Mobile gamers in Japan have been enjoying Cryptract for more than four years now, during which time the game has been downloaded more than 12 million times while the rest of the world looked on enviously.
If you’ve never heard of Cryptract. All you need to know is that it’s a massive hit in Japan, and it’s just arrived in the US.
Cryptract is a strategy RPG about a kingdom under attack by a mystical beast. You have the misfortune of being the ruler of this embattled kingdom, so it falls to you to defeat the beast and his army by marshalling an army of your own.
The warriors you recruit have five different attributes. There’s fire, wood, light, dark, and water. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages when placed up against rival attributes – a bit like rock-paper-scissors.
Warriors have passive abilities as well, plus force skills and leader skills, giving you a ton of different tactical options to weigh.
Plain sailing pugilism
Fortunately, the combat itself is slick and streamlined, leaving your mind free to devise winning tactics. All you need to do is tap a skill or an attack, and then tap the hapless target.
Cryptract has an epic campaign, chronicling your deadly war with the army of the mystical beast, but alongside that there are some quieter, more thoughtful side-quests that bring the less conspicuous citizens of Centrair out of the woodwork. These narrative digressions are designed to lend Cryptract some real emotional weight – a rare thing in mobile SRPGs.
And there’s multiplayer, with guilds, PvP, and message boards where you shoot the breeze with your fellow players, swapping battle stories and sharing tactics.
Cryptract is available for free right now via Google Play and the App Store. – just click here.