Welcome to our Is that a good free mobile game series. In this series we look at games from both the App Store and the Play Store and review them. At the end of the article we try to answer the question – Is the current game a one of the best smartphone games? Is it a good free mobile game? For this review, we’re looking at Eternal Saga Region Tactics by Com2uS Holdings Corporation!
Your Answer Upfront:
Eternal Saga Region Tactics is a game that is worth playing. While it’s a bit heavy on monetisation and features a lot of recurring payments they are not completely necessary and you can get by with the free currency the game gives you or without insane amounts of grinding.
Our latest reviews focusing on Free2Play games haven’t been too kind, and for good reason. We’re clearly not fans of the blatant profiteering that has been plaguing mobile gaming for, well, at least a decade. We also do recognize when a developer manages to release a game with quality written all over it.
Eternal Saga: Region Tactics is a bit of a mixed bag and I really don’t know how I feel about it. Let’s dive into what makes me so conflicted.
What is Eternal Saga Region Tactics?
You take on the role of a mercenary with amnesia, trying to piece together what exactly happened to you during a battle that you lost. Big time, apparently. It was brutal. Brutal enough that you can’t even remember your own name.
For a Role-Playing fan, this sounds about right as an intro to what Com2uS calls an RPG, and you wouldn’t be wrong. At all. The story is compelling enough to warrant a longer playthrough, which is the first bullet point in my “things that have me conflicted about Eternal Saga: Region Tactics” list.
Although, at first, the story seems generic and shallow, there is some subtle complexity to it and the presentation is definitely done well. A solid premise, a mystery, well-done actors. This is starting to hit in all the right spots, right? Well, yes, but actually no, but still yes. You get the idea.
One key element of RPGs, in general, is good storytelling and the characters involved in it. Com2uS definitely gets all of that right, which makes me very happy. Until you dive a bit deeper into the game itself.
Is Eternal Saga Region Tactics heavy on microtransactions?
To put it bluntly, it uses the obscenest microtransaction system I’ve seen lately, with the grandaddy of IAPs, the monthly pass, now being reduced to DAILY and WEEKLY passes, with $0.99 and $4.99 price tags, respectively. This is absolutely disgusting, specially when you look at all the other microtransactions that go up to $59.99, almost as high as our IAP record-holder Figure Fantasy (which we’ve reviewed here).
Another bit of annoyance comes from the same In-App purchase list in the form of the “Ad Removed Pack”, priced at $8.99! That’s top-tier premium game pricing! TO REMOVE ADS! (You can get excellent games like Life is Strange for the same money, or kick it up a notch to just under double for the legendary Final Fantasy VII!).
Another annoying tidbit is that, at least as of writing this review, Com2uS has a few vouchers available (for free, thankfully), that give 3000 Gems (the game’s premium currency). Considering it’s $7.99 for 550 Gems, that’s would be a $40 value, right?
What exactly does $40 get you?
Not a whole lot. Many of the things you’ll want and need are tied into Gems. Filling up the Barracks will cost you 50 Gems/unit, and you’re not guaranteed new units with every Hire (you ARE guaranteed a Hero every 50 summons, with items working more or less the same). With 41 heroes, 38 normal soldiers, 132 pieces of gear and 39 soul weapons to collect, you’re going to need to pour A LOT of cash into it. But do you REALLY need to?
Maybe, just MAYBE you can get away with ignoring all of the IAPs in Eternal Saga: Region Tactics (wow, this name is really a mouthful).
Upon progressing throughout the story, you’ll be getting normal units for completing certain tasks, which is really nice to see. As an added bonus, completing quests and achievements also seem to reward you with Gems or other useful things that you would normally have to pay for. The addition of the “Watch Ad” will also let you get up to 200 gems/day or 300 boots (the game’s energy). For a freemium title, that’s not too bad. The “special offer, just for you” popups are still going to be annoying and sometimes tempting, but, as it stands right now, I don’t think you’ll need to fall for that dirty trick.
I know my rants about microtransactions may seem to take away from actually reviewing the game itself, but they are as much a part of it as the actual playing experience.
Does Eternal Saga Region Tactics have any tactical gameplay?
So, ignoring all transactions involving real money, can you actually play the game or is it just waiting to throw The Unstoppable Force at your very stoppable army?
Yes, you can. Remember the 3000 gems I got for free? Well, I used some of those to do some rank bolstering and, I gotta say, once you have a full playing field, things seem to progress pretty smoothly.
There IS a bit of tactic involved in setting up your army to optimally get through the hordes of enemies. As for the combat itself, you can either let the AI do all the hard(er) work and just sit back and watch your enemies disappear in a puff of pixels or you can get your hands dirty and do (most of) the commanding yourself.
Does Eternal Saga Region Tactics have good graphics?
Graphically, everything is just right, from the high quality (and high detail) sprites to the story “mode” character representations. This always gets appreciation from me and Eternal Saga doesn’t disappoint.
What almost disappoints is the background music which, honestly, while being great and atmospheric, is highly repetitive. You can’t expect an extensive soundtrack, specially from a Free 2 Play title, but this seems to have at most 5 half-tracks that keep repeating over and over again. Half a point to Com2uS.
Performance-wise, the game runs pretty damn great on an iPad 6th Generation (2018), but it has been crashing after longer sessions. Had it not happened multiple times, I would have ignored it completely, but it seems consistent enough to warrant a mention.
Is Eternal Saga Region Tactics a good, free, mobile game?
So, what is the bottom line for Eternal Saga: Region Tactics?
It’s yet another example of a game that could have been truly great if it didn’t have microtransactions. Is it worth playing? Definitely. Is it worth buying into? As usual, I will say that all IAPs should be avoided. For Eternal Saga, that seems to be completely fine, with the game rewarding you with Gems often enough to be able to do without spending ludicrous amounts of your hard-earned money.
Will I continue playing Eternal Saga: Region Tactics? Well, likely. I’m definitely not going to go out of my way and dedicate time to it, but as a little time-waster, it’s good enough to earn the storage on my iPad, at least for now. Maybe we’ll even do a long-term review if anything changes later down the line and there actually is a paywall just waiting to rear its ugly head.
For now, Eternal Saga: Region Tactics will get the 2-score treatment.
As a Free 2 Play game, it gets a respectable 3.5/5 stars.
As a Premium game (which assumes the removal of all microtransactions that aren’t purely cosmetic), it would have scored a whopping 4.5/5 stars!
Closing thoughts
We have further proof that there are developers out there that know how to make games, but, unfortunately, most of them lack the true passion for it and decide to lower their standards to the point where they tie far too many aspects of their games into IAPs, which, at the end of the day, only serve to hurt the consumers that are looking for something to fill their precious spare time. I truly hope this will change, and that it changes soon.
How To Download Eternal Saga Region Tactics?
Eternal Saga Region Tactics is available for Android Phones and Tablets on the Play Store and for iPhone and iPads on Apple’s App Store. The game is, sadly, not available to be played on M1 Macs.
But you can use an iPad and to stream the game to your Mac if that’s what you wish. Or maybe you can try and setup an Android Emulator on your Mac to play it that way. We’ve covered Android Emulators for both Intel and Apple Silicon macs so you can play Android Games wherever you are.
Where To Next?
Congrats, you made it to the end of the article where we answered the question: Is Eternal Saga Region Tactics a good free mobile game? I hope it was beneficial to you. It’s also beneficial to us to have you stick around the blog more. We have more reviews of good free or premium mobile games, such as Metal Slug Attack or QB Planets! We also have other articles with tidbits and interesting facts, like this one – which answers the question “What is the Number 1 mobile eSports Game” sorted by the prize pool.
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