Sisa Week = Reporter Song Ga-young Angel Games has officially released a new mobile game, ‘Tower of God M: The Great Journey’ (hereafter referred to as ‘Tower of God M’). As it is a mobile game developed based on the masterpiece webtoon Tower of God, which has been serialized for a long time over the past 11 years, it received a lot of attention from users even before its release.
On the 20th, Angel Games officially launched the mobile role-playing game (RPG) Tower of God M in the domestic mobile game market. It is a mobile RPG based on the popular webtoon ‘Tower of God’ with 4.5 billion views worldwide, and features 2D graphic-based action production that elaborately reproduces the original story and world view.
As it is based on the Tower of God, interest from original fans and users was poured out immediately after its release. As of the 23rd, it ranked first in popularity in the two major app markets in Korea, including Google Play and Apple App Store, and as of the 28th, it ranked 8th in Google Play sales and 4th in App Store sales.
Angel Games, which had a box office atmosphere at the beginning of its release, went beyond the popularity of the original webtoon and played it directly to see if it was a game that integrated its own development capabilities such as graphics, directing, and contents.
◇ Users also praised the drawing… It’s a pity that there is no full illustration
Tower of God M’s illustrations and action cutscenes are beyond expectations. As much as there was a lot of likes and dislikes for the animation produced in 2020, there were many concerns about the drawing in the news of the game production based on the Tower of God IP. Since it is based on a famous IP, there was also an analysis that the design would influence the quality of the entire game.
However, Angel Games resolved these concerns at once by providing game demonstrations to users at the G-Star site last year. In fact, among users who demonstrated Tower of God M before its release and users who played the game after its release, there is even a demand for animation production based on Angel Games drawings.
In the webtoon, there are not a few parts that are difficult to capture all of the contrast, detail, and flashy combat effects. Angel Games puts all of the graphic elements that are difficult to include in a webtoon into Tower of God M, making it pleasing to the eye just by turning on the game.
The boyish appearance of the main character of the game, ‘The Twenty-Fifth Night (hereinafter referred to as the night)’, and the fancy skill effects that appear when using Black March are more colorful than animations and increase immersion in the game and story. The appearance and skill graphics of the main characters, including Bam, do not lag behind anyone.
The production of the webtoon cutscene that appears when the character’s skill is activated during battle is also eye-catching. Most of the methods are to produce and direct a separate cinematic video when the skill is activated for heroic and legendary heroes. Tower of God M is based on the webtoon IP, so when the skill is activated, the illustration appearance of each character is placed in the cut to create a dramatic battle moment.
However, there are moments where the movement of the characters is somewhat unnatural. In Tower of God M, the stage moves in a 2D side-scrolling method, but the characters can freely move left and right, up and down. However, the composition of each stage is different, and in some stages, the movement of the character is not three-dimensional, but feels like a plane movement.
Moreover, in the case of the angle where the stage directly reflects the character’s profile, the human appearance of the character is hidden by large-looking characters such as ‘Lark’. If you don’t want the character you want to be covered, you can change the location through team formation. However, couldn’t it have been possible to make the characters appear in a certain composition from the beginning?
The most disappointing thing while playing Tower of God M was that I couldn’t see all the high-quality 2D illustrations of each character. You can see the entire appearance of the character during battle, but it’s still disappointing that you can’t see the entire illustration on the character screen.
◇ Deal-oriented in the beginning… Equipment and skills are important from the second half
The combat content itself is not difficult. Similar to other mobile role-playing games (RPGs), in Tower of God M, you can place 4 characters according to the situation of each stage and fight. According to the setting of the webtoon, the characters are divided into five positions: △wave catcher △fisher △lighthouse keeper △window keeper △searcher.
However, although all positions have damage abilities, there are no characters with outstanding support abilities. A character that properly plays the role of a healer and a buffer that grants each character’s ability options is much less than a character with deal skills. Moreover, you cannot fight except for the main character of the Tower of God, Bam.
If so, how to fight without a core supporter or healer? First of all, it would be better to check the skills of each character and divide the standards of tank, dealer, healer, and support. Along with this, it is best to place characters with high DPS unconditionally. It is to place characters who deal damage without a chance to receive a counterattack from the enemy. It is even better if you have skills such as critical hit and extra damage, and the cooldown is low.
Currently, including Bam, which cannot be excluded from the existing deck, the window keeper ‘Hunter Lark’ is placed in the rear, the angler ‘Ha Yuri’ and the lighthouse keeper ‘Kun’ are the basic formations, and △Urek Mazino △Lophoviaren △Mini Lark, etc. I use it to change my deck.
