TouchArcade Rating:

Readers with better memories than mine might recall a game I looked at way back at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show called Empire of Angels from developer Auer Entertainment. At the time, I wasn’t aware that the game was a spin-off of a popular Chinese SRPG series, but I enjoyed its 3D visuals, light action elements, and its gorgeous… vistas. Since then, we’ve seen a release in the main series on iOS in the form of Empire of Angels 4 ($9.99), but there had been little word on Auer’s free-to-play action-RPG spin-off Empire of Angels: Lunar Phantom (Free).

Well, the game has apparently been soft-launched in Taiwan for a while now, and has finally made the jump to the West today. Empire of Angels: Lunar Phantom is an action RPG with heavy social RPG elements. It follows a servant of the angels named Nia as she tries to purge the land of a deadly threat known as the Cryptids. She’ll get help from a number of other warriors, most of whom are cute girls. I know, that’s a shocker. If you played Empire of Angels 4, you’ll spot a lot of familiar faces here. The battles are fully rendered in polygons, and they actually look pretty good. The action itself isn’t exactly the most complex of things, but each character has their own combos and special attacks that you’ll need to use to your advantage.

Outside of the battles, it’s mostly structured like any other social RPG, so you know the routine. Stamina meters, premium currencies, gatcha-style random draws for characters and gear, internet check-ins, the whole nine yards. The translation is a bit rough in places, with the opening cinematic offering only Chinese subtitles and grammar errors ahoy even once it starts with the English, but it’s not like we’re looking for a grand tale out of a free-to-play game about cute girls smacking around slime monsters anyway. I had some fun with Empire of Angels: Lunar Phantom in the short time I played it before writing this story, but I really only scratched the surface, so I can’t tell you how balanced or friendly it is in the medium- to long-term. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see a game I had thought dropped off the Earth suddenly appear.

App Store Link: Empire of Angels: Lunar Phantom, Free