Recent reviews by dRekt

If you like any of Battlefield, SOCOM or MAG, Battlebit is for you. The game is incredibly similar, and in parts better than those games.

You also get the added bonus of proximity chat, which more games need. From proximity chat:

- Rise of the Valkyries played while going into battle from a helicopter
- All Star by Smash Mouth played by an enemy each time they got kills with Suicide C4
- Dozens of teammates sing Don't Stop Believin' in spawn waiting for the game to start
- Taken as a POW by the enemy team after I attempted to flank them

I had over 10k hours in this game from years ago. The base gameplay is rather unique compared to other MMOs, and can be a really enjoyable. The problem though, is, well, everything else.

You're thrust into the game with a rather poor tutorial that hasn't changed in many many years, with many things not properly explained. You level rather quickly up until about 120-130, where you're really undergeared, but it's done so fast that you haven't had any time to earn any gold or grind for anything, but at the same time there's no real way to make the money you need until later on.

The item mall... the item mall is just atrocious. Atlantica is basically a mobile gacha game in MMO form, except its practices are often worse than even mobile games. It's even got a auto battle. Multiple basic QOL features that should just be available at all times are locked behind items that are either Item Mall exclusive or heavily time gated, and most of those items have time limits meaning you have to constantly buy them over and over. These include; teleporting around the map to cities/dungeons, checking the details on a mob to see what monsters are in it (this is incredibly important), additional inventory space, a robot to automatically loot each turn so you don't have to (also important as loot from individual monsters goes away after a few turns), seeing the enemy's health, auto-battle for easier grinding, and the jackpot system which makes grinding much better.

There are so many mercenaries in the game to obtain, but the best ones are Item Mall exclusive, which while they can be sold to other players, are sold for excessive prices. Just obtaining the mercenaries isn't enough though. Every single one has to be leveled up independently, or you can pay some money to hasten it. Each one has multiple skills which all must be leveled through specific skill books, with the skill books having 4 different levels to them (I, II, III, IV) and they get more expensive the higher level type it is. Some of the skill books can only be bought through the item mall. They also have to be upgraded multiple times every so often which increase the stats with specific crystals. You also have items called Growth Vials which give the mercenaries and your character stats at random, though not all stats are useful to each character, so you have to get items to get those stats taken back at random again, then use more vials to get stats at random. On top of all of that, you can't just get the mercenaries whenever you want freely. Your party is your character + 8 mercenaries, if you want anymore than that, each one has to be stored in a mercenary room which is another time limited thing. You can get a permanent version but it's incredibly expensive.

You enhance all your normal gear, you can enhance the clothing from the item mall, you can enhance the mercenary skins, and all of it is heavy, HEAVY RNG and of course can be made easier by spending lots of real money.

It's quite literally impossible to compete at or near the top in PvP without spending an exorbitant amount of real money, unless you've been playing this game for 5+ years at this point. Which while not a necessary thing to do, the PvP in the game is one of the highlights. Even the PvE can be difficult to really do without spending a lot of real money as without it you will be considerably weaker.

This game is power creep incarnate, specifically with the Item Mall. As said before, the best mercenaries are all exclusive to it. The clothing and mounts from the item mall all have stats and they're almost always better than the previously released, so you constantly have to spend more money and change your character's looks if you want to keep up on what's the best. Just picking for looks isn't really a thing.


Pros:
Unique gameplay. You won't find another MMO like it.
Story isn't too bad.

Cons:
P2W has seeped into every aspect of the game quite extensively. Without spending a very high amount of real money, you will always be incredibly behind in both PvE and PvP.
Basic QOL features locked behind pay walls and are time limited when you do have them.
Costumes and mounts are required for higher leveled play but the only good ones are item mall only.
Upgrading mercenaries, even just average ones can take an insane amount of in-game money.
No quest variety. Vast majority of quests are only kill x monsters, fetch x items. Can get real tedious as not all mobs have the same monsters in them, and even worse if you aren't able to check the details of mobs to see if the monsters you need are in there.
Basically no character customization.
Graphics are quite dated, game is 12 years old.