Today, developer iDreamSky released their free-to-play tactical third-person shooter ‘Strinova’ onto PC platforms. This marks the official launch of the game along with its first season, with its other announced platforms (consoles and mobile!) aiming for a 2025 launch. I got a chance to try out the near-final version of the game these last two days or so. I got to try deathmatch, training mode, spent some time with one of the game’s characters and the Oath System, and lastly Strinova’s gacha system for skins. Oh, and we’ll also cover the game’s unique “stringify” mechanics.
I am of the opinion that we do need more anime-themed shooters, and I could see Strinova holding my attention for a while especially once it launches on mobile. It’s pretty fun!
Razor-thin and Sharp
Strinova is primarily played from the third-person, where aiming down puts the player into a first-person view. Across the game’s small to medium-ish maps, players will take on the roles of various Agents, each belonging to a specific faction as well as having their own unique weapons and skills. There are four game modes—team deathmatch, arena deathmatch, team demolition, and escort. I primarily played deathmatch modes and dabbled a bit in the game’s team demolition mode before I put it away, but they’re as you’d expect. Between five and seven players are grouped up in deathmatch modes as they accrue points through KOs while demolition is search and destroy.
Now there is a bit more to these modes, however. Take team demolition for example, where attacking players must take the bomb to specified sites in the map. This mode enforces strict limitations on what characters you can play, as only certain Agents can attack or defend. This mode also allows players to use Agents’ skills, knocks down players instead of wiping them out (and leaving a rather unsettling stitch behind in the event a player is KO’d), and our Agent’s weapons can be upgraded.
As Agents have specific weapons, upgrades instead focus on weapon and armour attributes among other things. Search and destroy is always a good time, and don’t worry about pinpoint accuracy as I’d describe Strinova’s approach to combat as closer to shooters like ‘Team Fortress 2’ and ‘Overwatch’ over tactical titles like ‘Valorant’ and ‘Counter-Strike 2’. All though honestly, for those who know, players who enjoyed the gunplay of ‘Alliance of Valiant Arms’ will be right at home here.
Team arena deathmatch pits teams of three players against each other and supports Agent skills in combat. The only mode that doesn’t support Agent skills is team deathmatch which is purely attrition. Knockdowns are not available in either mode and, off the top of my head, upgrades are also disabled here as well. But going on killing sprees nets you throwables like heal and explosive grenades as well as shield kits off of KO’d players. If you get tired of things not working out in demolition (and it will happen), jumping into the grinder is never a bad idea.
And if you want to create private lobbies, you are more than welcome to do so. Strinova has an extensive number of options for custom rooms, such as AI bots (with difficulties) and custom rulesets for the game’s four modes. You can adjust a bunch of these settings—maybe you want to make deathmatches last longer or prevent switching of characters during gameplay. I was surprised by just how much I could mess around here, and I’ll definitely be taking advantage of custom lobbies.
Strinova’s shooting is solid and quite simple. Most weapons have very limited recoil and spray patterns aren’t applicable here. I think the weapons that feel best are the snipers and the shotgun, particularly the latter as its bullet path is narrow but far-reaching even if it barely does damage at times. There are an assortment of weapons, like assault rifles, SMGs, and some characters even have native melee weapons. Though keep in mind that you’ll need to switch characters to switch weapons and, in some modes, that’s not an option.
Movement feels good, too. Strinova has players always at their top speed, barring any attacks received or environmental debuffs. There is no mounting over obstacles, but you can double jump and stringify. Right, so let me explain stringifying: this is a mechanic that allows players to become paper-thin, allowing them to fit between tight crevices in maps, wall-stick to specific surfaces, and even glide. Truth be told, it looks silly, and I had my fair share of giggles swapping in and out of “stringification”.
It doesn’t help that the game hasn’t explained to me how these Agents are able to stringify or what it even is. But it’s been useful so far as a navigation tool and another way for me to get the drop on enemy players. Certain Agents also have mobility tools in their skillsets, such as teleportation and the like. I haven’t had the chance to play every Agent, but the skills available with the launch character so far seem quite varied. How they’ll be used by the player base remains to be seen, especially since most of the folks I played with weren’t interested in trying out what they had.
But ultimately, I found myself having quite a bit of fun switching between Agents and trying out their skills. Maps were also varied in mechanics and size, though don’t expect any physics-driven mechanics like destructible environments and the like. The art style is vibrant, and the visuals themselves are pleasant to look at, a given thanks to the cell-shaded look on characters and the world. Weapons and their contact feedback feel and sound good, all though UX sounds like kill confirmations sound a bit too cheesy for my tastes—very casino like!
