The Original 5 Stars – Updated Character Review
This marks the first of a series of planned articles, where we are planning to talk about the current states of different Rare Recruit exclusives. A lot of these units have been out for a while now and, while they may have initial been great units, things may have changed since their initial release. We will talk about how those units fare in Global and we will try to summarize their current state in Japan in order to analyze their long lasting appeal.
Our first article will discuss the initial batch of 5* Rare Recruit Units that were available at the time the game was originally released. This is a pretty small list, but this should give you at least an idea of what we are trying to accomplish with this series.
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Review: For me personally, this was the coolest unit in the game when it first released. Ace is obviously an awesome character in general, so, combined with the low amount of QCK characters available at the time, he was one of the best pulls you could get.
How does he hold up now though? Kind of so-so really. He’s still the only 2.5x ATK booster Captain for QCK units, but Jozu tends to outshine him as a Captain in a lot of situations. While his HP is nice, his other stats really aren’t much to write home about and his special is pretty lacklustre. While he’s still very useful, he wouldn’t be our first pick if we were rolling a new account. |
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The Future: The future doesn’t really change much for Ace, other than the fact that he will probably see even less use as a Captain. There will still be some instances where his slightly higher ATK boost will come in handy, but he will still tend to be overshadowed by other Captains, such as Jozu and Enel. |
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Review: As with Ace, Shanks was one of THE best units you could pull when the game first came out. They’re actually extremely similar, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
As with Ace, Shanks suffers from being a bit underpowered compared to some of the current and future 5* units. And, unlike Ace, there is actually another unit with the same ATK multiplier ability: Franky. Granted, Franky’s ability is only active when above 50% health, but that’s really not that big of a deal for most runs. Plus, Franky’s special can actually be pretty useful, whereas Shanks’ special is pretty bland. His stats don’t really help matters either, although he could be nice for a RCV based team. |
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The Future: Things really only get worse for Shanks as more content is released. There are even more Captains that can fill his role, plus there will be better Slasher PSY units available as well. At least he got a 6* release, because Shanks deserves much better. |
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Review: As a new player, if you were to look at Vivi now, you would probably say: “Why is she even included on this list?” And that would honestly be a good question, but you have to understand the impact that she had on the game when it was released. As there weren’t many characters available, Vivi (+ Laboon) played a key role in helping a lot of players clear some of the harder Fortnights and even some of the first Raid Boss encounters.
As things currently stand, Vivi has lost a lot of her usefulness. While she still heals more per turn than Enel, his ability actually provides an ATK multiplier as well. Even worse, the only upcoming Raid Boss that will work with Zombie teams is Heracles. The rest of the Raid Boss battles have mechanics in place that render Zombie teams useless. |
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The Future: Things look pretty bleak for the beautiful Princess Vivi in the future. While she will always remain a great tool for brand new players, there are much better better options. |
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Review: Okay, so Arlong isn’t actually a 5* unit, but he honestly probably should have been. With hands down the highest Attack stat at the games release, Arlong was arguable one of the strongest captains you could start with. Sure, he was farmable in the story mode (and eventually a fortnight), but there were a lot worse units you could have started with.
And out of all the units we reviewed today, this 4* unit is definitely still the most useable in today’s game. While his captain ability has obviously been overshadowed by Mihawk, he still maintains the 3rd highest attack stat for any Global unit and makes a very strong member for any Slasher or STR team. |
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The Future: While he won’t see quite as much use as time marches on, Arlong will still have the 5th highest attack stat as more characters are released. Other characters may provide more utility with their specials, but Arlong will still be your go to when you just need to hit something really hard. |
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That’s all for now! We hope to make this a recurring thing on the site, so definitely check back for more reviews!
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