sung none other by Nana Mizuki, who is also the voice of Tsubasa. Check out the opening animation of the game.

Despite some many flaws, Symphogear XD Unlimited is still an addictive game which you can play over and over for hours of non-stop Noise butt-kicking action. I give Symphogear XD Unlimited 3.8 out of 5.

Senki Zessho Symphogear XD Unlimited is available for free on Apple IOS and Android (Japan region locked). Internet connection and Google Play account (for Android users) are required to play this game.

For newbies who downloaded the game on its initial release, as a bonus you will get a 4* Chris Yukine (MEGA DETH PARTY) Symphogear card once signing in.

Official game website: https://symphogear.bushimo.jp/