High School Fleet: Kantai Battle de Pinch!

***High School Fleet: Kantai Battle de Pinch!*** is a strategic naval game to be released on iOS and Android. The game was first announced in April 2018 with an initial release date of December 2018. This was later pushed back to Spring 2019 due to the need for refinement. Pre-registration began at the same time as the initial announcement. The game was officialy released on March 27th, 2019.

An announcement was made on 26th February, 2020 that the game would be ending service on 25th March, 2020 at 2:00pm JST.

## Gameplay

Gameplay features two teams pitted against each other with the goal of destroying the other's base. To do this the player places ships on their half of the field, at the cost of energy, which will automatically place themselves on a path to the enemy base after a deploy period, destroyers are the quickest to deploy followed by cruisers than battleships. Along the path, they will go into combat with any opposing ship that comes into their attack range. Each ship has its own HP pool and once depleted will be taken off the field and can be re-deployed after a respawn timer, again costing energy. The energy bar appears on the right-hand side of the screen and gradually fills up over time. You begin battle with five energy and can reach a maximum of fifteen energy before the bar is full.

Your ships are crewed by the characters from the series who provide stat bonuses alongside a passive ability which increases the power of the ship in a specified manner. Captains also provide each ship with an active ability that activated in battle, costing energy. These skills can be offensive in nature, shooting a barrage of torpedoes or artillery, supportive, healing an allied ship, or be utility focused, increasing movement speed or providing evasion. Once a skill has been used it goes on cooldown before it can be used again, as well as giving all other skills a one-second cooldown. Some skills and passives only work on a certain ship type, for example, the four-star Akeno Misaki, obtained through the story mode, has a passive ability that works only when crewed on destroyers and cruisers.

Above is an image of the battlefield with the points below coinciding with the numbers in the image

1. Pause button during AI battles Can also be used to retreat from the battle
2. Swap between three different modes;
	* Auto: Puts an A.I in control of your player, automatically placing down ships and using skills
3. Shows Ship triangle advantage - Battleships (Purple) > Cruisers (Green) > Destroyers (Yellow) > Battleships
4. Shows health of both players bases, reaching zero results in that player's loss
5. Time remaining in the battle. If time runs out the player with the highest health remaining wins
6. Captain Skill usable while ship is deployed
7. Character in place as the Captain of the ship affects what the Captain Skill is
8. Shows what class of ship the Captain is leading
9. Energy cost to use skill/deploy ship onto the field
10. Energy Bar, required to deploy ships and use Captain Skills. Increases over time to maximum storage of fifteen energy
11. Path the ship will take when progressing towards the enemy base
12. Hitpoints of the ship, once it reaches zero it will be taken off the field and can be redeployed after a respawn time (Respawn time depends on the type of ship).
13. Your base, if destroyed you lose the match
14. Enemy base, destroy it to win the match
15. Range at which ships will start attacking the base. Each base has its own artillery that starts firing at enemy ships slightly beyond this range.
16. Visual representation of the path the ship will take on the way to the enemy base, visible for a couple of seconds after deployment.

## Characters

As well as featuring the characters that appeared in the anime series, including Moeka China, the game introduces new characters exclusive to the game.

Tokitsukaze Crew:

* Tsumugi Sakakibara - Captain of the Tokitsukaze

* Kimie Nagasawa - Deputy Captain of the Tokitsukaze

* Yumiko Otani - Torpedo Chief

* Tsutsuji Kamo - Chief Navigator

Amatsukaze Crew:

* Chika Takahashi - Captain of the Amatsukaze

* Ayumi Yamabe - Deputy Captain of the Amatsukaze

* Noriko Osashi - Artillery Chief

* Sayuri Kato - Engineering Chief

## Official Links

* Official Game Website (JP)
* Official Game Twitter (JP)
* iTunes JP App Store Game Page
* Android QooApp Game Page