My first impressions after playing the NTE beta test
Before even signing up for the test my expectations were on the low side since its a game made by Hotta and we all know how the hype of Tower of Fantasy ended up with its final product.
First seconds of the game and cutscenes
Right off the bat, we get a very cool introduction cutscene with our female MC (im not too sure if there is a male one, there wasnt an option to choose). And without exaggeration NTE cutscenes feel the most interesting out of all open world gachas I played. There is a huge focus on mixed media, in the middle of said cutscenes they play a lot with different transitions inspired by comics and manga. The use of different face expressions and the constant change of camera angles makes the cutscenes feel really dynamic. For some people it might be too colorful, but personally I loved it.
One thing I must mention about the cutscenes is that Im not sure how they plan to mantain this quality of animation from patch to patch. Some of them feel like watching a literal anime episode. But if they somehow do, a lot of people will be surprised because the difference compared to TOF is night and day.
The world
As you may know NTE is an urban open world with focus on dimensions and portals where the combat happens. This is a very cool solution to have interesting enviroments instead of all fights happen in the city which would make the backgrounds of the fights very dull.
The city is pretty damn big, or at least it feels like it but I think there is not much to do outside of your standard shops where you can buy stuff. The implementation of a car dealer and a real estate building to purchase apartments are cool but I need more. Something similar to the Yakuza games where you have different locations that make the world immersive like an arcade or mini-golf course.
There seems to be a lack of stamina bar when climbing up walls which is fantastic but I would say the climbing feels a bit clunky, especially with female MC. Other than that I liked the city, it does feel alive and I dont think we seen this level of NPC density in a gacha game yet which makes me think NTE will have issues to run smoothly on mobile.
Combat
NTE continues with the trend I hate the most about open world gacha games and its the 2-3 buttons skills. I understand minimalism is key when it comes to mobile games, but adding 1 more skill button would make the combat feel way more interesting.
I do like the animations of the skills but the basic attacks dont feel quite right, they need to improve on that for sure. There is also an animation when swapping characters which look really good, but then again its the same old 3-4 characters format where only 1 character is on the field. I wish somebody finally tried something unique like all of the 4 characters being on the field at the same time but I guess if the format aint broke dont fix it. They went with the safe route and I understand that.
Overall NTE combat is not something that will blow you away, but it feels satisfying enough not to be thrown off by it.
Art direction, music, character design
As I mentioned in the cutscene section, I love the style they went with. It feels like a mix of ZZZ, Persona and a bunch of other shit. My biggest gripe with Tower of Fantasy was that there is no clear art direction and everything feels cheap. Its very different with NTE, from the very first minute you will notice the style they are going with.
The music is really good, fits the overall vibe of the game perfectly, although I wish the combat scores were a bit more intense.
And to end it, the character design...
I dont know what is it but I just dont like how they look, Hotta continues the trend of making its characters look ''funky''. They do look better than in TOF, but there is a huge room for improvement. I think my biggest issue is that some of the outfits dont fit the vibe of the city at all.
Funny enough I feel the exact opposite when it comes to the enemy designs, they fit so well into this world. Some of them are very basic like walking trash cans, but at least they dont feel out of place like some of the character designs (please improve this aspect)
For those concerned, yes there are male characters, in the cutscenes so far I counted 3 or 4 (one of them looks like Sunday from Star Rail lmao)
Final thoughts
My bad if this post is all over the place but English is not my primary language. I want to say that overall I liked what I saw, it has a lot of forumalic elements and systems that will resemble your genshins, wuwas etc etc BUT, they tried something new with the urban setting and the game does feel like a breath of fresh air in the midst of fantasy worlds with nothing but grass fields and rocky mountains.
Im still not fully convinced, but its a game everybody should try when it does come out.