I started playing Counterside with the launch of the global client and still play it almost daily, and my thoughts on it are that its a very visually appealing game with some great worldbuilding and story but only passable gameplay and I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone if they are not interested in the lore and story. With something like Arknights I think someone can skip all the story, ignore all the lore, and even though that would make me sad, still have a lot of fun since the gameplay can stand on its own and I just don't think that is the case with Counterside.
I agree! It's not that the design is inherently bad, it's just kind of... meh. They take an auto battle strategy and combine it more with timings and counters. It adds to the normal gameplay, but still not enough for it to be entertaining to me. The story, art, worldbuilding aspects are all great! Just wish they went a different direction with the combat.
well for me what made me drop arknights was the gameplay. and I still play counterside since day one and I rly enjoy its gameplay. so in the end its all about preferences
Bro if you or anyone else is playing a mobile game, let alone a gacha for it's "gameplay" then you aren't looking hard enough for a real full fledged game. Gacha is bottom of the barrel shit for gameplay lmao. As long as it's serviceable and brings me some measure of fun then that's fine. Counterside is just that for me. Nobody should be playing "arknights" for its gameply lmao. So fucking cringe trying to gas up it's gameplay like that while shitting on countersides lmao
@@R3IsL except for the fact that they are marketed as games. So if your goal as a company is to make money off of it by making it "free", then it should be enjoyable to play, whether as a standalone or a side gimmick. Not questioning the validity of gachas being 'bottom of the barrel", as they generally aren't made to be the only thing you play. Ironically, they are one of the biggest money making parts of the gaming industry. Candy crush alone makes billions. But I'm for sure not going to play something that doesn't bring me enjoyment lol. I can assure you that the time and effort put into AK in comparison is much grander though. Which is the reason I do these vids.
Out of all gatcha i tried, this is the most FTP friendly game. It s very easy to advance through the content and also perform very well in pvp fast. The story mode for this game is also amazing
Honestly, this is the only game that I spend on skin. Its not bad, PvP isn't really that bad, but the meta can get stale as usually people will bring the same characters as you and it will boil down to gear and who you have on deck. But the game really needs you to invest on alot of time to get your gear up if you want to play in PvP. Good gears will also help you breeze through end game content. But if you just want to read the story about your heroes, then the game is less punishing. If you like PvP then this game is for you. If you just want to read the story, then you don't need to grind as hard as there are guides out there to help you out.
The art is fantastic, so I think spending for skins if you like them is a great purchase! The gameplay itself isn't inherently bad, just very stale since there isn't much interaction. It kind of turns into timings and counter placements more than interactive fights lol.
@TheLastMusketeerGaming it's a gacha. It's not for no reason that one of the appeals for people looking for new gachas is how fast dailies are to do, which generally means auto battle & skip battle. Not alot of people looking for deep "interactive" gameplay. Counterside is asking you to use some measure of brain power (I'd say higher than average for gachas in my experience) in both pvp and pve and that's good enough for me and lots of other people. Critiquing a a genre of game known for running on weaker hardware & it's gameplay aspects regularly neutered for monetization on its "interactiveness" just comes off as backward and pretentious. And it's incredibly disingenuous to say everyone runs the same units in pvp, that's what the ban system is for. Whether or not anyone thinks it's a good system or not is irrelevant. It is a hard fact that a large majority of the playerbase stop using a unit if ends up on the ban list. It'd be a straight horrendous lie for me to say every match is a unique experience, but for someone to say it's the same shit every single time every single week is just them being a disingenuous asshole.
Actually gameplay is very engaging and there a ton of interaction happening same time, but it takes a lot of time to master the game to actually understand whats going on on the field, I am talking about endgame pve content like co op, dc some relic stages and RTA of course. each mode requires its own skill
I personally enjoy both the story and gameplay. It alsp helps that the game has a "cutscene folder" and some RU-vidrs in the community post cutscenes play-by-play if you prefer that alternative. Gameplay-wise, it can get boring after sometime, but you can make the same argument for almost any game, assuming you play/mod that game every single day. So it's fine if you need to take a break once in a while. As for F2P friendliness; Almost all of the early to late-midgame PvE contents can be cleared with the free and farmable SR characters equipped with the free and also farmable T5 SR gears once you managed to learn the basic class/type countering mechanics. Endgame PvE contents; my only advice for those just beginning their journey into this area is to focus on getting the SSR Counter named Jin Bora. Trust me. Since in this area you'll mostly be involved in "Bossing". She'll make the current boss battles way easier to manage. Also, my biggest gripe is that the current iteration of Counterside removed the ability to level-up simply by completing stages. Yup, the versions before this lets you level up both your character's Loyalty and EXP simply by completing a stage. Now you can't 😢.
As a global player, I got into Counterside around november and have been logging in since. The art style is amazing and it has great music. It's agreeable that the gameplay isn't the best. Farming for gear and materials takes a tremendous amount of time. and with the server merge, resource spending have gone up more so you lose more and gain less back. And it's hard knowing what's going on in the battlefield because there are so much happening like skill cut-ins, giant units overlapping small enemies where you don't realize they're attacking your ship. Looking past the game play though, the story is amazing and characters are enjoyable where I haven't really hated anyone (well... besides Wilbur lol). And playing for the story is what keeps me going. And it's one of the rare anime-style mobile games to come across where faceless grunts are also obtainable to use and actually have some impact on the story aside from the usual target focus being typical pretty boys and hot waifus.
