The Best Free to Play Anime MMORPG Games

Bleach Online is game based on the hot manga Bleach. There's little done blatantly wrong in Chain Chronicle, but it doesn't inspire much attention. Characters fit into predictable slots both in gameplay and personality, and while the art's respectable, it's no different than what you'd see in handheld RPGs like Demon Gaze and Etrian Odyssey. The game, just released this Monday, also has a few rough patches. It's possible to get stuck in tutorial mode and be forced to skip it (thus losing bonus items), and there are times when the hero's fairy sidekick, Pirika, uses placeholder asterisks instead of his real name.

Monster Strike is a phenomenon in Japan, reaching more than 15 million downloads since its November 2013 debut. It even nudged the nigh-unstoppable Puzzle & Dragons from the number-one spot last week. And I couldn't be happier about that. It's not so much the game itself, though it's a clever turn on monster-raising. It's more that Monster Strike is the latest work from Yoshiki Okamoto, a game-industry veteran who produced some of CAPCOM's biggest arcade hits, including that persistently popular Street Fighter II. Yet he didn't do so well after leaving CAPCOM. His studio, Game Republic, couldn't catch a break with any game, be it the underrated Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom or the disappointing Knights Contract. Okamoto hit a rough patch after Game Republic's demise, but Monster Strike seems to be his big comeback.

And it's an enjoyable comeback. Players get a collection of monsters that function as billiard balls in battle. Choose your launch speed and trajectory, and they'll ricochet around the playfield. The monster-balls deal damage when they strike foes and have varying effects on their comrade beasties. Some of them shoot projectiles when struck, others cast spells, and several just bounce around to unleash combination attacks. Enemies lash out with laser breath, melee attacks, screen-filling strikes, and more predictable forms of retaliation. It's a well-calculated challenge: plotting a trajectory requires some thought, but the game unleashes just the right dose of random physics to keep things from getting too predictable.

More information about Manga or Anime Games, please click bleach manga!