As someone who plays a lot of video games, but doesn’t watch much anime, I was somewhat curious to see how my experience with The Seven Deadly Sins Grand Cross would play out. Based on the anime The Seven Deadly Sins, The game is quite popular in Japan, which has a far more mobile game focus than most of North America where I hail from, but I can enjoy a game on my phone if it’s done well. There are some good free-to-play games out there with decent effort put behind them that aren’t just cash grabs. I decided to see how this one compares.
The graphics are actually quite good for a mobile game. They remind me a lot of the Dragon Quest series with their anime look. The comparisons I did look like they are pretty close to the original Seven Deadly Sins show as well. The game also runs pretty smoothly on my iPhone X considering how nice it looks. It reminds me of a 3DS game.
The cutscenes are also pretty good. The version I played had Japanese voices with English subtitles but it is fully voiced in the cutscenes. The animations in-game also look top-notch. Unlike most mobile RPGs, the game isn’t a static menu that has you clicking around to go on the next mission. You actually control your character and can walk around town and talk to NPCs. You even can manage the bar, the Boars Hat Tavern, and talk to patrons there. As far as presentation goes, it is one of the better mobile games I have played.
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The style of game is a hero collector, which you summon new heroes who have different rankings and use them in your party during combat. The heroes each have a color associated with them and it works like a rock, paper, scissors system, think Fire Emblem for example. You can have three heroes selected plus a fourth passive hero who adds some boosts to your team. Combat is turn-based using a skills system that I found pretty unique. Basically you select three skills to use per turn however you can level the skills up before using them.
I’ll try to explain like this, there is a row of cards that represent your skills. They all start as bronze rank but if two of same skill are next to each other they rank to silver, two silvers become gold. You can move them around to rank them up but doing so uses one of your three attacks that turn, meaning you only get two for that cycle. There is strategy to it, I found using moves in between to matching cards to be most efficient as it gave me an attack while also leveling up an ability. I appreciate the level of strategy which is a little more than most turn-based RPGs I’ve played.
There are quests and items and all the trappings of the genre here including a world map you move along as you progress. It is linear, meaning there is no open world map, but that’s not unusual for games of this kind. Once again, it is pleasant to look at, clearly, much effort was put into this game.
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As I said before, I do not know the anime well but as far as I can tell it follows the story faithfully. I’m sure the hero collection aspect makes you have characters on your team you shouldn’t have met yet but it didn’t affect my enjoyment. The story is easy to understand as far as I played it and seemed well told. It has cutscenes, NPCs, and an actual story so that alone puts it miles above many games I’ve played on mobile over the years.
Finally, I’d like to say, yes, this is free-to-play with all the caveats that brings. Overall, as far as I could tell it seemed fair. There was a stamina system and you could pay to summon better heroes but I never hit a major paywall or anything in my time on the game so I have very little more to say about that.
Would I recommend this The Seven Deadly Sins Grand Cross? I think so. If you’re a fan of the anime or really enjoy turn-based games with heroes you collect. I’m not much either of those things but I had fun playing it and that’s all I can really ask from a video game.
Final Grade: B
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