It would be perfect if there were ‘Sia Asia’ and ‘Evan’, which some refer to as Tier 0, but it is difficult to obtain with the current draw probability. It’s unfortunate that there are no supporters or healers as you progress through the stages, but it’s possible to hold on if you raise Kun’s skill level and reinforce his equipment.
As for the starter weapon, if you haven’t picked a legend, it’s better to secure and deploy a hero starter weapon as much as possible. This is because even if you recycle, you cannot obtain the desired level of legend at the same time, regardless of whether it is a character or starting weapon.
In addition, if you have skill level, equipment enhancement, and securing a legendary-grade starting weapon, you can clear stage 3 without difficulty. Unlike other RPGs, there are no conditions for clearing the stage, so if one of the 4 characters survives, the stage can be cleared.
From Stage 4, the difficulty level rises significantly, and from this point on, you need to lower the proportion of automatic battles and focus on increasing each character’s equipment, skills, and starting weapon options. Since it is a system where the level of the entire character rises when the level of the account rises, it is recommended to actively utilize the strengthening items obtained by clearing the content.
◇ Growth-oriented content… out of balance
The contents are divided into ‘Rice Cooker Training’, which is used as a waiting area when the game starts, △Top of Ordeal △Story △Trial of the Manager △Ranker War. Most of these content, excluding the Ranker War, are growth-oriented content that helps you level up your account.
The story progresses according to the story of the original webtoon. If you enjoy the content to see the story and it becomes difficult to clear the battle, you can level up through rice cooker training and the Tower of Trials.
Most of the content supports automatic battles and enables farming of equipment equipped to characters and skill books to raise skill levels. Because of this, it can be a game suitable for users who prefer idle-style games.
However, from the beginning of the game, the game balance is not very good, so it seems that it will be difficult to fight automatically towards the second half. Even if you go beyond stage 3 of the story content, clearing with only level 50 starts to become difficult.
Level growth, which had risen rapidly in the beginning, started to slow down, and since the contents that can be leveled up are limited, it is difficult to nurture as you go into the second half. It is not an experience event or reward event, so interest can quickly drop.
It is not a situation that can be solved by billing. Even if there is a tier 0 character or starter weapon, the difficulty of the stage itself is very high and the balance of each character’s stats is not well balanced, so there are cases where it is not possible to clear the game.
In response, Angel Games promised a balance patch that was highly requested by users through a developer note on the 24th, and is currently implementing it. I just hope that the balance of each content, legend grade character, starting weapon, etc. will be adjusted as soon as possible.
◇ I was immersed in the story and graphics… Balance patch urgently needed
Tower of God M pays a lot of attention to drawing and boasts high-quality graphics. As it is a webtoon-based game, the details such as directing are differentiated. It is also noteworthy that growth-oriented content was prepared so that users would not be stressed while clearing content like homework.
Users who are still riding the webtoon, or users who missed the beginning of the story, are likely to be highly satisfied with the story content. In the current development of webtoons, it is difficult to draw detailed emotional lines and the entire story, but just capturing the main story is enough for fan service to increase immersion.
However, from the beginning of the game, the overall balance is off, and the difficulty between the contents is high. It is also unfortunate that the game operation is not easy due to the team composition that must include the main character, Bam, in the deck. It seems necessary to think about the part where legend-grade heroes do not show their abilities such as stats and skills that match their rank. It is also regrettable that there is no content that allows you to revisit past stories or shows the relationship between each hero and the night.
Over the past few years, various games based on webtoon IP have been released in the domestic mobile game market. Just last year, games based on webtoon IPs such as ‘Super String’ and ‘Island M’ were released, and this year as well, Tower of God M and ‘Geo, the Magic Scroll Merchant’ were released, and Netmarble announced the development of ‘Tower of God: A New World’.
However, there are not a few games based on Webtoon IP that have been discontinued. A game based on the Tower of God IP was released once and then the service was terminated. As a result, the release of Tower of God M by Angel Games received a lot of expectations and concerns.
Tower of God M can be seen as an effort to resolve concerns and criticism towards existing webtoon games. Even though I got off the webtoon a few years ago, I was able to immerse myself in the game more as I remembered the early days of the Tower of God serial while playing the game. Users who have been disappointed in graphics or stories in existing webtoon IP-based games will find new fun in Tower of God M.
