In late July, Efun held a closed beta test for Quantum Maki, its “Barrage shooting” action RPG. With the game showing a lot of promise, I was able to get access to the closed beta which was restricted to only 1000 players and play the game early.
After having played the game for the period between July 29, to August 4, I can say that even with some of the features missing in the beta, Quantum Maki shows a lot of promise. With great visuals, a sleek interface, amazing performance on my old mobile phone, and enjoyable combat, Quantum Maki is shaping up to be the next mobile game I make time for.
While this review of the game was in its CBT state, since the CBT ended almost three weeks ago, it’s safe to say that the game was in a pretty complete state, with the game’s release having many of the same attributes I’ve described in this review and even better performance.
▍Quantum Maki – The Awakening
Quantum Maki begins with an introduction to the world’s history, the origins of the Quantum Maki, and how the world has erupted into war.
In 2033, after numerous unknown objects known as towers emerged onto the planet, several of the world’s powers found out that housed within these mysterious objects was technology far beyond anything humanity had achieved. What could have been used to solve world hunger and resource shortages, instead becomes used to wage war, with many countries vying for control of the towers.
The game begins with you controlling Meteo, a pilot of the robotic death machine, the Quantum Maki, created using the technology of the towers. Her mission is to explore the tower and rescue a certain target. After a tutorial sequence showing you the game’s many mechanics, you come across a gigantic boss, and fight it in a huge arena using an arsenal of machine guns, missiles, and movements.
Once you destroy the boss, the gigantic machine is revealed to be controlled unconsciously by a Tower Guardian, your character, where you can pick the character’s gender and then be taken to the real game.
Female Avatar 
Male Avatar
I love when games offer short tutorials that don’t interrupt you too much. You get to learn just enough about the game’s core mechanics when piloting a machine, and the game respects that you will be able to implement these into your gameplay. Tutorials also never ask you to “complete this tutorial in this way or you can’t progress”, letting you heed or ignore the advice as you play.
▍Makes Old Phones Feel New Again
Right out of the gate, the first thing I noticed is that the game ran very well on my phone. I use a Samsung S8+, a 2017 phone running Android 9.0, and the game defaulted my settings to low for a pretty smooth experience.
Even when I later changed my game’s graphic settings to medium, the game felt like it was running at a good 45 to 60 frames per second, without stuttering during super moves. This means if you’re running a phone that’s newer than mine, you’ll probably be able to run the game on high settings with a pretty good frame rate, and decent battery consumption.
And you probably will want to do that, because this game looks great. There’s such a diverse cast of characters and mechs, each designed and illustrated in such detail that I found myself going into many of the character’s bios just to take a look at their illustration, wondering how characters like Kerry and Alice were considered “Rare” until I saw Tyria’s design and realized how much of a step up it is.
I also appreciate how most special attacks in Quantum Maki aren’t overly cinematic. Since the game heavily encourages character swapping and chaining together specials, you don’t want the game to take control away from you for too long. The game also allows you to adjust the camera and lock-on settings mid-combat, modifying your viewport for the best experience.
Another nice touch is just being able to inspect the Quantum Makis and the characters. Over the course of the game, you can unlock recolors of the Quantum Makis by completing certain missions and purchasing the recolor. Certain recolors are locked to premium currency, but I can absolutely appreciate being able to inspect the machine in 3D before I make that decision.
Quantum Maki just looks great all around, with several aspects of the game being very clearly understood and laid out to avoid confusion while looking visually appealing. I did find the placement of the “Ritters” button to be too small considering it’s a key function for upgrading your characters. Sadly the game doesn’t provide English text on its UI like Code Geass Lost Stories, but it won’t take you long to get a good feel for how the game works.
▍Bullets, and Lots of Explosions
Quantum Maki features fast-paced real-time combat where you control three characters at a time, with one active character taking the field. Each character has a basic fire mode and a special command that fires out a unique projectile, and has a super attack that jacks up their DPS, or unleashes a barrage of attacks.
