Amazing must-play game, but…
Although it is my favourite mobile game, ItB struggles in some areas, namely player progression. Although the idea of unlocking new squads from coins is nice, the coins are often earned from completing arbitrary objectives, which takes the point away from completing the islands and taking on the final challenge. Not only do you get nothing from finishing each game, but there is absolutely no incentive to play on higher difficulties (apart from a single mission for beating a hard mode game). There is also no incentive to adding the more complex enemies, and the other selectable features. The feeling of not progressing is made worse by the fact that you do not get to take anything between rounds, apart from a single pilot that you used in the previous game, and the option to change them out for a lvl1 pilot which you previously found (which will result in you losing the levelled pilot). Regardless of how many pilots you found, you can only ever start a game with one, and the other two mechs will be piloted by basic pilots w/o abilities. I feel like every strategy game player works toward the objective of building a ‘dream team’ that synergizes perfectly, but this game doesn’t really let you do that to a satisfying extent. If this game were to have an update, I think player progression would really benefit from a major overhaul, and maybe the addition of a longer, ‘bad north’-like story mode. The feeling of frustration from choosing higher difficulties needs to be compensated by some sort of reward, and I feel like the advanced features should be included by default in higher difficulties. Meanwhile a ‘custom’ or ‘sandbox’ game mode option with all sliders would be available, that would not include the additional rewards offered by harder game modes. Despite the criticism, I absolutely love this game and do hope it keeps being supported by it’s team. Absolute gem, must download.
