Project Neural Cloud has finally announced the release date for its global servers and it's happening in two weeks.
The announcement came from its official twitter with the game's release set for November 21, 2022 worldwide for iOS and Android.
A brief overview of the game on its App Store page reads as follows:
“Warning! Fatal Error: The integrity of the system is severely compromised…”
This is an unprecedented threat to the existence of dolls. Facing formidable foes and a future filled with uncertainty, the scattered Dolls grit their teeth and grow tough as they journey in search of the sliver of hope for salvation.
Humanity may have abandoned them, but as the leader of the "Project Neural Cloud", you resolutely set foot on this unknown land and founded the "Exiles" by bringing along curvy dolls. With you as their leader, the exiles will explore the secrets of the world, find a way out of this desperate situation, and uncover the truth...
Girls' Frontline: Project Neural Cloud is a rougelike 3D strategy mobile game from Sunborn and it serves as a prequel to another Girls' Frontline mobile game.
The pre-registration campaign is still ongoing, so head over to their website now if you shouldn't unlock the final reward before the game launches, 3-Star Specialist Willow.
Project Neural Cloud Global Impressions
There are both 3D chibi models for combat and 2D sprite art, the latter being available in static art, animated cutouts for Ultimate Skills and Live2D. Live2D is not provided by default for all characters.
The menus are quite clean and elegant, the overall interface, art, looks nice. I'll need to hear more music to decide if I like it, but I'm sure I won't mind having it on repeat. When it comes to visuals, Neural Cloud has some of the best on the market for adjacent hair enthusiasts.
You can have a female or male avatar assigned to you and change it at any time.
THE KEMONOMIMI SHUFFLE
If you're unfamiliar with the so-called auto chess genre, most are usually PVP titles where you have to buy units from a given selection, merge multiple copies into a stronger version, and find team synergies for a variety of effects. Placement is important because of how units can move or the proximity needed for skill effects, as you cannot control your units once a battle has started. Against other players, there may be comps that are downright impossible to win against, or you may just be unlucky and not get the units you need.
Neural Cloud has the basic framework but is otherwise quite different from common auto chess games. For one thing, it's mostly PVE with stages and stories to go through. You don't need to buy extra units from a store, your formation is fixed to what you have included in a particular team. Unit "classes" are still there, but Synergistic Traits are more like random function cards. These have fixed effects depending on obtaining a certain number of cards in the same family and can be improved if the opportunity arises.
The terrain of the battlefield can differ from area to area, whether it's the placement of obstacles or special tiles you could take advantage of. As a player, you also have a more active role, thanks to active function skills and "flexible strategy" skills. Ultimate Skills may also require your contribution. This is in addition to your decision making in choosing your route through any given stage and which feature maps you decide to choose for your composition. This is the roguelite aspect of the game; weave through a random cast of stage nodes and hopefully get some good buffs (up to a loadout limit). Blocking does is not the best option as the game will reduce defensive multipliers and increase attack ones, so a battle will end one way or another. Auto-battle is "not exactly" a thing, for main stages anyway.
Upgrading your dolls seems like an incredibly expensive affair because they have low initial level caps before you can upgrade their potentials (which absolutely won't confuse me or anything) and then others breakthroughs (neural expansion) from duplicates or shard redemption. The neural extension does not immediately raise them to the next star tier (a maximum of five at this point), but rather has an empty star before it fills. Teams are made up of five units on the field with more than you can have in reserve. However, you can't swap any of them once the battle actually begins, so plan ahead.
There's base building for resources and increasing your resource cap, if any. While it's relatively simple to raise the upper limit, it bothers me slightly that there's a resource cap to start with, and for money of all things. Well, I guess.
GACHA
I can't verify the rates in construction, but I can at least mention the security systems. In 60 draws you will get a 3 star gacha (the highest rarity) and 180 guarantees you an applicable star unit.
Conclusion
So it's based on a player's point of view, and it can be subjective from person to person. However, always go for SS, S and A units to get the most out of your game.
