TRIBE NINE

In TRIBE NINE, players are placed in a world ruled by madness. Taking on the role of a young person joining the resistance, players choose from dozens of characters to form a three-person squad. Fighting alongside their companions, utilizing different character skills and strategically employing the unique Tension System to deal more damage, win battles, and earn rich rewards to develop their favorite characters. The game also boasts a high degree of strategy; the combinations of different characters and skills create almost limitless possibilities, providing players with endless enjoyment. The game is constantly updated, introducing more new characters, events, and storylines, bringing even more fun to players.

Gameplay of TRIBE NINE:

Tribe Nine’s gameplay is designed to keep players on the edge of their seats. The game introduces several mechanics that offer both strategic depth and action-packed excitement.

Combat System: One of the key features of Tribe Nine is its real-time combat system, which allows players to control a team of three characters, each with unique abilities. The combat is fast-paced, requiring players to carefully plan their attacks, dodge incoming strikes, and time combo moves for maximum damage. Players can switch between characters during battles to take advantage of each character's strengths, making team coordination essential to overcoming tougher opponents.In addition to regular combat, Extreme Baseball serves as a central gameplay mechanic, where players participate in high-stakes matches to advance in the story and challenge rival Tribes. The gameplay is action-heavy, requiring quick reflexes and strategic planning.

Exploration and Mini-Games: The world of Neo Tokyo is vast and filled with diverse districts. Players are free to explore these areas, uncovering hidden secrets and engaging in various mini-games that enrich the overall experience. From solving puzzles to participating in side missions, there’s plenty to do outside of the core combat system. These side activities allow players to immerse themselves in the world and grow their characters.

The Gacha System: Like many modern mobile games, Tribe Nine features a gacha system that allows players to summon new characters and upgrade their team. The gacha mechanics offer an exciting challenge for players who want to expand their roster and strengthen their squad. However, players should be aware of the system's randomized nature and plan their resources accordingly to get the best results.

Features of TRIBE NINE:

The Distinct Cities of Neo Tokyo: Explore various cities, each inspired by real Tokyo landmarks. Dive into every bustling nook while forging alliances with peculiar locals to reclaim your city.

Fight as a Team in Co-op/Melee Battles: Lead a three-person party into action. Will you coordinate in co-op missions or dive headfirst into chaotic melees?

Unique Characters: With over 10 characters, each with distinct personalities and skills, expect a diverse gameplay experience every time.

Endless Combinations with the Tension System: Strategize with your team’s composition and unleash the power of the Tension Gauge to turn battles in your favor.

Exquisite Visuals and Music: Immerse yourself in stunning 3D visuals paired with an epic score, bringing TRIBE NINE to life in extraordinary detail.

Strategies of TRIBE NINE:

Use Characters With Ranged Regular Attacks: By default, you'll be using the main character in the open world to explore. The main character uses melee attacks, and attacking an enemy before they spot you will allow you to engage in battle with increased tension of all your allies.Certain characters have better AOE regular attacks, and some of them even use ranged attacks, so it's best to use a ranged character in the open world, such as Yutaka Gotanda or Tsuki Iroha. Using ranged attacks will allow you to easily get the first hit on the enemy while remaining out of their vision, giving you a head start in battle.

Utilize the Strategy Skills Of Each Party Member: In combat, each character has a unique strategy skill, such as healing or dealing increased damage for a short period. You can use this skill by switching characters during combat. You will have to learn what each character's strategy skill does before using it so you can get the most out of it.A good example of this is Koishi Kohinata's strategy skill, as it allows you to heal your party members during combat but is only usable when you have built up at least five stacks of it by hitting the enemy. On the other hand, Yo Kuronaka's strategy skill can only be cast after using his secondary skill first and lets you stagger your enemy more easily.

Focus On Counter-Attacking Instead Of Evading: Against most enemies, counter-attacking will allow you to deal increased damage while avoiding all damage, and you can even chain some special attacks if your tension bar is full. On the other hand, evading allows you to avoid attacks but doesn't give you that much of an advantage against the enemy.If the enemy is in extreme tension mode, it's best to simply create some distance and avoid their attacks by using evade until their tension runs out. If you get hit during this phase, you'll take a ton of damage.Usually, you should try to counter-attack the enemy's melee attacks and evade the ranged ones. Keep in mind that counter-attacking requires precise timing, but it's easy to get used to it as enemies usually throw out an obvious sign before they attack.

Experiment With Your Party Composition: You can gauge each character by either their attack ability, break ability, or support ability. Characters that have better attack ability are more suited to being the primary damage dealer of your party, while characters that have a high rank in their break ability allow you to stagger enemies more easily.For example, a team including Yo Kuronaka, Koishi Kohinata, and Yutaka Gotanda can be pretty strong early on because Yo can easily stagger enemies with his counterattacks, Yutaka can deal immense damage from a distance, and Koishi can heal everyone with his strategy skill.Support characters are mainly responsible for tanking damage and providing your team with heals and buffs. It's always a good idea to have at least one support character in your party at all times.

Utilize Your Tension Cards In Combat: Tension Cards are equippable items that grant passive bonuses to you and your allies. These cards automatically activate when certain conditions have been met. Some cards activate during Tension Phase One and Two, while others only activate when your allies' tension is at the maximum.A good practice is to equip tension cards for each phase of tension, so you keep getting stronger as your tension builds during battle. You should also check which tension cards provide the best bonuses and when they become active during battle.Once your tension reaches a certain threshold, you can either use an ultimate attack or continue to increase it to reap the benefits of your tension cards. Once you use an ultimate attack, all your tension will be drained, and the tension cards will lose their effects until you build up your tension again to the required level.

Player Comments of TRIBE NINE:

TRIBE NINE is a gacha RPG that combines high-paced 3D action combat with 2D world exploration and visual-novel storytelling for a neat gameplay experience.

We play as Yo Kuronaka, a teenager who has lost his memory and must team up with other members of Trash Tribe to defeat the mysterious “Zero”. While the story is decently interesting, the lengthy conversations between the game’s large roster of characters can thankfully be fast-forwarded.

Exploration takes place in open zones where we complete quests, find collectibles, and fight enemies. While the 2D pixel art looks nice, I found the world somewhat difficult to navigate as it is not always clear what is accessible and what isn’t.

During combat, we’re teleported to open 3D areas where we play alongside AI teammates to fight waves of enemies. Although the many different character skills, parries, and chain attacks that build up our ultimate provide lots of combat options, I found myself able to just mash through most encounters without much thought.

As soon as I started playing, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities with the Danganronpa franchise, from the unique art style and world to the wacky and fun characters. This is definitely one of the game’s highlights.

TRIBE NINE monetizes via iAPs for upgrade materials, gacha currency, and more. The low gacha pull rates were a point of contention for many players early on, but that issue has since been addressed. In fact, the game is rather generous these days.

Overall, it’s a solid addition to the action gacha RPG genre. But unless you love its story, I’m not sure the game does quite enough to innovate its systems compared to the competition. Unfortunately, the game will be discontinued from November 27th, 2025, but it's worth checking out for its campaign until then.

Final words:

In Tribe Nine, you'll meet Yo Kuronaka, a young amnesiac you'll join on a fun adventure. But you'll soon meet many other characters who will also become part of your team. Your job is gradually going through each city in Neo Tokyo while participating in thrilling battles. During these battles, you can unleash an extensive arsenal of attacks to take down countless enemies.