I have been playing this game for almost a year now and the challenge never gets old. Black Survival is a battle royale game where you choose a unique character and fight nine other players. Each character has their own back story and skill kit that provides them advantages in special situations during the game. It’s available on Steam and Google Play.
Summary of the Post:
Limits of the Review
The Game Plot
What the In Game experience is
Animations and Style
Is it pay to win?
Conclusion
There are a lot of ways to approach a game review and as much as I want to cover almost everything about the game in one go, that would only serve to bore you. There’s no need for me to elaborate the technical stats that make each character unique and strategies to go around. You can figure that out for yourself once you play the game. I would be focusing on general overviews of what I think about the game. The post is not to persuade you to play but to let you know what to expect if you do play it.
Set in an island filled with different unique regions, the test subjects (characters) are released to fight each other to the last victor standing. Each character in the game has been selected by the organizers for multiple reasons. One clear denominator connects them all - they all have problems with mental health. Each character somehow manages to wind up in the island as a test subject where they are under constant psychological study for reasons unclear.
Each character owns a set of research logs you can unlock while playing the game. Each logs can only be unlocked with specific conditions. You start piecing out their personality with how the researchers of the island observed them. There are instances where their backstory can trigger empathy from the player but most are just so absurd that you can forget they even have journals logs. Although it is not a requirement to bother knowing their story, it is there for flavor.
The battle royale in the island isn’t a one time event based from the story. It is implied that the test subjects have been subjected to killing each other several times only to be revived repetitively. The game displays a serum being injected to the dead body multiple times before complete revival. Yes, you are actually playing with undead characters.
What do researchers get while observing their test subjects fight? What are the motivations of each character to continue fighting in this seemingly never ending murder-death-kill scenario? The first is free for anyone's speculation. The answer to the second question can be found in the journal logs. Like I said, the test subjects themselves have mental health issues and that good looking hottie actually has a thing for murder.
If you’re the type that wants to see the fighting animations during combat, prepare to be disappointed because this game isn’t built for that. Or has little animations to offer that imply battery. It’s a fast paced clicking game where each second matters. High tier players don’t usually waste time pressing buttons as each second counts especially during early stages of the game where everyone is out trying to collect the best items to suit their needs.
The fight animations are your enemy when you really want to be on your competitive edge. Fast thinking and decisive speed clicking will be your bread and butter for this game. You will be given an easy tutorial about how to navigate throughout the island, find items, craft items, and combat but the learning curve is steep.
Prepare to be bombarded with a lot of information about recipes, how to maximize your character’s strength early, mid to late game and fight opponents with special counter measure strategies. Characters here are classed according to weapon types they are proficient with. Blade characters would be inclined to do well with… well bladed weapons. I can tell you that the characters here are really reliant on weapon affinity to get any real damage. I made the mistake of carrying a gun when I used HyunWoo (Default Starter Character) was a Brawler/Fist. Most of my attacks just missed.
The recipe for crafting equipment and consumable items have their own set of learning curves to work around. For example, some characters are best suited to have consumables because their skill kit works around them like attack boosts, and better crafting starts.
If you are at a disadvantage with items, you can hope someone dies and loot their items for your gain. There are numerous ways to stay in the game while your enemies are snowballing. Some characters aren’t meant for 1 on 1 brawls but would be reliable on other tactics to win the game like trapping.
How strategic is this game? A lot. More than what it appears to be.
There's a character named JP, a hacker who is pretty much useless in combat. The strategy in using him is to gather enough materials to create a laptop and usb that could destroy the island’s HQ computers and kill everyone. Build the items, get into the HQ, and plug in the usb and you win.
Because JP is weak at almost everything, it takes a high skill cap to master this and it’s really rewarding when you can win with him. Throughout the game, you would be staying away from fights and be stealthy as much as possible and just try to craft your laptop and usb.
It is also a race against time to time build what you need for any character as each region on the island can be on temporary lockdown (placed on danger zone.) Stay in the zone when the time runs out and you’re dead. Basic battle royal scenario. So gather as much as you can before the time runs out and compete with other players for turf if you have to.
There’s more than one way to play a character against others. Even when a player could be at a disadvantage in small skirmishes, one could craft more consumable health items or traps to even the competition out.
Players that memorize recipes, think fast, and flexible with their strategies can dominate the game. It can come to a point when the determining factor may be a difference in connection speed.
Anime look makes the game a visual eye candy for young gamers. There seems to be a lack of animations in the game for free to play players. Their avatars don't react in pain once being hit and these animations are exclusive to paid skins. Not exactly a big deal if you're just in the game for the gameplay but I couldn't help but want the those damn live animations for my own favorite characters when playing.
Just a quick mention on the game's economy aspect, there are 3 types of currencies here:
Gold - Your regular game currency readily available as compensation for your grinding efforts.
Bear Points - A mix of between Gold and Gems, these points can help you acquire items that could also be bought with gold or gems. This is what free to play players would want to accumulate if they want to have a chance at those aesthetic items without paying a single cent.
Gems - Bought with real cash to buy cash items
The one thing that made me stick with the game this long is that it is skill based. Since it is free to play, the only thing that will prompt you to spend money on this game is for aesthetic upgrades that don’t contribute to your performance. Really just character skins to make your fave character look cool.
It’s a fast paced strategy game. It can get you in an adrenaline rush when you’re really into it. Tension builds up fast especially when the announcement shows player blah killed player blah and that there are blank number of players remaining. You may never get to face enemies you have prepared against because someone else wiped them out. You need to constantly check who else is alive and what item sets they are running on to see if you can counter attack during the late game.
Common beginner mistake is trying to do skirmishes early in the game. When I was playing with high tier dragons, they don’t waste time picking fights early and focus on crafting. Winning is impossible without a real plan on what your end game items will be. You also have to consider having counter measures against your opponents and their skills.
Because it’s free to play and not pay to win, you have the peace of mind that you were out classed in terms of skills and not money. It is definitely a game I would recommend for any casual strategists who love the battle royale genre.
At the time of this writing, the game recently launched it’s team battle mode (testing phase). It’s going to be a 3vs3 battle on a different map. It looks really promising because the whole stage is set on a new map and new mechanics are going to be included. Haven’t tested it out my self due to lack of time for fun nowadays but will get right on it once I free up some time from exams.
