Fortress Saga: Idle AFK RPG

Phone games tend to have a short lifespan for me. I expected Fortress Saga to get deleted after I tried the Dungeon Meshi collab, but instead the game has me hooked and I've been trying to think through why. The presentation is wonderful; it truly feels like a triple A release, even though it's free-to-play. All the assets, the backgrounds, character art, sprites, animations, music are all well-done. They did not skimp on or forget anything. Each little screen has unique art to enjoy. If there is an issue with the presentation, it's that there is too much; an original song for almost every screen is borderline overwhelming. The UI/UX is also the best I've seen in a long time. Unlike other gacha/idle games, the monetization is extremely fair and the itemization is clear. Even though there are lots of items and currencies, I've never felt lost. Besides the useful tutorial, each item links to the appropriate game mechanic/shop and there is typically a quest that will also show you the way and all the menus are well organized. The quest system is another strong point because, even though repeatable quests may only give you 10 diamonds (the premium currency) they are paced to absolute perfection. You always feel like you're making progress, even if you just let the game run while you do the dishes. The presentation and user experience being so nice allows you to just enjoy the world. Instead of sweating over what the heck is going on, you can actually chill. It's not groundbreaking fiction, but the story is fine, the characters are lovely, and the fortress concept itself is very fun. Good games are often more than games; they are places you want to be. Fortress Saga nails this vibe and I find that pretty incredible for a mobile game.

I do enjoy this game. There is enough to do to not be boring, but not so much that it feels overwhelming. I forget, sometimes, about some of the ways to strengthen my fortress or characters, though, so I kind of wish there were an easier way to find it all, rather than having to dig through all the different screens to see what might be available. The card trading thing I find confusing, and it’s kinda buggy. I started a trade, but it says the other person started it, and the indicator won’t go away, which is annoying. Another new(ish) thing is chat, which is a VERY bad idea in mobile games. First of all, scrolling back through chat doesn’t work well, so it’s tough to catch up on what was missed, which could be a lot since each message takes a lot of space, and trying to tap a person’s avatar to friend or block them is a pain because chat keeps scrolling with each message. But one thing that all game devs need to know is that in-game global chat will ALWAYS be toxic and immature. Every game I’ve played that has global chat has the same problems with hate speech, trolling, etc. The chat feature is still in “Beta”, so I’m hoping they realize their mistake and remove it. Also, trying to censor words doesn’t work because people just replace one letter with an accented letter, or a number, and it doesn’t get censored.

I wasnt sure what to expect when I first booted the game but it is fairly easy to level and I mainly played this for the Webtoon coins. I didn’t expect to not like it as I usually am pretty into gacha type dungeon crawler esq mobile games but, this was very different. I liked the rpg aspect but I wish you could tap to help them fire or something??? It really just feels like I just sit there on the game, watch them defeat the monsters and level up my items/cargo/characters in between by collecting the materials I need. For an AFK game it is okay. But it seemed a lot different than what I saw in the ad. UPDATE: Okay I am admittedly hooked after a week of gamplay. Sure it is repetitive and I am not sure which characters are good YET but, I have been getting lots of mermaids and beautiful waifus and honestly I am here for it.