Tower of Fantasy Reviews
Tower of Fantasy does very little to stand out from other gacha games and can't find its footing in either gameplay or story, making it quite a mess.
At the end of the day, you can have a decent amount of fun with Tower of Fantasy but it’s hard to see this title having much of a future. Just next week, Genshin Impact has its version 3.0 release which will drain most of the content-hungry gacha crowd away, while Zenless Zone Zero appears to be a looming giant that’ll present a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting with great quality. Investing much time and money doesn’t feel right when the strengths of the title can’t overpower the overwhelming negatives.
Hotta's work to add everything that the title has evolved in a year joins a large amount of extra content and events specially designed to celebrate the arrival of the game on Sony consoles and encourage its players to stay in their world until you get the taste.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Tower of Fantasy has some strengths and several annoyances. Its attractive world is populated by a generic story and forgettable NPCs. Its exciting combat is hampered by time-gated exploration and an overly complex, fussy gacha system. For fans of the Asian MMO genre or recent converts to Genshin Impact, the game might be worth checking out. I don’t think Tower of Fantasy is a good introduction to gacha games, and there are generally lots of better MMORPGs to invest your time in.
Tower of Fantasy is a whirlwind of enjoyable combat, exploration and mini-games, mixed with a nefarious gacha system and the annoying proclivity to time and level gate progression. The ability to create your own character, team up with other players, participate in a huge guild, and battle hordes of monsters with a deep yet simplistic combat system tips the scales just enough to warrant the hype that it has been given. Tower of Fantasy dips its toe into greatness through extensive gameplay systems and an accessible game loop that has broad appeal. No matter what you like doing, whether it’s team play, exploration, PvP, or dungeon running, you can find it here. Just temper this fantasy with the realization that you should never spend more than you can afford. Hotta built Tower of Fantasy as a marathon, so there’s no better time than now to enjoy the journey at your own pace.
Tower of Fantasy has a lot to offer, but it does push the player to spend money rather than grind their way towards success. A 'Genshin Impact killer' this is not.
At the end of the day, I found myself feeling pretty ambivalent towards Tower of Fantasy. I appreciated its focus on multiplayer activities, but ultimately, Tower of Fantasy wants to be a story-driven MMORPG with an immersive open-world for players to get lost in, and it just isn’t that. After finally getting past the honeymoon period of being wowed by its sun-soaked environments, it became clear that Tower of Fantasy is pretty much all style, with little substance. It’s a fun romp, and certainly one of the better mobile MMOs out right now, but in the grand scheme of things, there isn’t quite enough polish or engaging quest content to keep me coming back for more.
Even after a year of major updates and new regions, Tower of Fantasy still has fundamental issues which hinder it to a painful degree.
What I can say now is that I believe the foundation for a good game is here within Tower of Fantasy. It mainly comes down to the support by Hotta Studio to make it a strong title that can contend with the now established Genshin Impact. I don’t believe Tower of Fantasy could ever topple that, but it could turn into a good alternative for those getting bored of the former.
A really good free-to-play open world game that's easy to recommend to solo players or groups of friends.
A new rival in the Gacha market has arrived: Tower of Fantasy, a game with an outstanding art direction and a dynamic battle system. The rewards are plentiful for the player, however, progression is limited at the game convenience. Tower of Fantasy has the potential to be a good rival if it is constantly updated with new content, performance is fixed, and progression overhauled.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
f you have to pick one for yourself, I’d say your choice will primarily come down to your preferences in terms of two things: the overall game structure and the combat system. If you prefer action gaming, Tower of Fantasy is the obvious choice, as it has the feel of a single-player character action game. If you prefer more traditional role-playing games, Final Fantasy XIV is where you should hang your hat, as while the game isn’t turn-based, the cooldown-based nature of the combat is quite akin to the series’ classic Active Time Battle systems with added movement.
Is it better than Genshin? No frickin’ clue; I never played Genshin. But as a first foray into this “shared open-world” subgenre of online RPG, I’m having an absolute blast with Tower of Fantasy — and I suspect I will continue to do so for quite some time, at the rate I’m going.
Tower of Fantasy may not be doing anything especially new — it’s fairly shameless how much of a Genshin clone it is in terms of presentation, with even the dialogue window layout and font bearing an uncanny resemblance to MiHoYo’s hit — but it does what it does very well. It’s a good-looking game with an intriguing storyline, likeable characters and enjoyable mechanics — at least in its early hours.
So: Do I recommend it? If you like games with anime looks, and you feel like the popular MMOs today are just too clunky for your taste, Tower of Fantasy looks to be a solid option. It’s kind of rough around the edges, but more than makes up for that with the fun factor and potential for long term playability. Perhaps not for everyone, but it is a surprisingly good entry into the F2P MMO space, especially among those with a mobile version.
I’m very ambivalent about Tower of Fantasy, but despite seeing quite a few flaws, I also see a lot of potential here. The attempts to riff on Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd wind up leaving some of the things it attempts to emulate feeling inferior to where it’s drawing inspiration from. That said, what it tries to do differently is help make a functional, stable platform from which Tower of Fantasy could truly start to grow from, and make something entirely fresh and unique from its competition. The exploration features, the Relic system, and even the weapon types are willing to come together and make something fun and unique, but it’s held back by a mostly lackluster world, bad story writing, annoying upgrade systems, and currency overload. I’d say go in strictly on Free-to-Play ideals, temper your expectations and focus on the things it does differently, and you’ll probably find something to like.
The open landscape and the expansive world here are amazing sights to see and to be a part of! The game’s lush grass, fluffy clouds, and rushing water feel so well connected to the game’s anime art style. Even the character customization is a great addition to the game. I got to make my character the smallest guy possible for fun and quickly realized that almost everyone I was with, or went up against, was a giant to me. I loved the game, nonetheless. It felt like the developers could have charged upwards of $5 for this game, but it is free, so there really isn’t anything stopping you from downloading it on steam or mobile right now. So good luck and safe travels, adventurer!
Tower of Fantasy has a vast world that you are free to explore when you aren’t being prevented from doing so.
Unlike other PC-Mobile cross platform games out there, Tower of Fantasy successfully captured the essence of open world MMORPG, including raids and instance dungeons with other players. However, there were some points need to be improved such as awkward hit satisfaction, stories with unexpected moves and unintuitive content composition.
Review in Korean | Read full review