Teacher Story: class war in a free-to-play RPG battler

Children are a tricky subject for an often violent medium. They are evil, but society still seems invested in protecting them. Luckily we have Teacher Story : a free-to-play JRPG in which you beat up children with education, using a turn-based battle system to shoot knowledge and inspiring speeches into their uninterested heads.

Each pupil has a health bar that consists of stupidity and a shield of boredom. Every turn you pick from a randomly rolled set of skills, focusing your unbridled tutoring might on an individual student, table, or row of the classroom. Depending on the skill, you'll start to chip away at their boredom and stupidity, but only have a set number of turns to fully educate these young minds before the lesson ends.

Special events also occur throughout the lesson - everything from a snap question, which you can choose to take or not, to thrown objects and crippling sleepiness. And specific traits can have an effect on your resolve - cracked knuckles and a clicking pen will wear away at your composure.

It does cross the line into the slightly uncomfortable free-to-play systems popularised through Facebook gaming. Your piggy bank fills with fake money as you complete missions, but you have to spend it to skip the ridiculously long 6+ hour wait between missions. Need to use some resources during a mission and you might not have enough to afford those 50 virtual coins. In which case, you're stuck in the Escherian waiting room abyss:

Unless, that is, you pay some real cash pounds. While it's enjoyable, I'm not sure Teacher Story really justifies that sort of investment. Taken instead as a fun tactical battler that you check on every now and then, it's much easier to warm to its many charms.

You can play Teacher Story at teacher-story.com , surprisingly enough.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.