Based on the light novel and anime IP, The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation is a new turn-based RPG that put its own twist with authentic story and game’s exclusive illustrations. Fans of the series can expect a story-rich gaming experience in addition to its anime adaptation recently premiered in January. But you may disappoints by its not much in-depth strategic gameplay with limited content has to offer.
▍Original Take on the Story
The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation starts its story where you, the Strongest Sage, a skilled magician, who had the lowest grade unsuited for combat and decided to reincarnate thousands of years in the future and reborn with the strongest mark. And the player will take the journey of the protagonist, Mathias Hildesheimr from The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest, in the rest of the game.
However, when he does reincarnate in the future, he finds out that the mark he has received, which was considered the strongest, is now considered as the weakest, and magic, in general, is now severely deteriorated in quality compared to what it was in the past. The whole story was told in classic dialogues, just as you would expect in other RPGs, with subtle BGM from the franchise taking you to the world of The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest.
▍Traditional Turn-based Battle System
As expected, the battle system for The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation is a bit disappointing. The game’ follows a traditional turn-based combat system where each unit on the battlefield takes their turn to attack the enemies. In each turn, the unit can either use normal attack or one of his three skills to turn things around, which is one of the most common mechanics in anime games. Most of the time, players can simply turn on the auto mode and everything can be done for you until the last enemies defeated.
For team building, players will need 4 main heroes and 4 supporting heroes. The game does provide some strategies options, including the formation bonuses, which allows to gets buff/ debuff with team formation. Players get more advantages when they have 2 heroes of similar crest colors in the team. For example, 2 Golden Crest wielding units in the same team will provide a +10% party buff and debuff effect chance. If you put 2 Green Crest wielding units in the same team, they will provide a +10% single target attack damage bonus effect.
But all in all, this feels like a déjà vu in terms of game mechanics and strategic flexibly. The skills effect has nothing special when all you can see is the chibi characters performing the supposedly powerful skills.
Fortunately, the game has a very clear and well-organized questing system where players can look and see which part of the storyline they are. The whole questing system is organized in a map which is divided into different stages and each have three difficulties.
Each first clear of any stage on any difficulty will give bonus rewards, including the premium currency. The difficulties are not locked behind any level walls which is a negative point in my opinion as you cannot expect a Level 1 player to start clearing Extreme difficulty stages. The game does have some good quality features like Auto battle mode and 3x Battle Speed from the starting of the game instead of being locked at a certain player’s level.
▍Collect the Game-Original Illustration in Gacha
The gacha system in The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation is genus enough with the highest rarity characters (5-Stars) available to be summoned at a whopping 4% rate. However, one thing you should know is that the rate up banners for certain characters are actually low. The pity does exist in the exchange shop where players can exchange their tokens for the guaranteed character if they have summoned over 200 times at one single banner.
Players can summon for the different characters from The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest universe such as Mathias, Lurie, Alma , and Iris. The limited number of characters available may turn down your collectability heart. But considering that it is an anime-based games, this is expectable unless they add original characters in the mix. Many of the characters are repeated and are re-skinned to further classify them in different rarities. Hence, there exist 3 different versions of Mathias – 5-Star, 4-Star, and the 3-Star one which every player gets at the beginning.
The character also have their own 2D chibi-stylized sprites in batttles which feel unique from each other while also adding to the aesthetic of the game. The original illustrations for the different characters are also drawn beautifully and add to the appeal of collecting the different versions of the same character. Players can get different illustrations unlocked for the characters as they level and star them up!
▍Make your Mages Stronger for Battle
As with most mobile RPG titles, getting stronger is a grind. The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation is no stranger to these systems as they have a rather similar training systems for you to make your collected characters stronger. The various methods are quite simple to follow and are well explained in the first tutorial that all new players are greeted with.
The system that allow players to unlock different character’s voice lines is undoubtedly a good news to fans and further encourages you to train different units. Each character has their own experience level and once you reach a certain experience level, you will be rewarded with more premium currency, new VA’s, and illustrations.
▍Should You Play The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation ?
The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest: The Ultimate Reincarnation is not a revolutionary game that has brought something new with its release. In fact, it’s quite a traditional turn-based RPG with the skin of The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest added to it. But leaving the game mechanics aside, players who love the light novel and anime IP of the same to at least may find it attractive enough with illustrations that can only be enjoyed in this game.