Strings that Hold Strinova Together
When I first booted up the game two days back, Strinova threw me through a brief tutorial as a young lady infiltrating some sort of digital world. Upon completing that, with no fanfare, I was tossed right into the shoes of the “Navigator” (AKA You), face-to-face with a young lady who goes by the name Celeste. Now, I didn’t really get a grasp of the game’s world until earlier today, when the developer pushed out a patch that added in the intro cutscenes that introduced two of the game’s factions through an explosive entrance of sorts. Until then, aside from reading descriptions on Agents and Celeste’s bio through the Oath System, I felt a bit clueless on why such attractive people were shooting at each other.
Well see, apparently in the world of Strinova, there appears to be a disease spreading about that impacts people memories once afflicted. The P.U.S. are working on researching a crystal to see if they can prevent and reverse the effects of this disease and they appear to be on the cusp of success. While the Scissors, a ragtag group of… Rebels? I’m not quite sure but anyway, they’ve arrived just in time to disrupt the plans of the P.U.S. researchers because they, too, want to cure the same disease. Oh dear. Chaos and destruction ensue, and in the end the crystal appears to be lost when it seemingly explodes. Watching the turn of events play out was a little amusing as it reminded me of the time, I realised that Fallout 3’s entire storyline was people killing each other as they march on to the same objective. Maybe an email could’ve worked this all out, but oh well. At least the presentation is nice, switching between in-engine and pre-rendered cutscenes with fast-paced action.
But I digress, you the Navigator were unfortunately caught up in the massive explosion that happened at the end. Celeste finds you, takes you into her branch, and explains what happened and your role as a navigator. And that’s where the story stopped for me. No idea how things will progress or whether or not our character will even have a presence in all this besides being a mechanic for the game’s Oath System—only time will tell.
Strinova’s Oath System is one of the first things you’ll see right when you’re plopped into the main menu. Here, we can briefly interact with Celeste as she does her “rescue work” and she too will return the favour if you idle a bit too much. Players can give her gifts to increase her Oath level, which in turn gives you rewards such as skins for weapons and player cards, along with unlocking new chapters in her story. No idea if we can switch Celeste out with another character to bond with at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be an option to do so at the moment. But Celeste is a nice gal and fans of M•A•O will be happy to know that she voices the young lady.
Actually, quite a few awesome voice actors are in Strinova across the game’s supported English, Japanese, and Chinese languages. They do a great job of voicing the numerous personalities across the Agent roster. So far, I have one standout favourite of mine: Reiichi, a tall, young man who nonchalantly tells you his name before adding that you shouldn’t bother remembering it. I like his Dollar Store take on edge and I ended up playing as him a bunch as well as the wild and determined Bai Mo (mostly ‘cuz I wanted to play as a shotgun user). But I also played a bunch with the sniper Kokona, Michele, and Celeste herself. And I spent quite a bit playing around with their available skins.
Strinova has a wide variety of available skins, some attainable through play, others through a direct purchase, and a specific select few via the game’s Gacha mechanics. If a skin strikes your interest but it’s a part of Strinova’s gambling mechanic, Godspeed as so far, I have not encountered a “sparking” system which means that your chosen pool to pull from must have the skin you want as a focus, otherwise you’ll be duplicating things you don’t want. Skins that are an upfront payment generally range from 20 to 30 USD. I think these are reasonable prices, but mind I am also the kind of person that will spend 30 bucks on a 2D skin in something like Granblue Fantasy. Whether you consider these fair prices or not will be up to you, but the items sold do not impact gameplay in anyway which is the most important part.
The game has three currencies: Bablo Crystals, Dream Tokens, and Basestring. The Crystals are your paid monies, I’m not too sure about Dream Tokens (but these are used to unlock Agents and some skins), and the strings are granted upon receiving dupes in the Gacha system. Some items, like the Battle Pass, can be bought outright without needed these currencies, and the Season Pass that’ll launch with the game has two skins that can be earned—if the cadence keeps up, I’d definitely consider it a good deal at 10 USD.
My time with Strinova was quite enjoyable! The game’s out now but I’ll definitely be playing it during my downtime thanks to its ease of access (especially once it launches on mobile). I’m hoping we see more modes over the coming year and I do hope that iDreamSky fleshes out the story a bit more as I feel a bit confused on what’s going on at the moment. Story cohesion and presentation are key in getting me to buy skins and I’d like to see more of the game’s cinematics as the ones so far have been pretty cool. ∎
Strinova is now available on PC via Steam/Epic Games Store/Strinova’s inhouse client and will be coming to mobile and Xbox Series/PlayStation 5 consoles in 2025.
