Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent Review – A Complex Yet Underwhelming Strategy RPG

Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent looks like a typical grid-based strategy game, but with real-time decision-making and a small team of allies at your side, the game doesn’t take long to remove the kid gloves before testing your tactical skills! This title by ACQUIRE turns the dreaded escort mission into a challenge the player must overcome by micromanaging their team, learning to make use of limited resources, and completing the objective within a time limit.

A fully voiced main story, a customizable character roster, and micromanagement gameplay are the main draws of Adventure Academia, though the game suffers from its bland plot and occasional grind session, providing little else if the strategy isn’t your cup of tea. 

▍A Typical “Save The World” Story With Little Depth

Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent sets the stage through the eyes of Alex, the inheritor of the mysterious Royal Orb and son of the missing headmaster of Obsidian High. Fending off a sudden monster attack at the school, Alex sets off on a journey to explore the continent Pedra to discover the connection between his wayward father and the land’s sudden, disastrous, transfiguration that spells doom for its inhabitants. 

Though Adventure Academia throws some meta humor and justifies bringing in allies as ‘Summoning’ students from Obsidian High, the game’s plot is generic and serves as a medium for the title’s other features. Alex’s entourage isn’t much better, consisting of his childhood friend Citrin, and introverted school advisor Lazuli. Unfortunately, neither girl plays a significant role in the story and they are limited to providing upgrades for your students. Adventure Academia’s story is one of its lowest points, so you’re better off looking elsewhere if you want an engaging story.

▍A Shining Example of Escort Mission Gameplay Done Well!

We all dread the words ‘escort mission’ when playing games, thinking about how we’ll have to drag a useless NPC across a huge map filled with enemies that can probably reduce their HP to 0 in one hit; two if we’re being generous, and that’s if the NPC doesn’t simply wander off on their own. Luckily, Alex is far from useless, even if the boy isn’t able to fight enemies directly. 

In Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent, players begin by summoning students from their party, with an initial limit of two students at the start of the map. Mana is accumulated over time and can be spent to ‘Rank Up’ students up to five times, which increases their combat stats and unlocks the ability to use Magic! 

The player directs Alex on the battlefield by designating a tile he needs to move to, which also guides the movement of your students. Party members automatically move toward enemies, attacking once they get close enough. However, you can also pick up and drop students off if you need them to attack certain enemies or simply to catch up.

Clearing each level ranges from destroying all Targets on the map, defeating a Boss, or keeping Alex safe, bringing enough variety that requires the player to strategize how to complete each objective.

Ranking Up Alex is just as important in Adventure Academia when his Rank Up bonuses increase the amount of Mana regenerated over time and raises the number of students that can be summoned on the battlefield, up to the maximum party size of six!

Using Magic requires a hefty sum of MP and the ally needs to be at least Rank 1, but doing so provides a variety of benefits: huge AoE damage to enemies within range, a sharp boost to Attack, or even resurrecting a dead ally! Alex can also cast Magic, granting HP regeneration to all allies in range, while also increasing the characters’ movement speed.

Winning each level isn’t just simply steamrolling with a single, powerful unit; taking that route will likely get Alex killed before the 3-minute mark. Controlling your MP usage and your movement is vital to complete each map, taking advantage of what Adventure Academia offers to the player to execute powerful skills or to set up a pincer attack! These core features make for an experience that challenges your strategic knowledge but becomes tedious to grind student levels and resources without a way to skip or speed through previously cleared quests.

▍Character Creation is a Mixed Bag

One of Adventure Academia’s premier features is able to tailor a team to your playstyle sounds like a dream for strategic gameplay. Unfortunately, this system fails in execution, being little more than a glorified gacha with how little you are directly able to control. 

You’re allowed to choose between different races, which affects stat distribution, determines what equipment they can use, and their role in the battle of Adventure Academia. For example, Bahamoons are tanks with high HP and fairly high Attack delay. On the other hand, Diabolos represent the frail yet speedy spellcasters, taking their quick attacks and low defenses into consideration. Khulaz can even spot hidden switches, which can lead the party to treasure! 

Without a limit on who or what you can add to your party, this opens up many tactical approaches that the player can experiment with in the strategic environment of Adventure Academia!

To add to the mix, each character comes with three Traits, which are personality quirks that can affect the character’s behavior and skill effects. You can have a brother-doting yandere who happens to be a class representative, which is just one of the many funny combinations generated by Adventure Academia.

It’s at this point that the flaws of the game’s character creation system come to light. You can only choose between genders and the character’s name; the stats and Traits are randomized each time just before you register the character. As stats lie within a certain range, simply taking what you get is no issue if you want to casually go through the game or you’re willing to grind out levels. However, Traits can seriously help or hinder your character’s role in battle, and there isn’t a way to change them. 

▍Arm Your Party to the Teeth, or Face Defeat

Keeping your students well-read and well-equipped is what the game expects from the player, as the training wheels fall off quickly with sudden reinforcements, large AoE damage, and powerful, bulky bosses. 

Equipment can be purchased with Gold in Obsidian High’s Store, though this method isn’t recommended past the early game as the prices are costly and don’t come with any secondary effects. Gold should instead be used to upgrade equipment in the Lab, which is a significant investment but makes the piece of equipment extremely powerful!

However, equipment obtained by completing levels and opening treasure chests often comes with a secondary effect and can even appear partially upgraded, saving you some Gold! It’s well worth your time to review your inventory regularly to meet the challenges ahead.

Helping your students excel in their courses is another key component for success, and acts as a Job system. Spending SP earnt by completing levels will unlock passives in that Course and unlocking enough of these passives will allow the student to promote to an upper-level course, providing substantial stat benefits!

The Gold and SP economy in the early game is fairly tight, but it signals to the player to use their resources wisely. Grinding these resources is a slog, but it’s more important to prioritize your frontline students who will be taking the brunt of the hits. Bosses and side quests are no joke, as strong enemies and a high HP pool all but demand that the player gears their students accordingly, or be crushed in a few hits. 

▍Adventure Academia is Interesting But Not Groundbreaking

The difficulty curve in Adventure Academia is surprisingly well executed, easing the player in the first few levels before raising the bar at the first boss. Limiting the gear that can be purchased in the Store by story progression ensures that the player can’t simply power through enemies without massive grinding, and the boss itself teaches the player to employ hit-and-run tactics to avoid major damage. 

The game may be well-polished and runs well, but it leaves something to be desired outside of the core gameplay. Grinding is definitely required, though it’s not to the extent that you’ll need to replay levels for hours on end. The story doesn’t amount to much, and there aren’t any other game modes that the player can experience. Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent is definitely worth the look if you want to try out a new strategy game, but won’t satisfy players who are looking for more than that. 

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