The way it tells its story is completely antithetical to how Arknights tells its story.
Arknights story and world is conveyed to you mainly via the people who actually live there with most event stories not including the amnesiac "MC" at all, while Endfield takes a more standard 3d gacha approach with the only interface with this world being through the eyes of the amnesiac MC.
This plus some pacing and plot issues makes Endfield largely uninteresting to me
There's also the part of Endfields story just being shit and completely contradictory to the lore of Arknights. I'll never forgive the "The Murder Rock is good, actually" garbage. And it's absolutely fundamental to the story of Endfield, so they can't even bullshit their way out of it.
Ah yes, the rock cancer that is responsible for the suffering of millions, the very thing that caused the breakdown of world order & the violent deaths or prolonged suffering of innocents... GOOD!
Also, Doctor is just a wayyyyyyy cooler & more compelling character than Endministrator. One of the best MCs in gacha, since they not only have their own agency in the story, they are actively the cause of many world-changing events. The world literally built itself around their historical actions.
That's the thing... "fanservice" (for the lack of a better word) and a good story are mutually exclusive. Eye candy is great, but dumbing down characters in favor of glazing the MC is the standard in 3D gachas, unfortunately.
Arknights had the best designs, including sexy designs, but they didn't do this braindead "ML stuff" where the main character is getting praised for building a pipe or opening a door and no one can accomplish anything without the endmin pressing a button or whatever.
And there's the male character's problem, of course. Arknights has a lot of female players and beloved male characters, and they just threw that entire half of the game out of the window, on top of everything else.
Its a completely different game catering to a completely different market. Arknights is a 2D tower defense game that's easy to play in the background, Endfield is a sprawling 3D world with real-time combat that demands full attention.
People, rightly, mention the story a lot but gameplay is another big issue. If you like Arknights for the slow paced strategic tower-defense gameplay from the OG there's pretty much nothing to like about the high pace 3D combo action style of Endfield. It is a completely different style for a completely different audience. The most you get for strategy in Endfield is team building, but with the elemental system, small team size and tiny overall roster you're incredibly restricted anyway.
Frankly if I wanted to play 3D action combo slop there's a million games that do it better than Endfield, and while I thought the factory was fairly fun, slogging through 10 hours of bad story and worse combat to get to tinker with the factory for an hour or 2 just isn't worth it.
To top it all off, as someone who doesn't like fanservice-y or horny character designs, Endfield also does significantly worse in this category than OG imo.
I have to disagree with the high pace combat part. Endfield is actually on the slower side. There's a very MMO feel to it. The only issue is that the only place where the combat truly shines is Umbral Monument. That's when stuff like SP management and elemental system interacts with the well design boss fights to create something really fun.
You could make the argument that Endfield is slow compared to other 3D action gachas. Admittedly I wouldn't know as I don't play those. The point is more that OG players were largely hoping/expecting something much more tactical and slow, which is not what Endfield is.
When gameplay was first shown I was hoping they'd develop towards something similar to Dragon Age Inquisitions combat system. With pauses, giving commands to each character individually, aiming skills yourself, multiple skills per character, etc. That or simply committing to a turn-based combat similar to what CRPGs often use. Compared to that type of exception or hope Endfield is very much high-paced.
Because it's not a good game, directly makes Arknights worse by existing as its direct sequel, and has nothing else going on for it besides good graphics and the occasional decent piece of music.
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u/Reenans 9h ago
Are Arknight players not playing Endfield?