I, like lots of you, am a reasonably large fan of Kazutaka Kodaka. Don’t take a look at me that method – I do know the destructive rep that some Danganronpa followers get. Nevertheless, with my long-term curiosity in horror video games, visible novel video games, and something with a darkish and twisted thriller at its core, it was inevitable that I’d fall in love together with his work.
I even loved the Tribe 9 anime. Okay, perhaps that anime was a bit of underwhelming, however I nonetheless beloved the setting, characters, and concepts behind it, and I used to be desperate to get my palms on the Tribe 9 recreation.
Entitled the ‘Lethal Playtest’, Tribe 9’s closed beta ran from August 9 till August 15, with sign-ups going down the month prior. This recreation has been a very long time coming – the 12-episode anime sequence aired from January to March 2022, with Kodaka and his studio, Too Kyo Video games, pairing up with Akatsuki to announce their collaboration on the mission all the way in which again in February of 2020.
The anime acquired a fairly lukewarm response from viewers, although the most important criticism appears to be that it’s “forgettable”. As such, it appears a little bit of an oversight to launch the anime and the sport to date aside – however, whereas they each characteristic the identical world, core concepts, and characters, the sport is a big step up from the anime, that includes a much more intriguing plot and loads of distinctive mechanics to maintain you invested. The truth is, it’s presently shaping as much as be one among my prime cell video games of the 12 months to date.
The Tribe 9 beta had me hooked from the beginning, it pulls you right into a simplistic 2D RPG a few chosen hero operating senseless fetch quests for a goddess. Nevertheless, the world quickly begins to warp as actuality comes into focus, and every thing shifts into 2.5D.
From right here, you study that your identify is Yo Kuronaka, and also you’ve been trapped inside a harmful, underground zone often known as 24 Metropolis for the previous two years. A maniacal villain referred to as Zero has kidnapped you and wiped your recollections, placing you thru a ‘Hero Coaching Sport’ to see whether or not you’re a worthy opponent to stave off his boredom.
And that is the place the sport begins to overlap with the core focus of Tribe 9. The anime is about in a dystopian future and revolves round a gaggle of disaffected youths who’ve shaped their very own tribes. These tribes quickly turned violent, operating rampant throughout town, prompting the federal government to implement the SB Legislation, which states that each one conflicts between tribes have to be settled by means of excessive baseball (XB for brief).
From what we see within the beta, the occasions of the sport happen after the anime, the place Zero has “by accident” turn into the ruler of the floor and modified all the cities into locations the place every thing is set by video games.
Yo groups up with two of his childhood mates and a gaggle now often known as the Trash Tribe to tackle Zero by taking part in his sequence of deadly video games. In every of Neo Tokyo’s sub-cities, they need to face off in opposition to one of many “Numbers”, who Zero has hand-picked as candidates to be his opponent.
When you lose a recreation, you die. When you refuse to compete, you die. And all of the whilst you’re beneath Zero’s cautious watch as he continues to place your abilities to the take a look at in nearly each method conceivable. It’s the right mixture of darkish humor, unhinged twists, and high-stakes threats that make Kodaka video games so particular.
Tribe 9’s gameplay consists of some totally different elements. At its core, it’s a visible novel, and is extraordinarily story-heavy – moreso than any gacha recreation I’ve performed earlier than. The visible novel segments are well-written, that includes nice interactions between the characters. There’s a fairly pure, conversational really feel to the dialog, with every characters’ voice feeling fairly clear.
There have been only a few typos or translation errors within the beta, these sections are totally voiced with sensible Japanese voice actors, and the textual content can also be accompanied by vibrant, animated 3D sprites that blink, breathe, react, and gesture whereas they’re speaking. There’s additionally a skip button, the choice to modify between guide and auto mode to cycle by means of the textual content, and a log the place you may learn again over the dialog and even replay the audio for every voice line.
While you’re not knee-deep within the story, you may discover the world of Neo Tokyo in 2.5D, taking management of cute pixelated sprites as you wander round zones, interacting with objects and NPCs, amassing objects, and fixing puzzles. NPCs usually have little aspect quests so that you can full, similar to discovering misplaced objects or slaying particular enemies. These are usually brief and easy, however add a way of life to the world, particularly as you see those self same NPCs pop up once more afterward asking for assist with associated matters.
There are secure zones in every metropolis, the place you may go to clinics to heal or revive your group members, meals stalls the place you may eat meals to realize an EXP buff, and job facilities the place you may tackle as much as three day by day commissions to earn forex and supplies. The map additionally options respite items, the place you may heal your self and teleport to different places, and rifts, that are mini-dungeons the place you may farm particular supplies or tools.
The following main a part of gameplay is the fight. In true RPG model, whereas out exploring Neo Tokyo within the 2.5D perspective, you usually come throughout enemies. Approaching, hitting, or being hit by an enemy initiates fight, the place you enter a 3D area together with your present group.
