Evangelion Battlefields

Evangelion Battlefields (エヴァンゲリオンバトルフィールズ, "Evangerion Batorufiiruzu"), also known as EVABF, is a smartphone game based on Studio Khara's Rebuild of Evangelion series of anime films. It is licensed by Khara, and produced by LIONA and Takara Tomy Arts.

Gameplay
The game runs on seasons, which last two months each. In each new season, new content is introduced to the game.

It is primarily a shooter with six main modes: an online player-vs-player mode called Battlefields (バトルフィールズモード, "Batorufiiruzu"), two player-vs-computer modes called Operation: Angel Annihilation (使徒殲滅作戦, "Shito Senmetsu Sakusen") and Ground Zero (グラウンドゼロ, "Guraundo Zero") respectively, a multiplayer version of Operation: Angel Annihilation called Operation: Multi-Person Angel Annihilation (多人数使徒殲滅作戦, "Taninzuu Shito Senmetsu Sakusen"), and a training room. A second player-vs-player mode, Battlezone (バトルゾーン, "Batoruzoon"), was added to the game in Season 6, allowing players to create their own rooms to battle another player of their choice. In Season 9, the game introduced a story mode, named Battle Stories (バトルストーリーズ, "Batoru Sutooriizu"), which functions similarly to Ground Zero, but provides a story segment before each battle.

Mechanics
The core gameplay is the same for all modes; the player, who has a team of two pilots and two Evas, is placed into a circular arena. They must select weapons from their Eva's equipped arsenal, with three weapons to select from shown at any given time. They will then attack, and their "WP" (weapon points) will decrease in accordance with the cost of firing the chosen weapon. WP will regenerate automatically throughout the battle, but can also be regenerated manually by the player charging. The player is able to run in circles around the edge of the arena to dodge enemy attacks. In the some modes, they can also bring the combat into close-quarters by charging at the enemy, which unlocks their melee weaponry; these same modes also allow the player to use a powerful attack called "Synchro Overdrive", which triggers a short cutscene if executed successfully and will reduce a large amount of the enemy's health. The characters in the game also have one of three color types, red being powerful against green and weak against blue, green being powerful against blue and weak against red, and blue being powerful against red and weak against green.

Battle Modes
Battlefields mode sees the player fight one on one with another player, automatically selected from a list of users waiting for a game. The player can earn containers from winning in this mode, as well as up to one thousand experience points per day.

Operation: Angel Annihilation mode sees the player, and three friendly CPUs generated from teams in the player's friends list and other random users, take on an Angel in a series of battles increasing in difficulty. When an angel is defeated, the player can earn LCL, used to level up pilots, and Telomere, used to level up Evas, as well as tokens, used to evolve characters, and text banners which can be displayed on the player's profile. Pilots can only be sortied for this mode once per day, unless a first aid kit is used to revive them. A multi-player version of this mode, Operation: Multi-Person Angel Annihilation mode, was added in Season 5 for users on the internet service provider Docomo, with a wide release planned for a later date.

Ground Zero mode tasks the player with fighting through up to 18 stages per day, ranging in difficulty from "Normal" to "EX". They have to destroy a series of Ground Zero Eva units, AI powered clones of Unit-00 which have appeared within the "Battlefields System", the computer simulation the battles in the game are set in. Clearing each stage will grant the player with different rewards depending on the day of the week, as well as a small EXP boost. This mode also hosts special events for different occasions, such as character birthdays, which sometimes come with an accompanying story to unlock.

Battle Stories is similar to the aforementioned Ground Zero mode, in that it also asks the player to fight bot opponents, but doesn't have the same rewards function Ground Zero does. This mode is only intended to be played through once, while presenting pieces of the game's plot to the player through its accompanying episodes.

Battlezone introduced the ability to create rooms and fight other players of choice. The user has the option to create a room, or join an existing room using a number code generated upon the room's creation. It has two modes, normal mode, which lets the player use their characters at the level they are normally like they would in Battlefields, and fair mode, which fixes both players' characters to the same level, hence the name.

The training mode is where the player takes the tutorial from when they first begin the game. It is hosted by new character Hitomi Amagi, a NERV operator. It lets the player fight CPU versions of their own pilots and Evas at varying difficulty.

