New Fantasy is aimed at those who are already familiar with the Jade Dynasty IP, and provides a heavy dose of fan service by way of inserting your original character into the story of the novel, where they essentially become the protagonist rather than Xiaofan. He is still present though, so some liberties are taken with the story. As such, it's not just a stale, straightforward retelling.
Visually the game is absolutely stunning, and takes cues from Perfect World's previous Jade Dynasty title as well as the 2019 film. The character creator is very detailed as well, I haven't come across anyone that looks quite like me yet.
Battles are pretty much what you'd expect for turn-based RPG combat. You control the actions of your character and a pet, with four companions of your choice controlled by AI. You'll be completing a majority of the content while grouped, so battles will generally be 10 on 10—five enemies and their pets to five players and their pets.
Autoplay is useful for passing daily quests, but for difficult combat I would discourage it. Even some daily activities can become difficult if you try to cheese them. Your character won't perform some of the more useful abilities while on auto, like using espers or items. Targeting specific enemies also becomes important quickly, which can only be done manually. Similarly, while auto-pathing is useful for navigating repetitive content, exploration is also encouraged by the addition of hidden elements in the world.
The English translation is, unfortunately, a complete mess. Near the beginning of the game it's clear a genuine effort was put into localization. There's an obvious point, however, where machine translation takes over. While that does make for a sloppy and sometimes incoherent script, having even a sub-par translation makes the game infinitely more accessible when compared to having none. I'd much rather see more devs take this route as opposed to doing nothing at all for English-speaking audiences 👏
The intended speed of progression is another gripe I have. You're expected to blow through a large chunk of the story within the first week and get directly to end-game content. That's not how I like to play MMOs. I like to do a little story content each day, so to have several features locked until late in the game was a bit annoying.
There's a gacha system for party members with a free daily draw, as well as two subscription options for extra rewards if you feel like going that route (see screenshots below). The gacha is pretty reasonable: every 10 pulls guarantees an S or SS unit, while you gradually accumulate a currency used to exchange for SSS units.
It's easy to see how some could write this off as just another autoplay cash grab, but there's actually a surprising amount of strategy and depth to the game. As a fan of old-school RPGs I'm glad I gave New Fantasy a shot, because there's lots to love about it.
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