Tribe 9’s fight is definitely surprisingly intricate. Every character has a standard assault, a splash, two abilities, an final, and a series talent. On prime of this, there’s additionally the stress system. Stress represents the morale of both aspect – the upper the morale, the higher the probabilities of successful. Each side can hit ‘excessive rigidity’ to realize a brief increase to their injury – when your enemies hit the intense standing, their assault patterns can change, and so they turn into much more ferocious, with some even able to one-hit-killing you or your allies.
The enemy’s rigidity gauge will increase steadily as they hit you and your group all through the battle. Yours additionally will increase as you hit your enemies and pull off abilities, however the important thing to growing your rigidity stage rapidly is thru chain assaults.
Every character depends on one among their teammates inflicting the enemy with a particular impairment as a way to set off their chain talent and grant their very own impairment, which may then set off their subsequent ally’s chain talent – therefore the “chain” half. Don’t fear, it’s not as complicated because it sounds – the principle factor this method impacts is your group composition. You merely have to line up the impairment icons when selecting your group as a way to unleash their full potential, as proven within the image above.
This generally is a bit restrictive at first, and even after acquiring all of the characters within the beta, I used to be cornered into particular group compositions if I wished to take advantage of the chain talent system. Nevertheless, the icons make it simpler to work out which characters work nicely collectively, and the free group they offer you works nice. Plus, I’m certain extra choices will turn into out there as new characters be part of the roster.
Your group can include a most of three characters, and you may management one character at a time, with AI controlling the opposite two. You’ll be able to swap between the three characters freely, or you may merely activate their chain assault or final remotely.
I actually admire this flexibility because it permits you to undertake a playstyle that most closely fits your private preferences, and having your two teammates struggle alongside you actually provides to the ‘tribe’ really feel – nonetheless, the AI generally is a little hit and miss with some characters and appears incapable of dodging, so I’m actually hoping that may enhance within the full launch.
The Tribe 9 characters are sensible, whether or not they’re new to the sport or acquainted faces from the anime. Not solely do they seize that signature Kodaka model completely, however their kits are additionally enjoyable and assorted, with some very distinctive playstyles and mechanics to discover, together with totally different motion speeds, sprint animations, and talent sorts.
There are kits that concentrate on heavy-hitting melee assaults, buffing allies, putting constructs or AoE zones on the battlefield, QTE-like abilities the place you must hit them at particular moments, and extra. This actually helps maintain fight contemporary as you check out totally different groups.
The ultimate main gameplay mode proven within the beta is XB, which actually took me abruptly. Fairly than your typical sports activities minigame, XB showdowns are literally debates, considerably just like the ‘fight’ in Grasp Detective Archives: Rain Code.
Whether or not you’re batting or pitching, the core focus is listening to your opponent’s arguments and selecting the right rebuttals. Past that, XB nonetheless follows the considerably violent, parkour-infused guidelines from the anime, with cutscenes and overviews displaying your group making their method across the bases.
To spice up your probabilities in an XB recreation, you may as well acquire verity orbs by speaking to totally different NPCs whereas exploring Neo Tokyo. These usually come within the type of little items of intel in regards to the character you’re going through, which you’ll then use as rebuttals throughout a match.
On prime of this, totally different characters have totally different XB skills that you could unlock and enhance over time by boosting their ‘instincts’, permitting you to decide on totally different lineups on your XB matches that can assist you safe a victory.
Character instincts aren’t only for XB, both – and so they’re simply one among some ways to extend your group’s energy, along with leveling them up, growing their rank utilizing particular supplies, unlocking extra copies of them to spice up their potential, and equipping them with gear.
There are two essential forms of gear. First are rigidity playing cards, which provide teamwide boosts. You’ll be able to equip 5 at a time, and so they’re tied to your complete get together relatively than only one character. Then there are the suitable monsters, that are primarily artifacts or relics that take the type of cute little Digimon-like creatures. You’ll be able to equip every character with a head, physique, and wings to unlock particular stat boosts and passive buffs. Once more, like HSR’s relics or Genshin Influence’s artifacts, you may farm suitable monsters through these aforementioned rifts, however the principle strategy to get rigidity playing cards is through the gacha.
Talking of gacha, the beta featured three banners – the restricted character banner, the restricted rigidity card banner, and the usual banner. Stress playing cards are available in one-, two-, and three-star rarities, whereas characters are available in two- and three-star rarities, with the three-stars being the strongest. The usual gacha guidelines normalized by video games like Genshin Influence are at play right here, with a three-star assured inside 80 pulls.
Whereas not said, it additionally appears such as you’re assured at the very least one two-star each ten-pull, nonetheless, this gave the impression to be damaged within the beta. Whereas doing ten pulls at a time, I constantly received one or two two-stars every time, however after I tried performing single pulls, I received midway to pity (40 pulls) and not using a single two-star. I gave up and did a ten-pull, which instantly gave me two two-stars. This appears very uncommon, so I presume it is going to be fastened within the full launch.