Quantum Maki’s gameplay flow prioritizes dodging and character swapping. Most attacks in this game can pretty reliably auto-aim an enemy so long as you see them, making shooting fairly simple. The challenge comes more in weaving between enemy attacks and squeezing out damage by using super attacks, to avoid as much damage as possible. While early stage may not focus on this as much due to them just being… Easy, the later stages on hard offer will require more precision in your movements.
The main way to build a team is with three types of characters. The main attacker does heavy DPS to health, a shield breaker that fires slowly but can destroy enemy armor, and a buffer that well, buffs allies. Each type has different mechs fulfilling the same role. You may have an attacker that excels at moving quickly or one that moves slowly but dishes out extreme firepower. Even support types fulfill different roles, with some buffing your team, increasing armor, or outright creating shields that block enemy fire.
Aside from just slicing and shooting, the game features a reload mechanic taken from the Gears of War series, where once you run out of ammo, you of course reload. If you manage to tap reload again at a perfect time, you will reload much quicker, and charge up your other party member’s super attack. This further swapping between characters, and reload with them to charge up the party’s abilities much quicker, if you want to go for huge burst attacks.
And you’ll definitely want to do that because Quantum Maki features a Switch Combo mechanic. Every time you swap characters and execute their supers, you gain an attack buff to everyone that goes away over time. By chaining together supers quickly and frequently, you can keep this buff up for the stage, while dishing out maximum damage.
The game also frequently drops health and buff pickups kind of similar to Doom. Since you have to get close, you have to plan your movements ahead of time, and which enemies to get rid of to heal, or take down other enemies even quicker.
In terms of characters and abilities, Quantum Maki had quite a good amount in its beta, with probably even more on launch. I was able to pick up Lillith and Laurel with their mech controlling like a puppet master, as both of them control tiny drones that fire bullets converging at an enemy. If I wanted to get in close, I could also switch to Daisy, with a super move that almost feels like cheating as it makes her immune to enemy attacks for a few seconds. Since she’s a “melee” unit, she also doesn’t have to reload her weapons when attacking.
I’m a fan of Quantum Maki’s gameplay flow. Focusing on strafing and dodging is not something really the focus of 3rd person action games on mobile, and this one kind of nudges that type of game closer to traditional bullet hells which is nice. It also feels incredibly satisfying to break down an enemy’s shield, then rains hellfire on them thanks in no small part to the game’s audio and visual design.
▍Good thing the game isn’t that heavy on the Gacha
The game has a mix of a weapon, and character gacha, both using the same currency. Using the free 80 pulls the game gave me, I was able to pick up a bunch of SRs, two unique SSRs, and a duplicate of Lilith.
Thankfully duplicates in this game work similar to something like Honkai Impact. Picking up a character again grants you fragments, which you can use to upgrade or unlock new skills for certain characters. These range from upgrading a character’s special attack to dealing more damage, or offering completely new effects and stat boosts. I wouldn’t say that these bonuses aren’t necessary for most content but are very nice to have. Since the game uses a fragmented system, I’m assuming later down the line there will be stages or events that let you farm these fragments indefinitely. and possibly even unlock a character for free that way.
The gacha is also very straightforward. You have a character gacha that only gives characters and a weapon gacha. Thankfully the weapons in this game aren’t necessarily tied to a certain character, and their effects are fairly generic but useful, though this may change on release.
I think Quantum Maki’s gacha isn’t too bad, especially with a gacha pity rate of 80. I do like that at least duplicates aren’t a make-or-break necessity in this game and that they just offer some pretty useful buffs instead of being essential to progression. Even if your luck isn’t that great, a lot of the game’s SR and Rare characters are still very cool and get the job done.
▍Looking Forward to Quantum Maki
Quantum Maki has just the kind of stuff I’m looking for in an action game. Sleek visuals, fast-paced combat, great variety, and most importantly, something that runs very smoothly on my phone while providing all of those qualities.
While this review was conducted during the game’s beta, I have hopes that the game’s launch will retain many of these qualities and probably even better service on launch, with all of the freebies being given, and the Code Geass collaboration coming in just a few days.
If you’re looking for a new action game, something to help kill time in between waiting for Stamina in your other games, or you’re just a big fan of mechs doing cool stuff. You should definitely give Quantum Maki a go.
