Toreba Review: Is This Claw Machine App Game Worth It?

You’re at an arcade and you’re done playing the usual shooting, racing, and musical dance games. You then turn your eye to the arcade’s collection of claw machines and spot one chock full of Pokémon plushies. With the last token you have on hand, you hurry over and try your luck on the last Squirtle. Palms sweating, adrenaline coursing through you, you pray that the claw doesn’t open. And then…score! You manage to win the Squirtle plushie!

That is what typically goes on in a crane game. The excitement of beating one of these machines and snagging a prize is unrivalled. And you can replicate this same excitement (and frustration) from the comfort of your home with Toreba.

Claw Machine Toreba: Overview

Like your standard crane game, Toreba has you lower a crane into a box full of prizes in hopes of successfully retrieving one. You also require a fair amount of skill to manipulate the crane to ensure that you win the prize.

What makes Toreba different is the fact that it is a mobile app that’s available on both Android and iOS. First launched in Japan before its worldwide release, the app live-screens the claw machines you pick to let you see what you’re doing.

While the UI and mechanics of Toreba are entirely digital for you, it’s not a crane simulation game; you’re actually playing for real prizes.

How Do You Play Toreba?

Here’s how the game works. Once you’ve downloaded and launched the app, you’ll be directed to Toreba’s home page. Here, you can choose which claw machine you want to play. This same page is where you get Toreba Points, the currency you need to play.

When you first start out, you’ll be given some free points to play with. On your initial attempt at a claw machine, you will first reserve it by clicking on a big, orange crane button. You’ll then be put in line to play the crane game; if no one else is actively playing or reserving the machine, your session will immediately begin.

Once you’re in a session, you move the crane by controlling a set of onscreen buttons. To zoom in and out, tap on the + and – icons. If you want to adjust the camera position, press the camera icon. And to move the crane, you’ll have to tap on the up and down arrow buttons.

What Makes Toreba Different?

You might think that Toreba is just like other crane games, but it’s actually not. There are a ton of things that differentiate Toreba and make it unique from other claw machine games.

Real-Life Prizes

As we’ve mentioned previously, Toreba isn’t your average mobile crane game. While some games are just simulations of crane games, Toreba is a real-life crane game on your phone that lets you win actual prizes.

Prizes won from Toreba are directly shipped to your indicated address. Once you win a prize, the system will ask you to enter your location details for prize delivery.

Prizes range from plush toys to storage racks and occasionally even food. To monitor which prizes are available, you can use Toreba Prize Watcher, which also shows you winning replays and even informs you how close you are to winning.

Prize Shipping

For new users who have never made a shipping request before, worldwide shipping is free of charge, excluding South America and Africa. 

Subsequent shipping requests are chargeable, and the fees depend on your location and the weight of the prize(s). Since Toreba is based in Japan, being located farther away means that you’ll have to pay a higher shipping fee. 

Once every week or so, Toreba releases events where you can get free shipping on prizes that you win.

Toreba Free Plays

If you’re just starting out in Toreba, you will get 5 free Toreba Points to use on any claw machine of your choice. 

After these five tickets are used up, you will need to pay for more tickets. Free tickets are distributed every now and then, especially during festive periods like Golden Week, New Year, and Christmas. Make sure to mark your calendar so that you don’t miss out! 

Replays

Toreba lets you watch your own or other people’s replays. These can be saved as videos on your phone and can be shared with other people too. You can also access your replays by visiting the Toreba website.

By watching replays, you’ll discover how people win at the game and learn the technique and secret to winning at Toreba. 

You can also watch other players’ unfortunate mishaps on Toreba. There are some replays where the claw literally falls off and breaks. This makes watching replays pretty good for passing time; not only do you get to know how the game works, but you can also get a few good laughs out of it.

Also read: Games That Can Cure Your Boredom

Is Toreba Safe and Legit?

Toreba might sound too good to be true, but rest assured that it’s completely legit. It’s perfectly legal and doesn’t violate any law in any country.

