Greedy, manipulative, and anti-fun – Skyforce Unite! Review

I’m almost certain all the five-star reviews haven’t made it far enough into the game where the devs make everything so punishing that you’ll have to pay, one way or another. 1. If you don’t buy the $12 pass, which gives you one more medal per day and exp boosts, you will fall behind. I 100%ed every stage and did every mission, but would still find myself 1-2 levels below. 2. The $12 pass doesn’t remove ads. There is no way to remove ads. Sometimes, I open the app and have to sit through a mandatory five second ad. 3. Gambling is heavily encouraged and almost necessary to progress. The best planes and parts are always behind random chance. 4. Premium currency is very, very rare. It takes 30 medals for a plane (which can be one you already have) or 8 for a part (which might be a basic one you can just buy for in-game currency anyway). You get 1 medal per day, 2 if you buy the $12 pack, and almost never through gameplay. I’ve gotten about 70 medals earned through gameplay over two weeks. 5. It takes so much time to do anything. Use an elemental rock on one weapon (out of nine)? Three hours. Research the next strength engine? 1 day. Attach parts to this plane? Six hours. 6. So many “got you!” mechanics to make you spend money. If your plane gets shot down, you have two pay two types of farmable in-game currency (gold and mile points) to repair it. Then, it permanently has less health unless you use a rare, finite item on it. No confirm screen when selling items or purchasing them. Retrieving a fallen plane lists gold price if you have enough, otherwise you have to sell stuff until you go over the amount. You can’t gauge how effective your planes will be against a level boss unless you lose to them or repeat the stage. If you don’t retrieve a plane in time (2 days, costs in-game money), it gets deleted. If you go over your item count, items get deleted after five hours. You’re not told what’s deleted. 7. After a point, everything costs so much and is so difficult and you almost can’t progress without gambling, which could be useless anyway. Out of nowhere the game receives a huge difficulty and timer spike, so you start changing your weapons and planes to better suit one stage, but then that takes one or two days sitting through timers, and then your pilots get shot down and you basically bankrupt your character getting everything back in operable shape. Then, you’re back at square one, unless you start gambling for better stuff and pay to rush through timers. 8. Gameplay is random chance. Your attacks, healing, skills, and movement are all on number cards. There are also cards that hurt you and will occupy a space until used. Don’t worry, you can pay to shuffle your cards if they’re weak or filled with harmful skull cards - just five medals (!). Fail a fight or run out of time? Continue for 10. Pilot shot down? Pay 2, you won’t have to retrieve and repair the plane. Kairosoft used to make good games. Now they’re all free games that want you to pay $35 total for the premium passes, then gamble more money on random vehicles until you’re satisfied, as well as paying past everything that makes you wait 10+ hours until you’re done with the game. This is disgusting.
Review by Youthless on Skyforce Unite!.