Game Review:CosmicBreak

Being a guy, liking robots is an almost natural thing. Mechs have been a good part of my hobby and interests for a long time(once even having me consider being an engineer). As such, almost anything with that pasted on would most likely catch and keep my attention. There is one that has it's ups and (horribly plunging) downs. That would be the MMO CosmicBreak.

CosmicBreak is a Free to Play 3D Third-Person Shooter developed and published by CyberStep, with its selling points being that it's a mecha game with intense battles in the style of anime. It's the technical sequel to Cyberstep's C21, another Third-Person mecha game.

The US server of the game had a sadly terrible 'chronicle' while it lasted.....

The game is set in an a alternate universe to C21, being labelled as the Cosmic Ark. In this universe, ancient, titanic robot gods known as Arks awaken from a long slumber to find their galaxy having been taken over by an opposing force known as The Chaos. Due to having been inactive for aeons, the energies of the three remaining great Arks(Each representing Wisdom, Courage and Strength) are drained, which there only being enough to full revive one of the Arks.  Unions consisting of those who follow each of the Arks have been formed and now compete for their Ark's revival in order to defeat the Chaos.

Besides the main story, however, certain characters also have back stories, such as the one of the poster characters of the game Crimrose, and her companion Ivis.

 When a player starts, they will get the choice of what initial robot they would begin the game with. After the basic tutorial, the player would be given the choice to join one of the three Unions and fight for them.

There are 3 Game modes: Arena, Mission and Quest.

The main gameplay involves the player setting up a Commando of three units to use. In battle, the player would use one of the units until it is destroyed

Example of a Commando

As seen on the interface, there's a 'Total Cost', the result of the Cost of every machine. In Arena or Mission mode, when a machine is defeated, their cost is deducted from a BP counter. The match or mission ends in a loss when the BP reaches zero. Quest mode differs in that uses a time limit as the main goal of it is to beat a super-powered mob within it. As such, time gets deducted for each death until time is over.

The selling point of the game is the customization of their robots, both in weapons and performance. Besides changing parts and weapons, players can also affect the statistics by 'Tuning up' parts. Tuned parts provide extra boosts in stats, such as movement on the ground and the robots health, though how much they will affect differs between the type of bots. Speaking of which, robots in the game are split to 4-classes:Land, Artillery, Air and Support. The first three form a Scissors, Paper, Stone dynamic(Land is strong against Artillery, Artillery is strong against Air etc) while the Support types are balanced, though they tend not to have as extensive direct battle capabilities. Further depth is added with sizes:Small, Medium and Large. The size affects what a robot can equip and how well the stats will affect them.

Example of an M-sized AIR unit. They don't like explosive surprises.

This makes Arenas battles more team based, as each player would need to look out for each other to make up for their weaknesses.

The game excels in the realm of customization, as players can build up robots that fit into their own playstyles in a team. Feedback in game is also done very well, with proper prompts when a player is targeted. There is a decent cycle of maps in the game that would make a player change what they should use, ensuring that each match varies to a degree.

Each map has an advantage and disadvantage. Choose what you use wisely.

The game sustains itself with RT and their Garapon System, of which players pay real world money to buy robots or roll what is basically a lottery, where they could get new , premium robots and weapons. 1x rolls cost USD $4 while a 5x roll costs $16

AND HERE IS WHERE IT GOES DOWNHILL.

That this game employs one of the most horrid business models for Free-To-Play MMOs: Pay to Win. Even worse though, is the fact that it's stacked with LUCK.

Every roll will have an animation telling what you MIGHT get. 

Those who see this only see despair.

Charging RT to get options would not be too much an issue were it not for the fact most of the good parts and robots are to be found in the Garapon, with the shop items being subpar(Although with recent overhauls, new stocks in the shops are at least much better than it's initial 2 years).

Those who get better machines tend to almost definitely dominate their opposition. Sometimes even if their opposition IS A TYPE THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT SO WELL AGAINST.

One of the most overpowered machines in game EVEN AFTER NERFS.

Also, Mission and Quest modes are rarely updated. Quests are still relevant in game as they provide Tune Up Materials, but Missions are basically mostly forgotten at this point once a player gets over the tutorial teaching them about the modes. At least until the devs add a new mission with limited drops or something

No one plays this. 

The reason being that the missions are too hard and the resulting rewards being insubstantial.

Because this game is PvP focused and as said with the Garapon incident, balancing is pretty hard to execute, with it being totally possible for a team to lose utterly and devastatingly bad with no chance to fight back.

Overall, the game deserves a 5.5/10. As a PvP Third Person Shooter, it had the potential to be great, as customizing in the game works well. Sadly, the monetization model chops off a good chunk of the score, as you're paying to have the CHANCE for better options, meaning you need to be lucky(Or have a lot of expandable income) for more customization or better machines. Also, the near complete negligence of a game mode feels like a sin.