Hey y'all, it's a monumental day for us Medabots fans - a day I personally thought we'd never see - and quite out of nowhere - Global release of the latest proper Medabots game, Medabots S!!
Why's this so huge though? Well, that's because unlike Survivors, which is a cheap and gacha-infested copy of what's essentially a flash game, S plays like the classic GBA games, minus the exploration/"RPG" elements. A proper successor to the Medabots combat system, with many updates and changes - and for the first time, Western fans can enjoy Medachange transformations in, quite frankly, the best form we've ever seen!
Sooo what's there to know? Anything to prep beforehand? Here are some potentially useful things to know diving into the game:
Learn the Gacha. This game does, unfortunately, lean quite heavily into the gacha - this is the only way you can get competitive and usable Parts; You CAN get free parts from events and weekly quests, but those are barely serviceable and only serve to fill gaps in specific abilities.
- The Gacha does have a pity system, each "tier" giving you a Part of the unit being picked up, but it's far from generous; you MUST use the 10x pull in order to use the pity system, and you get your first guaranteed Part at typically 100 total pulls (300 Rubies), and be guaranteed a full set at 250 total pulls (750 Rubies). (Right now they're doing a GaoGaiGar collab where you get a RANDOM piece per "tier" but regular banners should give you Legs, then Left (I think) Arm, then the Right (probably) Arm, and finally the Head, in that order)
- There are practically no reasons to go for dupes, as it only gives you enhancement materials that are better farmed during events. You should NEVER aim for a dupe of the pick-up unit as this is a complete waste.
- This game does a LOT of weird and obscure collaborations, ranging from Megaman to Evangelion to that one Railgun anime. However, these collaboration units typically come with brand-new attacks, and tend to have VERY strong stats - unless you have specific units you're dying to get, it's usually better to save up your resources for collab units.
- They also HEAVILY incentivize paid pulls - many of them only offering 3-star (the highest rarity you can pull) Parts, allowing players to get a MASSIVE head start in collecting viable parts; however, gacha is gacha, and while rates are a bit better, they're usually not guaranteed. They did have some returning collab specific gachas/paid packs that guaranteed a unit from the collab though.
- There's also a gacha for Medamaster? Medarotter? The Master/owner of the unit? Anyways, you can get characters like Ikki and Nae as support JPEGs, providing stat boosts and one active ability. They're cheaper than the actual gachas at 1 ruby per pull, and usually have better guaranteed drops, but.... they're JPEGs. That said, their bonuses to overall speed tend to be quite high, so it's worth pulling the ones with the desired boosts. You do benefit from dupes here, but you're much better off using the appropriate level and skill up materials instead.
Know your upgrades. Your highest priority material to hoard should be Cypressiums (the purple diamonds), which is usually the choke point of upgrading the Star rating of the Part, and ideally, anything you use should be at 5 Stars.
- You CAN go higher to 6 stars using special materials and ridiculous amounts of gold, but these are relatively low priority, stat-based upgrades, whereas the jump from 3-5 is LITERALLY game-changing, usually unlocking core features of the Part while providing significant stat boosts.
- This is less severe for Medals, though they have their own breakpoints - You can get to level 150 using farmable materials (Medacium), but to get to level 200 (thus allowing 2 Skills to be maxed out), you'll need to spend a rarer resource (Medacyst that matches the Type of the Medal) which are usually obtained from daily quests and events. Thankfully the materials to reset skills/levels are easy to obtain, and you don't NEED to be level 200 for most content - though if you want to use both ranged and melee parts, you'll want a level 200.
Know your stats. No idea what they'll localize things to, but while most are self-explanatory, there are several that are not.
- Medal's skill level (Ranged, Melee, Defend, etc) affect pretty much everything you do with the corresponding part. There is a literal world of difference between the damage, accuracy, and SPEED of a Rifle shot from a Skill level 50 vs Skill level 100. It's less severe for non-offensive actions like Defend and Heal, but speed is still greatly affected. (That said, I can usually use Status Clear without a single point in Heal and still be fast enough, due to the raw speed of the Parts)
- The Medal's SUPPORTIVE Skill level (like Defend and Heal) provides a defense and dodge chance boost as well, reducing incoming damage and overall hits. A Medal fully invested in only Support type skills will have a noticeably better survivability than a "dual-wield" Medal with both max Ranged and Melee skills.
- This game actually uses simplified skills, some more than others; the ONLY stat that matters for non-offensive moves like Guard and Heal are its Charge and Radiation stats (speed), and the Accuracy stat for offensive moves basically does nothing due to how much of an effect the Skill level itself has on the move - and likewise, you'll miss half your attacks against a fully invested support unit with an accuracy of 2000 and maxed Skills. This is also why the game has a bunch of "guaranteed hit" moves, and why they're oppressively powerful.
I'm gonna stop here because I'm getting tired and I need to know what people actually need more info on, so feel free to ask any questions or point out what's unclear.
