Game: Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent
Genre: Adventure, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (also available on Steam,(Windows) & PS4)
Developers | Publishers: ACQUIRE | PQube
Age Rating: US E | EU 7
Price: US $39.99 | UK £34.99 | EU € 39,99
Release Date: December 9th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to PQube.
Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent by Acquire and published by PQube is an adventure RPG game. The gameplay in Adventure Academia is billed as a JRPG, but it’s really a dungeon crawler with a mixed identity.
Danger a Foot
In Adventure Academia, you play the role of Alex. Alex is a student of Obsidian High in the land of Pedra. But foul monsters are taking over Pedra, turning the towns into labyrinthine dungeons full of otherworldly monsters roaming around.
To top it all off, Alex’s father, the principal of Obsidian High, has gone missing. So young Alex decides to set out with some classmates to trek through Pedra, find his absent father, and deal with the monsters once and for all.
Obsidian High
You use Obsidian High school as your base. Here, you can visit the Staff room to receive new students who you can choose to join your team. In addition, the School Store is where you can spend your hard-earned gold on new equipment.
Then we have the Lab, where you can enhance your team’s gear and weapons using gold. In addition, there is the Homework room; it is here that you use your team’s SP the enhance their grades, such as magic and abilities. Finally, there is the Party room, not used to throw parties in as the name suggests; it’s used to reorganize your team and remove and add NPC. You can add ten different races to your team, such as Dwarfs, Elves, and Diablos; each has its traits to mix and match into your perfect team.
Storyline Cutscenes
You watch cutscenes as the storyline plays out between visiting the dungeons and the school. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the story to be very gripping. It is the same well-used story we have seen before: “Let us Save the World from the big scary monsters”.
The game did pick up for me in the dungeons during the battles, as the strategic side of things came into play. The graphics also change when you enter a dungeon, from a well-drawn storyline animation to a cartoon-style animation.
Combat in the Dungeon
Combat is real-time; it involves dragging and dropping your characters across a gridded battlefield against a timer in the top right corner. You must move your team from one side of the grid to the exit, fighting monsters along the way.
During battles, you can move Alex by pressing the Y button and highlighting a square ahead of your team. Our hero, Alex, can not fight. However, he can use the Ruler Orb, a tactical artefact passed down in his family for generations giving Alex the ability to command others on the battlefield.
The rest of your team members can be dragged and dropped into positions as needed, but you must keep them within the highlighted tiles around Alex. You can use magic, such as power attacks and buffs. Dropping and dragging the team is fun and takes a little strategic thinking. Battles can get rather hectic, keeping an eye on the team and planning out who to move where.
While dropping and dragging is a lovely mechanic, it gets tedious after a while. In addition, it is not helped by a camera that you cannot move freely around the battlefield. When numerous monsters on the grid are bunched together and attacking your team, it can be awkward to see the tiles and to position your team members when you lift them and drag them into a new position.
Visuals and Controls
The game’s graphics look well during the storyline scenes; I love the colours and the art of the scenes. However, during battles, as I’ve mentioned, the graphics change to a cartoon style; while they look fine, they’re very vibrant and bright but are verging on being garish.
Adventure Academia hasn’t any English voice acting, so if you like listening to the voices in English, you will be out of luck, though you can turn the volume down.
Conclusion
Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent is a fun game for a while. It’s maybe a game you would play in short bursts, as I did. I did like the battles in the game. However, the storyline got a little tedious after a while. Nevertheless, you will likely find what you want if this is your go-to game genre.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
how long is the game?