I remember playing in the SEA server for an entire year straight since day 1 release, it took a lot of time a frustration but I got to Challenger in PvP. I only ever had semi-BiS sets since gears in the game were very unforgiving, especially the set bins. And my operators are stuck in lvl 1 (Mainly AoE Res Olivia) other than their passives if I got lucky PvE posed quite the challenges, difficult yet intriguing once you get the ways on how to pull it off. Especially DC, somehow I managed to stay at least in the top 3% for the entire year. Unfortunately, unlike global the rewards were very lackluster, due to poor management of having Zlonggames as the publisher for the SEA server. Overall, the game has a pretty good story, cool world building, non-self insert Chadmin MC, and they mix the seriousness and humor of the story well. Arguably a P2W game but you'll manage if you invest time and effort as long as you see yourself enjoying it.
If the gameplay itself is enjoyable to whoever plays, then they will definitely enjoy the other aspects! The art, story, worldbuilding, as well as the music is all really nice in my opinion! Just very niche playstyle that kind of takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it for me. They are fairly generous as of the time that I played, so not entirely a mess overall lol. Definitely takes a grind though!
@@TheLastMusketeerGaming Im playing CS since the global release and I would say it's more like an IDLE Clicker with great visuals. Because i like these types of games a lot, I absolutely love Counterside. On top of that is the monitasation pretty good in my opinion :)
I wouldn’t say that there’s a specific meta, especially in pve. You can be very flexible in teams with different units and still clear them in a minute 30. The only meta oriented area was the pvp, but it takes care of itself with banned systems, so the meta changes every week. I’m challenger 3 in pvp, and I don’t find the meta changes/meta units to be too oppressing thanks to this system
Yeah, I think the PvE for the most part is well balanced, and honestly the regular PvP isn't all that bad either! The part I would worry about the most mainly would be the Real Time Arena, as that is generally going to be the sweatiest lol.
@@TheLastMusketeerGaming I forgot to mention: I am challenger 3 (the 3 highest ranks in PvP) in the live time pvp. It’s not that sweaty if you know how the meta works. Each week, players get to pick and ban what units they don’t want playing on the field, which is why I said the meta changes every week. Thanks to this, 90% of the time, the super op meta units are never on the field, giving you a chance to climb. The main difference thatll exist in pvp is the gear. If you have good gear, you’ll be able to easily climb to Diamond or higher with basic units.
i played CS since KR beta. then i migrated myself to SEA server. started the game as F2P for almost 2 years on SEA until i started monthly sub last year. As an F2P, it's really worth playing and i loved it. Among other 2D stylized games Counterside is the most appealing visually and even on game mechanics. I liked Arknights, Epic 7 and such but I enjoyed CS a lot for it's engaging playstyle. For those saying this game is very simplistic on gameplay due to it's autoplay style, imo you're argument of CS is simple gameplay ends when you reach the ranked PvP content. Oh you might say it's about gears and units. that's already given BUT skillwise, have you ever reach the higher ranks especially on challenger?? Im not on full endgame gears but i managed to enjoy the pvp climb since the meta changes weekly. Also the game story adds to the good points for this game. Not simplistic, but not so convoluted like other gacha game stories. Each player to their own opinions about this game but for me this is the best 2D gacha game i ever played
Hello, what happens is that there is still no event to start the game well, of course, if you started from day one, you will have zero difference. I play from the beginning and I have plenty of resources for the reamrs, awakened, more target units, it is very specific That's something I don't like, even though I'm free to play, I can't play every season despite having 8 awakened units because you have to make a specific team for each unit, many times it's difficult because of the bans this week I hardly played because The truth is I can't do the best pvp content and besides being fused with the Japanese they take advantage of units plus crafting pieces having maze pieces makes a huge difference
Pve have no meta just fit and end game counter to units you can farm gacha pulls i farmed over 1k pull from city missions in 6months so tell me another game where you can farm up to 10 pulls daily if lucky or 2-3 if not
It's not truly idle.. Which breaks it for me. Such an insane game. Crazy hot girls. Tanks, units for anyone who isn't into waifus. Fantastic aesthetic gameplay.. but I want to go to sleep watching it. I can't.
Today I spent 40 dollars in black tickets to get an awakened character. Not only did i not get the character but i didnt even scratch the surface for pity. Was left really salty and sour ngl. I felt like i basically threw that money away when i could of bought a whole other game with that money. So if youre going to spend money just know its going to have to be a ridiculous amount to garantee you get what you want or in my case needed to even get out of the point im stuck in the story 😅
Yikes! That is definitely unfortunate to hear... My luck has been insane to even get 3 awakeneds in less than 80 pulls lol. If there was anything I would agree with spending on in the game, it would be the skins! The art is fantastic in my opinion.
Here's a tip for ya. Never pay for awakened characters, the game reruns them enough that you never feel FOMO ever. Buy the monthly and counterpass, and if you want save for skin. The game gives free awakened almost every anni and half anni. I fell into the same trap as you when I first started out. I paid for an awakened unit, then several updates later, the character is rerun and I got them first ten rolls for free. If you want more advantages (or p2w) in buying quartz and buying set binaries are better payment.
