Yuelong announced the first beta build of Arena of Cube will launch on Steam on July 26. The free to play game mixes a voxel-based sandbox with PVP action. The game will launch with three modes, with new variants coming out each month.
SkyWars is set on a map full of small islands. Players will duke it out battle royale style with no respawns and must rely on randomly generated items spread across the map. To get the best gear, players will have to risk combat and make their way to the resource rich main island.
BedWars is another free for all mode that allows respawning as long as the player’s bed is safe. To win, players will need to be the last one standing as they simultaneously assault other player bases while defending their own.
SnowWars is a twist on the classic King of the Hill rule set. Players earn points by nailing others with snowballs. The greatest tactical advantage is awarded to the player who can hold the hill, as they will have access to unlimited snowballs. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the match.
Arena of Cube will be available for Windows only via Steam. Follow Arena of Cube on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.
With the elves leaving to the mainland, humans began to settle on the land of Alfheim and founded a new kingdom named Astoria where they began to thrive. That is until the Lombardian Empire turned their sights towards the now vibrant island, waging a war that was only held at a deadlock thanks to Astoria being assisted by elves from the mainland and special tools named Armonics, instruments capable of using special magics that were given to the people by the great Shining Dragon of legend.
It is interesting to note that right off the bat Shining Resonance Refrain recommends that players should try the original story first before playing the Refrain version, since the Refrain version contains a few extra tidbits of information and two characters that will almost immediately join your party even though they are enemies in the main game. That being said, there really are no downsides to actually playing this mode right away as not only will extra content be included but there is very little in the way of actual story spoilers with the addition of these two characters other than their party addition being rather odd.
All of the characters, both female and male, can be talked through at bonfires with special “Night Events” that will allow you to grow closer together and eventually you can even go on dates in the main city to unlock additional pieces of their storyline, fleshing out these characters to a rather satisfying degree. This is especially true in the case of the bonus characters included in the Refrain mode.
Outside of town players will find that there is a very large world open to them where enemies can be found roaming the wilds and inside of dungeons. There is no option to perform an advanced attack on enemies, instead when you grow close enough to them combat will automatically begin and take place in real time in that location. Combat works with players controlling a specific character while the rest of your party follows orders that can be changed at any time.
This AP system does feel like it slows combat down a bit too much at times but thankfully between the combination of Force attacks, a wide array of skills to unlock and eventually choose from, and the ability for Yuma to transform into the Shining Dragon at the risk of going berserk, and you’ll find that there is plenty of depth to this combat system. This is especially true in regards to the B.A.N.D. system that allows your characters to perform a song together that will provide various buffs to the party depending on who is performing in the center.
Shining Resonance Refrain boats both an impressive Japanese dubbing as well as a well handled English voice track, giving players a satisfying option to choose between and swap whenever they wish. The background music is also rather impressive in nature as all of the standard music is pleasant on the ears and there is a rather large amount of vocal tracks included in the game thanks to the musical nature of some combat elements.
The level design is a bit of a mixed bag. Levels are generally a linear mix of fighting through to new areas, holding out choke points during enemy rushes or map objectives, then doing it all over again. The defense sections is Earthfall at its best. The addition of barricades, automatic turrets, and big mounted guns gives players quite a bit of flexibility on where they want to create a choke point, instead of being stuck with one or two options like Left 4 Dead series. Navigating through levels is a bit tricky. Unless there is an objective explicitly marked in the world, finding the right path forward can be difficult in forested areas and larger interior zones. The game has too few subtle hints to guide the players in the right direction, forcing them to simply memorize the map.
