On October 9, Terra Battle was released on iOS and Android platforms. Oh, I'm sorry, you haven't heard? That's fine, neither have the rest of us. The gaming press has been strangely (and maybe a little bafflingly) mum on the game now post-release, and only a handful of previews made it out of PAX this year where the game was finally shown off to the Western audience.
As a game built for cell phones and tablets, this isn't that confounding; most video game outlets are either overwhelmed with the ocean of regular releases for games found on Apple's App Store or Google Play Store to have time to sift through them all, or simply shrug their shoulders at the whole idea of iOS/Android gaming because most this ocean is polluted with obvious shovelware. The good stuff out there, your Hearthstones and Ridiculous Fishings, tend to be tiny islands.
But even if it were a numbers game alone, this would make the good stuff seem that much greater. There are a lot of, say, free-to-play card games out there, but games like Rage of Bahamut, Assassin's Creed: Recollections, and Hearthstone stand out among because of their smarter, more tactical design, higher production value, and careful balancing of the format's nearly uncontested free-to-play business model. The fact that AC:R, Hearthstone, and others like Epic/ Chair's Infinity Blade and Capy's Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP have the other major attention grabber at their disposal --a developer's name recognition-- is the other side of the iOS/Android popularity coin. We know that a game made by Blizzard will at least look great and play well and, while that doesn't guarantee a perfect product, they're at least made with some thought behind them.
So why in the world has there been no mainstream press for Terra Battle?
It's certainly holding a distinct pedigree. Chiefly designed by Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and a small team at his Mistwalker studio, the game has decades of RPG experience behind it with all of the success and struggle that's come along for the ride. Production value isn't exactly through the roof for such a low-key game, but the art and music (made by the same art directors as Mistwalker's Wii release The Last Story and Final Fantasy series vet Nobuo Uematsu, respectively) is clean and eye-catching. Sakaguchi himself was in the media eye a few weeks ago to drum up some interest before the launch, but since then, a whole lot of nothing.
And, you know, the game is good, too; it's easy to pick up and play but has a fair amount of depth, and the balance of free-to-play mechanics doesn't feel so mercenary. I'll get into more of that with a review in a day or so.
But come on, people. Why aren't you talking about this?