Secondary Gameplay Features
The game also has two complementary gameplay features - a city builder-style map of New Tokyo-3 City which also serves as the home screen, and "episodes", small fragments of larger storylines and short character interactions. Season 3 added in the ability to switch between the standard 2015 Tokyo-3 map and a map of the AAA Wunder in 2028, labelled "Case:01, Reproduced Artificial Paradise; [After the Near Third Impact 0001]" and "Case:02, At the Still End of Time; [After the Third Impact 0014]" respectively.

The Tokyo-3 map has three kinds of buildings. These are resource buildings, episode buildings, and ''armament buildings. ''Resource buildings generate items which are used to upgrade all buildings on the map. Episode buildings generate episodes for the player at certain intervals after they've fought in battles. Armament buildings provide external attacks and defense that can aide the player during battle. The AAA Wunder map only contains episode buildings.

There are three kinds of episodes, standard episodes, cross episodes and battle stories. Standard episodes have very little continuous story, instead mostly serving to showcase small conversations between the characters. Cross episodes are parts of bigger storylines that pertain to primarily two characters' relationship with each other. These episodes can be read in semi-chronological order from the Recollection (回想, "kaisou") option on the main menu. Reading episodes as they generate on the map will give the player currency, resources and gameplay buffs. Most episodes are basic text-based sections that show character icons alongside textboxes, somewhat akin to a visual novel, but cross episodes prior to Season 4 have three fully animated 3D cutscenes each. Battle stories are episodes that come from the mode of the same name, and focus more on the overarching plot than the earlier episodes do.

Characters
Characters in the game are separated into two sections, Pilots and Support Characters. Pilots are playable, and Support Characters can be used once in any given battle to add an extra buff to the player. The player can also assign two Eva Units to their team.

Pilots
The pilot characters available in the game are Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Mari Makinami Illustrious, Asuka Shikinami Langley, Kaworu Nagisa, Tentative Name: Rei Ayanami, and new character Kotone Suzunami. Players can also unlock versions of them in different outfits, such as Shinji in his school uniform ala the ending of Evangelion 2.0. Pilots have a number of stats, including attack power, speed, stamina and defense. These stats are increased by levelling up and evolving the pilot. Levelling up is done through earning EXP in Battlefields mode, or through using LCL. Ranking up increases the stats significantly more than levelling up does, and can only be done through using character tokens and coins. The current level cap is Level 75, the rank cap being Rank 6.

Support Characters
Currently, almost every character from the Rebuild of Evangelion series is available as a support character, including the aforementioned pilots and new character Hitomi Amagi. Several have alternate versions available as separate characters. Support characters have a variety of abilities, including but not limited to, attack boosts, reducing the enemy's stamina, and forcing the enemy to use only their handgun weapon. Support characters can only be ranked up, not levelled up.

Characters who are featured in episodes but not planned for support characters as of yet, include Yui Ikari, Makoto Hyuga and Shigeru Aoba.

Eva Units
Most Eva units that make an appearance in Rebuild of Evangelion are currently available in game. Units are levelled and ranked up the same way as pilots are, but use Telomere instead of LCL. A number of other Eva units created for Ground Zero mode also exist within the game, but are not playable. Eva units can have a number of different weapons equipped to them, the types and capacity dependent on the unit.

Monetization Systems
The game uses a unique toys-to-life system called a Readcon. It consists of the Readcon itself, which is a controller for the game shaped like an Evangelion Unit's head, as well as figures of the in-game characters which can be swapped in and off of the podium during gameplay. The game can be played with or without the Readcon toys.

Gems, the game's premium currency, can be earned through gameplay and are given out as milestone rewards, but they can also be bought directly using Japanese yen from the in-game store. They are used to purchase items and resources, and can speed up upgrades and unlocks.

Battlefields also features a gacha system, in which the player can buy, or earn, lootbox-style containers which hold character tokens, in-game currency (gems and coins, used primarily in upgrades), weaponry, and building resources. By default, only four containers earned for free can be held at one time, and they can take up to two hours to open. Containers which are bought with gems will open immediately.

There is also a VIP system in the game called the "BattlePass". Purchasing a BattlePass Elite will give the player more rewards when they complete BattlePass missions than the free version will.