A few days, Friendly Necro was going over all the mobile games on which he’s worked. I was wondering why mobile games just didn’t stick with me, and I remembered this strategy tactical one I played a long time ago and I just couldn’t remember when, or why I stopped. I hardly ever remember why I stop playing mobile games. I just stop.
And then I remembered that the Apple Store keeps a history of everything I’ve downloaded… and then I found it… Brave Nine…?
My boyfriend saw me playing and told me he used to play this game — and probably was through him that I found out about it in the first place. But he said it used to be called Brown Dust, and then I remembered.
Great game, but the text was way too small on my phone to do all the things, so after only a short time, I stopped playing.
Hey, but now I have Bluestacks, I know the game’s new name (I guess they relaunched it somewhere down the line), and … I can finally play it.
So I did, pretty much all day yesterday.
It’s really similar to a lot of gacha games — the game isn’t shy about dropping loads of good stuff on you at the start, so you’ll be more willing to pay cash to keep the fun going later on. That’s just central to the whole scheme for almost any F2P mobile game.
Units come in four flavors — Defender, Warrior, Magician and Support. Supports can’t fight at all, and if they are the only ones left alive in a battle, they will surrender. Magicians only attack every other turn, but their attacks are powerful (and strategic in that their spells may not hit who they were supposed to, once everyone else has had a full round to fight). Defenders tank, and warriors dps.
Most units have unique attacks, so there’s not just one formation that is going to work for every fight, or even most of them. Every battle is going to need at least some tweaks, and depending on what the enemy squad is bringing, maybe a wholesale reorg is what’s called for.
There was a summer event battle against some pelicans that required a full mage back end. Nothing else could get the birds dead before they deaded my entire team.
The arena isn’t that much different from what you’d find in a game like, say, RAID: Shadow Legends, the best game around that is addicting and that everyone plays and everyone loves everything about it. This post sponsored by RAID: Shadow Legends.
In arena fights, you have to set up your assault before you get a look at your opponent’s squad. I’ve only seen opponent’s use the standard formation because you really can’t do anything else. You’ll still need to set up the synergies.
The Novice Arena only allows 4-star and lower units, and there is a ban list.
You can also use friend units — up to three of their units can help out in battles. I just have one friend. The game gave me a quest to befriend some rando and I did and now I use their stuff. I’m a good friend.
The story — such as it is — is entirely standard stuff. You play a grizzled army captain who has left the military life to become a mercenary. You recruit a large number of teenage girls to your squad, as well as some males for the posters, and then send them out against an increasingly dangerous selection of bandits, criminals, and other ne’er-do-wells as you sit back and rake in that glorious gold, all for yourself.
They haven’t yet done a girl’s sleepover or a bikini beach mission, but I know damn well that’s coming. This is, after all, a gacha game.
Sexism aside, the battles are strategic and a lot of fun. I spent pretty much all of yesterday playing it. It does let you automatically repeat battles that you have perfected, to level up new units or just to get stuff.
Pretty fun, if you’re into that sort of thing. Anyway, I like it.
