A satisfying top-down idle monster shooter | Full Review - Alice, Final Weapon : Idle RPG

This is what happens when even a one-handed game like Vampire Survivors is still too much work. We now enter the realm of Idle and AFK games where you don’t even have to do anything to play and progress. Alice, Final Weapon : Idle RPG is another entry in this popular mobile genre.

🟩Pros

+Satisfying automated monster killing action

+Engaging progression system

+Bonus things to do like quests and missions

+Low power mode for optimal idle gameplay

🟥Cons

+Can get grindy a few hours in

Alice, Final Weapon : Idle RPG is an idle top-down monster shooter RPG game with typical anime-style visuals and cel-shaded graphics, where players infinitely kill monsters in a never-ending cycle. There is no story, and the whole focus is the non-stop gameplay.

Play infinitely

The gameplay loop consists of the player character clearing increasingly difficult stages, gathering enough currency and materials to upgrade their character and acquire more powerful weapons, to be able to clear higher stages. Kill monsters, get upgrades, experiment with builds, kill bigger monsters, rinse and repeat.

When I say “clearing”, players don’t literally clear the stages of monsters. In fact, all stages run infinitely, with an infinite barrage of monsters. Instead, a certain bar gets filled that gives players the option to challenge the boss of that stage and when killed, advances you to the next stage. This way, players can either stay in this stage to comfortably farm or advance to the next stage at their own volition. Dying doesn’t mean anything, no resets, and no progress is lost.

Constant incremental upgrades

There are many underlying mechanics in ALICE, from the itemization, level progression, boss fights, to the side missions that result in a game that constantly engages the player and keeps him tinkering with the character despite the passive idle nature. There is no active combat gameplay aside from the optional movement and dash option, but it still involves a lot of character building and tinkering. Nevertheless, while ALICE is an AFK game in its core, but there is still an option to partly manually control the character’s movements

There are two main currencies in the game. Gold and Diamond. Gold is usually the “free” currency while Diamond is the premium one. Aside from XP, Gold is also used to improve the character’s different attributes like attack, vitality, or critical hit damage. These two currencies anchor the whole progression system of the game: used in upgrades, loot drops, and leveling up. The progression system overall is very engaging, giving players a plethora of frequent upgrade options and paths all throughout due to its highly incremental system.

The weapons, skills, and armors are letter tiered and are usually acquired by a “loot summoning” technique which requires diamonds. Players can either keep playing the game and do quests and missions; or watch ads and spend some cash to accumulate diamonds to have more chances at loot drops. Fair play for the developers for not locking Diamonds behind a paywall, but it is still hard to acquire once the initial tutorial quest ends and you reach the higher levels. All duplicates can be upgraded into higher tiers, which basically makes even the low-quality drops useful with quantity.

Loot is randomized, but the chances of getting better loot increases with every loot summon, providing assurance that players will eventually get top tier loot regardless of their luck, instead of purely relying on unforgiving RNG drop rates.

Aside from leveling up the character and upgrading the gear. The character can also increase “challenge” its rank by trying out a 1v1 boss fight. Increasing a rank will give off massive bonuses such as an increased skill or passive slot. There are also a number of side missions that players can partake in and are focused on a specific resource as a reward, giving a lot of variety to the gameplay.

Low power mode

The AFK/Idling aspect is well implemented, even offering a low power mode where the screen turns off but the game still runs in the background. It does require periodic online connectivity to work, however.

Gets grindy at the later stages

Playing Alice, Final Weapon : Idle RPG, I was immediately engaged by its progression system and the fun climb upward through the monster filled stages. However, I easily reached its soft paywall and any substantial progression got slower and slower from then on. Thankfully, the game is not as tainted as other free-to-play games and the in-app purchases are only encouraged at worst, and optional at best, not forced down your throat.

Conclusion:

Alice, Final Weapon : Idle RPG is an interesting idle RPG game with well-oiled mechanics and satisfying progression system, that is until players hit a soft paywall and it gets very grindy to substantially increase your character’s power. It’s idle though, so you can just AFK to let it farm indefinitely. It’s a decent game, it's grindy, but if you like idle games, this is one of the better ones progression wise.