I have played 2 other Kairosoft games. I haven't checked game Dev story yet which seems to be a favorite of many of you.Here is my take. I think this game is great if you like a grindy, character collecting, more grind to collect upgrades for them, base builder in retro 1989 graphics. Music is decent. The upgrade system starts slow and is the tried and true collect this and that to level you guys up. I have found in the harder levels I am getting 8 or more drops. It was 2-3 for the few days FTP BS hasent got in the way of my enjoyment. They give you plenty of the currency. I've sunk 20+hours at least never nearing the pay wall. I have spent lots of coin and never feel like I need to spend to get rid of ads. There is an ad banner that runs the length of the bottom of the screen. The combat is definitely not its strong suit. It is quite repetitive, but challenging in later levels. There are a few mini games which are amusing. Send your extra Hero out on patrol, or do a corporate takeover....you know.... If you enjoy well built rpg FTP time wasters, and maybe you play 2 or 3 at once like I do, I say give it a go. Perhaps like me you have never actually bought any iap in a free to play. I buy games all the time so I am a full believer and supporter of indie dev for iOS. I totally get how some folks would be turned off by many of the aspects of the game. Maybe after another 20 hours I'll look into game dev story.
I own nearly the entire library of Kairosoft games to this point. And it's disheartening to see them turning to the darkside like this. I bought the arcade one the day it came out, but it's the same old thing. Normally that wouldn't be bad, but meanwhile I see them making these longer games with tons of new ideas, but only for their 'free' games. "Let's make a game where you can sail the world, recruit a team of pirates and plays like an RPG! Then let's make it only free and force people to watch ads!" Plus, they're full of marketing spyware. At least Kairosoft have kept that mostly out of the commercial games. The amount of use tracking in these couple free ones though is abysmal--no wonder they decided to make it mandatory online. At this rate I'm going to stop buying their games--which I'm sure only feeds into their delusions that freemium is the only way to make money. But they're now raising the price on commercial games that don't seem to have nearly as much attention as these newer ones.