Regardless of the restricted three-star being extremely highly effective (and my favourite character from the beta), Tribe 9 additionally feels fairly free-to-play pleasant. The truth is, the three characters they offer you at the beginning (Yo Kuronaka, Koishi Kohunata, and Tsuki Iroha) make for an important group that would carry you all the way in which to the tip of the beta with sufficient funding, and all the characters I attempted, each two- and three-star rarity, had their very own strengths.
Moreover, whereas that is usually the case in betas, I used to be fairly stunned by the regular movement of gacha forex, referred to as enigma entity. Past the free enigma entity that beta testers acquired through the in-game mail, there’s an abundance of little achievements and aspect quests so that you can do, with an honest quantity of rewards up for grabs. I count on this movement to decelerate to a trickle finally, however by that time, it’s best to have a fairly strong roster to play with – so, so long as there isn’t an excessive amount of energy creep in Tribe 9’s future, I see it being fairly pleasant to each free and paid gamers.
Visually, Tribe 9 is beautiful. As I discussed earlier, the characters seize that iconic Kodaka model, and will simply be mistaken for brand-new Danganronpa characters. The world itself can also be very aesthetically pleasing, with a darkish, moody environment illuminated by vibrant, neon lights that seize the dystopic, futuristic vibe completely.
The fight arenas generally is a little uninteresting, however the shifting views and a spotlight to element within the 2.5D settings actually brings life to Neo Tokyo. The enemy designs are additionally fairly nice, with a wide range of robots and monsters (and robotic monsters) so that you can tackle.
The UI and menus additionally match completely with the remainder of the sport. I particularly love the character screens, which remind me of Zenless Zone Zero because the characters strike totally different poses while you swap between tabs. The suitable monsters web page is a private favourite, displaying your character holding up a Tamagochi-like machine with the little monster coming up and down on the display.
The audio for Tribe 9 is strong, with each the JP voice appearing and the OST reflecting the environments rather well. The truth is, I had the battle theme caught in my head for days after enjoying for only some hours. There are additionally loads of little sound results that improve actions with out being overpowering, whether or not you’re interacting with objects, slaying enemies, or going to the clinic to get your self healed up.
Efficiency-wise, the beta was fairly polished contemplating the sport remains to be in growth. Taking part in on my PC, load occasions had been usually fast and snappy, with little or no stuttering or body charge drops, and each the cutscenes and gameplay animations had been clean as butter. Nevertheless, I did expertise fairly just a few crashes and server disconnects, which might typically pressure me to restart my complete PC. Fortunately, because it’s a stay service recreation, I might usually decide up proper the place I left off, but it surely was a bit of irritating, nonetheless.
I additionally tried the Tribe 9 beta on Steam Deck, and, as you’d doubtless count on, that didn’t go nicely. The truth is, I had a whopping 4 crashes inside an hour, and finally gave up. I didn’t count on a lot, contemplating Tribe 9 has doubtless not been examined on or developed for Steam OS, however I believed it was value a attempt for any potential moveable gamers on the market. Fortunately, Tribe 9 is about to come back to Android and iOS, however I do hope that it’ll even be Steam Deck suitable sooner or later.
Total, I actually loved my time with the Tribe 9 beta. It’s a really distinctive recreation with a formidable stage of depth and a spotlight to element, and so many various components to it that it saved me entertained all through your complete beta interval, and left me wanting extra when entry ended. I additionally really feel just like the deadly video games format goes to translate nicely to the stay service mannequin, with future updates seeing you journey to the totally different cities and take part in new, much more twisted video games.
My essential concern is that, whereas it fits my private pursuits completely, it’s very area of interest, and I’m unsure whether or not it is going to discover a sufficiently big viewers to help it as a stay service recreation. I really feel it’s a really daring selection to mix the darkish visible novel model of the Danganronpa video games with 2.5D exploration, 3D motion fight, debate-based sports activities video games, and the stay service gacha mannequin. And, whereas Kodaka does have a robust core fanbase, I’m unsure whether or not a recreation like this may survive on this business, particularly when competing in opposition to Hoyoverse who has a a lot wider enchantment and a number of other years of stay service video games beneath its belt.
Nevertheless, I truthfully respect Too Kyo Video games and Akatsuki Video games for attempting one thing totally different right here, and I hope with all of my coronary heart that Tribe 9 will discover its ‘tribe’ of gamers and get the success it deserves. However, for now, I suppose I’ll simply have to sit down tight and wait for more information on the Tribe 9 launch date. I’ll be sure you replace this preview as quickly as I get the possibility to go again to Neo Tokyo (hopefully we’ll get a cell beta take a look at quickly!), however, within the meantime, be sure you try our interview with Kodaka to listen to from the person himself.