Black Clover M is an mobile adventure RPG released on November 30, 2023. It’s a mobile gacha based on a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yūki Tabata ans this is one of the rare cases where the game is more popular than the actual manga/anime.
Black Clover M has over 10 million downloads on Google Play and over 600k reviews with an average score of 4.8 stars. Which sounds really good — they must be doing something right, right? As soon as I saw the game, pictures, short video, and score, the only logical thing for me was to download, play it, get addicted, play it for weeks, before actually talking about it. If you’re curious, here’s a full Black Clover M review.
Story
Just like in the manga/anime series, the story revolves around Asta, a young orphan raised in an orphanage with another orphan, Yuno. In a world where everyone has the innate ability to harness mana for magical powers, Asta stands out as he lacks any mana and, thus, any magical abilities.
On the other hand, Yuno is a natural prodigy with extraordinary magical powers and a talent for controlling wind magic. Motivated by a desire to become the next Wizard King, the two of them developed a friendly rivalry. Yuno obtains a legendary four-leaf grimoire, which is only given to the most immense mages and Asta, despite his lack of magic, obtains an enigmatic five-leaf grimoire that contains mysterious elf swords.
Things, of course, don’t end there. We get to accompany them on their journey and see what it takes to become the next Wizard King.
Gameplay
Black Clover M is a gacha game that revolves around both PVE and PVP. And with this type of game, you have to be careful. Is it just a money grab or is it free-to-play friendly?
Now, what you need to know is that there is no such thing as a F2P friendly gacha game. At least not completely. There will always be a gap between players who pay and those who don’t.
Besides being able to summon more characters, they’ll also have more resources to farm better equipment, level more heroes and much more. But with that in mind, you can still have fun and with a ton of luck you might be able to compete against one of those high rollers.
I, for once, feel like my luck has been great, which might have slightly affected how much I liked Black Clover M, speaking from a F2P standpoint.
Summons
Firstly, we gotta talk about summoning: what can you even summon, what are the rates, and how much do you get as a F2P player?
There are 3 types of summon you can do:
- Character
- Skill page
- Gear summons.
And before you say anything, yes, there is a pity system. Every 200 summons, you’re guaranteed a rare summon. Though I’ve gotta admit that rates seem way better than that and most importantly, the counter doesn’t reset.
You see, with most of the gacha games if you summon a rare character or whatever, the count resets but with the Black Clover it remains. So if for example you do 199 summons and get 10 rare characters, you’re still guaranteed a rare character on the 200th summon.
Which is really great of them if you ask me. And on top of everything, the amount of summoning materials that they give out to regular players seem more than sufficient.
PVE
Besides the obvious story part of the game, they offer numerous activities if you decide to focus solely on PVE. There are all sorts of dungeons that will help your characters/teams get stronger.
Whether it’s a gear dungeon, skill ups, gold, or whatever you need, they got you covered. The team consists of 4 characters and in the beginning, any 4 characters will do. I suggest that you keep the resources you invest into the characters at the beginning at a minimum.
At Least until you get a grasp of basic things and probably get better characters.
There’s no one right way of doing certain dungeons. Each one will be a good fit for a certain part of the game. In case you get stuck on a certain stage of the game, the best thing to do would be either to check their official Reddit or go through various helpful Youtube guides. That’s the fastest way to learn more about Black Clover M if you’re really interested.
PVP
To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t talk about the PVP with much expertise. Mainly because I feel my teams are not fully optimised for that part of the game. What I can talk about is that, basically there are two types of PVP’s.
The first one is the Arena, it’s a place where you fight against other players’ defenses and climb the ladder in order to get better rewards and for better bragging rights.
The other one is a live PVP where you fight other players in real time. That’s where you need to have a better grasp of the game, your characters need to be better geared and teams need to be better optimized. Basically, as a beginner player, you shouldn’t really worry about this part.
Besides all of the things I’ve mentioned above, there are constant events going on. Most of the time they offer shiny rewards in exchange for completing certain tasks/challenges. Another thing featured in Black Clover are mini-games that you can occasionally do — a jumping mini game, fishing card games, etc.
It’s safe to say that there are plenty of things to be done in Black Clover M. I’ve talked so much about it and yet I feel like I’ve barely scratched a surface on what the game has to offer.
Graphics and Audio
One thing that you can expect from most of the gacha games is that they look really nice. And I’m happy to report that Black Clover M is no exception to that. The character design is done well, the animations are really cool, and the overall art style and design is colorful and eye-catching.
The voice acting is done professionally and music really pairs well with each ongoing scene in the game.
This is one good example of how modern mobile games should look and sound. You get the experience of the anime and the game at same time.
Black Clover M Review: Final Words of Wisdom
I’ve enjoyed my time playing Black Clover M so far. I’m going to continue playing it until I get bored of it or it shuts down. One of them is inevitable.
In case you didn’t get it after all of what I’ve said so far, this is a nice game that you can play casually and enjoy it for times to come. Or if you decide to go hardcore and compete against other players, you can do that. What is important to remember, especially with gacha games, if you’re going to spend money on it, spend responsibly. And most importantly enjoy gaming and have fun while doing it.