Besides, Toreba isn’t always free to play, as the game makes you pay to play most of the time. While you do get free play tickets, these don’t come often.

Many people have also confirmed receipt of the prizes that they won from Toreba. These same people can also vouch for the legitimacy of the first free shipping—we can thus conclude that the app is legit and safe to use.

Are Toreba Prizes Rigged?

Claw machines have received a lot of flak for being rigged. Toreba is no exception, having faced much criticism from players. For instance, many reviews say that prizes are ridiculously scarce.

Although it can be hard to win prizes, Toreba is by no means a rigged game. It does take time, effort, skill, and money, yes, but you can still ultimately snag prizes from it. To help increase your chances of winning, you can check out successful replays either from the app itself or on the r/Toreba subreddit.

Problems With Toreba

Toreba is a fun game, but it isn’t without its fair share of flaws. There are many problems with the game, and some of these problems can make or break the player experience. In this section, we highlight all the problems that players have with Toreba.

Delayed Shipping

As mentioned earlier, Toreba has free shipping once every seven days. Despite this, your prizes can take very long to be shipped out and sent to your address. Some reviewers have even complained that getting in touch with Toreba customer service is difficult, making the process frustrating.

There are even times when the customer service simply will not respond to support tickets. Occasionally, it can take months for them to even get back to you about the prize that you won.

While problems with shipping don’t happen all the time, it has happened often enough for it to be a legitimate concern.

Frustrating Gameplay

You will need an insane amount of patience to play Toreba. Winning prizes is very difficult, especially if you aren’t familiar with the tricks of the crane game. If you keep paying and playing to no avail, you might feel like you’ve wasted all of your money.

If you want to get the most out of this game by not paying, then you only play when free play tickets are available. While free plays aren’t that hard to get, you only get a few each time you do receive them. 

Out-of-Stock Prizes

The fact that Toreba is handing out real-life prizes means that they have a stock of prizes. This means that stocks have a limit, and some prizes may not be available. While this is a given, there have been times where players have won prizes and were unable to receive them due to an apparent shortage of stock.

Imagine winning a prize and being excited only to receive an email saying that it cannot be delivered to you due to unavailability. This doesn’t happen to players all the time, but it has been reported quite a few times.

Prizes being out of stock are problematic for paying players who buy tickets to play. If you plan to buy tickets in the future, you probably won’t be pleased to know that there’s a possibility you won’t get your prize.

Outdated Interface and Buggy Controls

While not the biggest of problems, it’s worth mentioning that Toreba has a really outdated interface that looks like a game dating all the way back to the early 2010s. 

Additionally, this outdated interface makes navigation quite difficult for newer players. Buttons are clumped up everywhere, and there is seemingly no cohesion to the interface. 

The buttons are also quite buggy, with the game sometimes registering actions you didn’t perform. There are also times when taps are not registered. 

Laggy Gameplay

There are often lag spikes whenever you play Toreba. Although this mainly happens in the main menu, it can also occur while playing with the claw machine. There’s always a lag whenever you play.

The lag is negligible most of the time, but it can sometimes be game-breaking. Some people have reported lags so bad that it triggered total game crashes.

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Who Would Enjoy Toreba?

If you enjoy playing the claw machines at arcades, you’re definitely going to love Toreba. It’s got the exact same gameplay as real-life claw machines.

People who are tired of playing crane simulation games will also enjoy Toreba. Instead of fake prizes with no value, you get real prizes from your gameplay.

Anyone who’s bored and is looking for a new experience is likely to enjoy Toreba. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll be in it for the long run, but you’ll at least enjoy Toreba for a short time. It’s definitely an experience anyone into arcade games should play.

Final Word

Toreba is one of the most unique mobile games out there. It has fun and exciting gameplay coupled with real stakes, unlike crane simulation games. Toreba is sure to be a lot of fun for anyone into arcade and crane games looking to try something new.