So, how is this? I've got very limited time at this time of year with all the releases... but I can't really say no to Sakaguchi and Uematsu. Is this worth my time?
Absolutely.
I don't play many strategy games on mobile, but Terra Battle is one that handles it relatively beautiful, in my opinion. Much of the fun comes in moving around and lining up your (admittedly, static) character avatars on the grid in certain ways to deal the most effective damage to your enemies, to do crowd control, and to heal, etc. The game eases you into the combat remarkably well, and it's comfortably easy to get into. Having said that, the game quickly does become progressively harder, particularly after the fifth chapter, so it's one of those "easy to get into, quite hard to master" games.
As it's free-to-play, expect Terra Battle to be weighed down by features one would ordinarily expect from its fellow mobile games. It costs stamina to tackle maps, and maps require more and more stamina the further you progress along the storyline*. Every five minutes, even when the app is closed and when you're in battle, one stamina point returns, which is still enough of a wait that players often have to play the game in relatively short bursts at a time. Again, like what one expects a F2P mobile game to do. In terms of microtransactions, they're benign - you only buy energy - and you shouldn't need to spend any money to progress, unless you're addicted and impatient.
I was checking out a few Terra Battle topics around the web, and what I've noticed is the obsession a lot of people have with rolling a rank SS character. This occurs AFTER you play the game's tutorial. There is a gift code you can find in my post above which nets you a free 5x energy, on top of the free 5x energy you already receive from the admins. A chance to roll a good character costs 5 energy, and people have taken it upon themselves to delete the app, re-install it and finish the tutorial over and over again to roll the SS characters they want. Now, this shouldn't be a necessity. I have one SS character, but she's only a healer, so offensive wise, she may as well be a D rank or something. Don't get too hung up on your characters' ranks.
Additionally, might I add, the game is
online only. Commuters will have to face quite a heavy data usage bill if they want to play this on the London Underground.
*storyline is told in a rather interesting way - only in words and unlabelled dialogue. It's quite whimsical, and leaves much to the imagination.