[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Battle Line iOS | Army Mon’

So, you may or may not remember i tried to review this one alongside the other two mobile smartphone free-to-play Godzilla games Toho put out in 2021, the now (thankfully, as it was ugly and very, very shite) defunct Godzilla Destruction and the weird Uma Musume-ish training sim Run Godzilla.

Problem is that Battle Line didn’t work on my smarthphone, try as i might it would just crash after it booted, every single time. Almost 3 years later, with the prospect of the new Monsterverse film that will have Godzilla and Kong “collab” (and 2024 marking Godzilla’s 70^th anniversary), i went to see if it was still available to download… and yes, for some fuckin reason now it works, despite my smarthphone being fairly outdated, better late than never.

Godzilla Battle Line is actually a decent little RTS-thingie where you battle other human players by placing down what are basically toy-sized monsters, vehicles and weapons from the Godzilla franchise, all to overwhelm the other leader monster on the opposite side of the battle grid while defending yours.

Despite the cheapish production values, i do like the “playing with Godzilla toys on a diorama” aesthetic, there is some depth to it, over time it has had many updates (the latest adding Godzilla Minus One content), and despite the focus on versus matches, there’s also a single player mission-based mode.

Sure, its a gacha with a “battle pass”, some obnoxious in-game ads, i’ve heard cheaters are a thing…. hard to tell because right now the game it’s nearly unplayable, is THAT unstable, prone to crashes and costant disconnections at any time.

When it works, it’s actually a fun lil’ game, the free to play elements aren’t the worst, so if you’re into Godzilla it’s worth a punt at the very least.

Don’t expect a review of Godzilla Battle Line

I planned to play and review this one like i did for the other mobile Godzilla titles Toho unleashed on us this year, as in via the EXPRESSO format, but the game just refuses to work on my iPhone, regardless if i reset the device, uninstall and reinstall it, remove other apps to make space in the phone’s memory storage, i have tried for 2 weeks by now to make this damn thing working on my device, but it ALWAYS, without fail, immediatly crashes after being launched.

Despite the app being constantly up to date and my device being compatible with it.

I have no clue why, the updates didn’t change a fuckin thing, and unless the next one magically fixes the issues (which seems to affect other uses with more advanced iPhones), i’m never gonna be able to play the damn thing, and hence i will never be able to review it. And i kinda wanted to do that, for completition’s sake if nothing else.

The review might happen, and they might just update the game to make it work immediatly after i post this, and tomorrow i will be able to play with no issues at all.

But until that happens, the review isn’t either.

Sorry, but that’s the situation, so expect other EXPRESSO reviews coming from tomorrow onwards, today is a forced review-less day.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Destruction iOS | Now BACK to Early Access!

**Had to take this from the site because this fucking shit game doesn’t even have a splash screen. I’m NOT kidding.**

The third and final mobile Godzilla game promised by Toho for this year, and the only one of the bunch that lets you actually control the Big G itself.

And because of some cosmic monkey paw’s doing, it’s also the worst of the bunch… actually, it’s shockingly bad, even without comparing to other two smarthphone titles in the same batch, it’s an impressive specimen of videogame dookie, so much i would rather play the shit Godzilla PS3/PS4 game Namco dared publishing some years back.

AGAIN.

Gameplay is pretty simple… scratch that, gameplay is just insanely primitive: you use a virtual stick to control Godzilla’s movement, and touch an enemy to either use your beam or a close range melee attack to defeat the enemy waves. Problem is, the virtual stick isn’t fixed, and it gets in the way when you attack, and you can’t do both at the same time, so you’ll inevitably get hit and will have to keep choosing the health recovery when given the option, as the levels are just insanely repetitive waves after waves of the same handful of enemies, able to do any kind of damage because of the shit controls and the lousy range of your beam attacks.

Eventually you’ll fight bosses that are also cheap as well, but i honestly got already bored sick in the first 10 minutes, it doesn’t help this one also sports no story or setting, it looks embarassingly cheap, on top of its abysmal presentation and glaring errors like english text clearly – and badly – overlaid over the japanese one, typos, obvious & bad machine translation, leading to odd word choices.

I almost expected the intro be an actual joke… but nope, it’s just THAT bad.

Waste of data, let alone time, even for free…..just don’t bother.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Defense Force iOS | ♫ To protect Mother Earth… ♫

The second of the three mobile Godzilla games promised by Toho for 2021, advertised a month ago as Godzilla Battle Line, published by Nexon and co-developed by Neople and Studio 42.

After the odd but cute stats raising-pet simulator of Run Godzilla, now we have a more traditional offering for a mobile licensed spin-off game. It’s not exactly a proper tower defense, but more of a tapper with RTS elements: units despatch and attack automatically the enemy waves from building you can upgrade, but you can also tap on them for extra damage (especially when their weak points show up), or use the various Kaiju Cards left by fallen monsters and/or obtained via card packs, of course available to purchase for real money.

It’s a decent little timewaster, a little more engaging than the usual tapper, but it’s aggressively monetized, even if it’s oddly pushy in making you watch ads to boost stats like production speed or to get resources, instead of just saying “cough up the cash to save time”, and i feel it’s the lesser evil of the options they could have gone with. BUT it still feeds into the same objective: to get you spending real money on the card packs and batches of premium currency, especially since the game remembers you revenge can be had easier by wiewing ads, etc.

Presentation is good, the story is what you’d expect, as an EDF commander you organize a defense line to repel kaijus attacking Earth, often sent and/or resurrected by the evil aliens called Xilliens. By progressing you get new locations to build bases, the ability to summon new allies with passive abilities, new monsters (some obscure references to Toho’s non-Godzilla material), making for a decent and entertaining loop, even if you’d wish for a bit more depth to it.