Another strategic RPG linked to a famous anime: here is the review of Saint Seiya Awakening, the new mobile game of the Knights of the Zodiac
The review of Saint Seiya Awakening: the new mobile game dedicated to the Knights of the Zodiac traces the events of the series created by Masami Kurumada up to the saga of Hades, bringing to the screen all the characters seen in the manga and giving rise to engaging strategic clashes in which the various Saints can resort to their most characteristic moves: the Pegasus Lightning, the Blow of the Rising Dragon, the Diamond Dust and so on. Not only that: even the most battered Bronze Horsemen are given prominence, which you can include in your party to increase the variety of situations and discover maneuvers never seen before.
In short, we will have Unicorn's Jabu attacking several targets at the same time, Nachi del Lupo which increases the power of a companion of choice during the turn, Castalia (Marin dell'Aquila in original) who acts as a support unit with healing powers, and many others. The formula of the game is exactly the same as that seen very recently in Fist of the North Star Legends ReVive, as well as the philosophy behind both projects, which include a codex in which all the characters are described in detail as they are unlocked and interruption sequences that in the case of Saint Seiya cannot rely on the quality of the SEGA kinematics (there are few scenes taken from the last anime), but this time they also recall the tables of the original comic on several occasions.
Gameplay and structure
The main screen of Saint Seiya Awakening is very crowded, as often happens with oriental productions, and you need to do some practice before understanding what the various items are for. There are the traditional mechanisms of evocation to obtain new Knights and extra characters that we can insert in the party or "sacrifice" for the techniques of revival of our main fighters, which go to increase the stars of the relative card overcoming the boundaries of "rarity" predetermined and allowing us to focus on the protagonists that we like the most instead of favoring the classification of the game. The same system is used to improve the individual moves available to each Knight, while two different currencies regulate the expenditure for upgrades.
Do you have to spend real money to play without problems? Actually no: although microtransactions represent an integral part of the experience, with numerous references to more or less rich paid packages, it is possible to proceed in history without any particular problems provided you have a little patience and fall back on secondary quests and / or special missions in order to grow the team and reach the level necessary to face certain opponents. In the same vein, the energy of action is very abundant and allows you to play for hours without having to wait for it to be restored: from this point of view the approach chosen by the developers appears rather permissive, even if the grinding becomes necessarily obligation after a few hours.
The structure is particularly rich, as you may have guessed: not only is it possible to retrace the events of the series in great detail, but also to relive memories of the past or face the demons (literally) of each Knight in order to obtain experience points useful to progression. There are sections in which one moves within the scenarios, albeit in a simplistic way, to then interact with the enemies that we are going to face, but it is precisely the fighting that constitutes the fulcrum of the gameplay. As mentioned, the formula adopted is exactly the same one we saw recently in Fist of the North Star Legends ReVive, although some important tricks are fortunately able to liven it up, making it more varied.
In fact, just a few games are enough to bring the team to include five elements, from chapter four the degree of difficulty becomes interesting (before that point the challenges are solved rather trivially) but above all there is an abundant repertoire of moves that diversifies the attacks. and enhances the strategic element, enriching itself as you upgrade. So if the game of Ken the Warrior takes a lot of time to reach this kind of setting, that of the Knights of the Zodiac does it almost immediately, to the benefit of fun and the desire to return to face new confrontations.
The technical realization is also in this case closely linked to the anime: as mentioned there are no quality kinematics seen in the SEGA tie-in and the intermezzo sequences must be satisfied with the in-game graphics, which however appears very well made and can be regulated in the level of detail and in the fluidity of the frame rate to adapt to terminals of the latest generation. The special moves have been very well represented, in a rather spectacular way, but it is the soundtrack that makes the difference: the musics are the original ones of the cartoon and accompany the action to the great, significantly increasing the involvement, especially for the longtime fan of Saint Seiya. Too bad for the instability of the servers, which at the moment suffer from some too much uncertainty and affect the experience in competitive games due to excessive latency.
