[h1]Should you play this game?[/h1]
That is a loaded question. So lets break down some things to help inform your decision. Starting with cons:
The game is effectively dead. There are 2 servers in the Asian region, meaning anyone from LatAm, NA, or EU have to contend with very high latency problems, which can become very noticeable in matchmaking. The most active times see anywhere from 13-25 people in a server at any given time. Thats not alot of people.
There is a major gear difference between new and old players. New players have all of the powerful characters, weapons, parts, whatever in order to create builds that you, as a new player, cannot ever hope to counter or come close to parity with. You will get hit by a blinding attack that takes up too much of your screen, get afflicted with a debuff you have no idea what it is, have parts break that you didnt know could or would, and instantly die. It is not fun.
If you want to play the game, you need to play against these players. Sure, you can play the small rooms with bots, but you wont get the Tokens needed to play other mechanics in the game. Sure, you can play the PvE modes, but you miss out on those Token Rewards for Arena modes.
Multiple different Tokens. Each one is obtained doing different activities, some are more valuable than others, some are more or less worthless. Some modes tied to some of these coins are almost completely dead, even if you wanted to get the rewards from them.
There is a gacha system in the game. Each one requires a very specific kind of ticket, and the game very seldom gives these out. For example, you get a single gacha ticket for playing every day, doing your daily missions, and doing your weekly mission. In addition to this, there is no form of pity system in the game at all, meaning even if you do want to spend money, there's no guarantee of just how much you will have to spend to get what you want.
The robots available in the shop are very lackluster, some of which require items from events long past finished. Meaning they are effectively worthless. Other robots require you to spend real money on them, and not just the in-game farmable currency.
There is allot of pay for power in the game. Pay for bots, pay for pulls, pay for arena use items, pay for EXP boosters, lots of things you can do to pay to win, which does not feel too good.
[h2]On to some good things[/h2]
Despite my complaints with being a new player and perpetually outmatched and outgunned, the game itself is fairly simple in its controls and how to play. That simplicity is a good thing in this case, its not like a game like WoW where you have a million different buttons and no clue of what to use when or how, everything is pretty straight forward.
The style is charming, even if I dont care for the musume elements of the game, all of the robots and characters look really nice, and have a distinct art style, same for the arenas and worldspaces. Some arenas have a distinctive curve to them, which I havent really seen in a game before and is a fun and cool effect.
The customization is fun, of my 72 hours, I'd bet about 20 was spent making custom bots and tweaking the various elements of them. Theres alot of complexity in the Cartridge system that isnt immediately noticeable, some moves or abilities are locked to certain classes or special cores.
The gameplay itself, outside of customizing and certain PvP related issues, is also quite fun. Each of the 4 classes feels fun to play, with its own role in the battlefield, and own weaknesses, but its not a hard counter system like some other games have. an Air player can still kill an Artillery enemy with melee attacks, a Land player can skill kill Air enemies with explosive attacks, and Artilery players can still take down Land enemies with Beam attacks. Supports get away from the triangle, mostly because they tend to focus less on damage and more on debuffing enemies, buffing allies, and healing them. Not to say there arent damage Supports out there.
[h1]Should you play this game?[/h1]
Well, theres no reason to not give it a shot, but theres alot here to not like, and I honestly wouldnt fault anyone for quitting after a few hours. The game is old, archaic, and outdated in alot of places. But that outdated nature in alot of places is where the charm of the game comes from. I dont exactly recocmend it for everyone, I cant in good conscious. But if you can put up with the game's flaws, there is a gem underneath of it, rough as it is.
