Mobile games have a reputation for being soulless cash-grabs running on crude sex appeal and predatory monetisation. This is not the case here, as COUNTER:SIDE clearly had a lot of effort and passion go into it. It is perfectly playable for free, and while the sexualisation can get silly it's rarely ridiculous. Its problems are more of design and direction.
The premise is bog-standard: strange phenomenon ravages the world and creates monsters but also empowers some of those caught up in it, most of them young women for some reason, you know the drill. But what elevates the story is how it shows the risks, desperation, toll, infighting and abuse of power among those fighting them. There are wacky moments, but it can create pathos, mystery, twists, desperate struggles and gritty fights with tactics that make sense, livened by an endearingly flawed cast whose interwoven backstory hangs heavily upon them.
Every character has an impressive set of animations that show their personality and fighting style, it's worth putting the fights on auto just to appreciate them. The roster is varied and colourful, maybe a bit too much. The main cast, despite fighting in short skirts, still fit the gritty, military atmosphere. Then there are faceless soldiers and AFVs that you'd expect to be hired extras, but no, they are units you recruit and level just like the named characters. Alongside them are children in their school uniforms, e-girls who livestream their fights, and actual witches on literal broomsticks. What I'm saying is that every character would be fine on their own, but they make for an incongruous mix.
The combat is fun and has depth, with no two units or stages being quite the same. However the needed information is hidden away in different parts of the interface, and the rapid auto-fighting makes it difficult to understand what is happening. Passing a stage is often a matter of luck or brute-force levelling.
But by far my biggest problem with the game is its unneeded complexity and tedium. From the start I had dozens of resources and crafting options thrown at me with little guidance as to their use. Every action early on would trigger a cascade of achievements to be claimed, which quickly became a chore. As of the latest patch, characters have five avenues of growth, and all need tedious manual input (even levelling up!). The pace of the game feels as though it's been supercharged: within two days of playing I had characters halfway to the level cap. I'm flooded with resources the game wants me to treat as scarce. Even the shop is a mess of exchanging one currency for another in a hundred ill-explained package deals, which actually discouraged me from spending real money. Finally the software is lacking, constantly glitching and crashing.
With a better interface, more robust programming and half the systems stripped out, this would be a fine mobile game. As it is I want to like it but playing it is endless frustration.
VideoGame A good game buried by bloat
Mobile games have a reputation for being soulless cash-grabs running on crude sex appeal and predatory monetisation. This is not the case here, as COUNTER:SIDE clearly had a lot of effort and passion go into it. It is perfectly playable for free, and while the sexualisation can get silly it's rarely ridiculous. Its problems are more of design and direction.
The premise is bog-standard: strange phenomenon ravages the world and creates monsters but also empowers some of those caught up in it, most of them young women for some reason, you know the drill. But what elevates the story is how it shows the risks, desperation, toll, infighting and abuse of power among those fighting them. There are wacky moments, but it can create pathos, mystery, twists, desperate struggles and gritty fights with tactics that make sense, livened by an endearingly flawed cast whose interwoven backstory hangs heavily upon them.
Every character has an impressive set of animations that show their personality and fighting style, it's worth putting the fights on auto just to appreciate them. The roster is varied and colourful, maybe a bit too much. The main cast, despite fighting in short skirts, still fit the gritty, military atmosphere. Then there are faceless soldiers and AFVs that you'd expect to be hired extras, but no, they are units you recruit and level just like the named characters. Alongside them are children in their school uniforms, e-girls who livestream their fights, and actual witches on literal broomsticks. What I'm saying is that every character would be fine on their own, but they make for an incongruous mix.
The combat is fun and has depth, with no two units or stages being quite the same. However the needed information is hidden away in different parts of the interface, and the rapid auto-fighting makes it difficult to understand what is happening. Passing a stage is often a matter of luck or brute-force levelling.
But by far my biggest problem with the game is its unneeded complexity and tedium. From the start I had dozens of resources and crafting options thrown at me with little guidance as to their use. Every action early on would trigger a cascade of achievements to be claimed, which quickly became a chore. As of the latest patch, characters have five avenues of growth, and all need tedious manual input (even levelling up!). The pace of the game feels as though it's been supercharged: within two days of playing I had characters halfway to the level cap. I'm flooded with resources the game wants me to treat as scarce. Even the shop is a mess of exchanging one currency for another in a hundred ill-explained package deals, which actually discouraged me from spending real money. Finally the software is lacking, constantly glitching and crashing.
With a better interface, more robust programming and half the systems stripped out, this would be a fine mobile game. As it is I want to like it but playing it is endless frustration.