Meta Toy City is living up to its title, setting the stage in a city that is being threatened by evildoers. It sends you on various chapters to battle a variety of monsters while preparing you for bigger and more formidable evils.
Gameplay
Let me get one thing out of the way before we dive in: this game has CUTE written all over it!
The art of the game is super fun and playful, creating a scene suitable for all ages (despite its cute approach to violence). You'll face off in a colorful and bright world where not just you and the environment, but also the monsters and bosses, are playful and welcoming. This makes it a title for both old and young alike to enjoy and explore.
Starting off in Meta Toy City, you'll begin, as in life, completely naked. Running around in your birthday suit, you'll set out on your first adventures and quests. The game guides you very well through your initial steps, helping you become familiar with the game and the various options available to you. These range from simple tasks like defeating an enemy to more complex activities like refining your weapons and gear and leveling them up through forging.
By the end of Meta Toy City's questing tutorial, you'll be at level 20 and ready to take on more of what the world has to offer. Although the questing tutorial is helpful, it's a bit lengthy, and leveling up can be time-consuming and somewhat of a grind.
While completing quests and leveling up, you'll encounter and be introduced to different game modes and challenges. First, there are the chapters divided into respective levels 1-5, with 5 being the chapter boss. These help you gather experience, gold, and random loot drops. The Mineshaft, a challenging dungeon crawler with various floors to complete, allows you to earn Growth Gems needed to level up some of your abilities.
The further you clear the floors, the more advantages you'll have in the daily dungeons. The Daily dungeons are split into three types: Gold Dungeon, which allows you to amass great wealth; Treasure Dungeon, for all the materials you might need to upgrade your gear and weapons; and Damage Rank Dungeon, where you compete for the highest amount of damage output and leaderboard position, facing off against strong enemies in the form of bosses.
In addition to the player-versus-environment content, you'll also unlock player-versus-player game modes along the way. Currently, the free-for-all game mode in PvP is available, with 1v1 and 4v4 as upcoming game modes.
Future Meta Toy City content will include guild houses, but we won't delve too deep into that since it's not yet available. We are looking forward to seeing it built out and creating our own guild for the community to participate in quests and raids together, and who knows what else will be possible with guild houses.
Review
Meta Toy City has had me hooked for a few hours right from the get-go, which is always a good sign. It allows you to auto-battle and farm experience even when you are busy with other things, which is both a strength and a weakness in my opinion. When it comes to guild/raid bosses, I hope they remove the ability to auto-battle and require players to fight using the characters and abilities they have synced up with the weapons and skills they've amassed. Auto attacks should remain automatic, but skills should only be used when activated by the player. This would emphasize skill requirements instead of relying solely on the auto-grind.
