|OT| This is GachaCouncil - Playing with money

[Li Kao]

A Gacha [OT] is something no one really asked for, so I had to create one !
More seriously, while the genre has evident issues, some gacha can be pretty good time waster. For a time. Until you have to mortgage to level your waifu.
...
So, discuss.

I could see myself putting some of the good ones here, if there is a modicum of interest.

-

Myself, I'm playing...

EXOS HEROES

Korean turn based character battler, very inspired by Granblue Fantasy IMHO, good production value and a solid plot.
The game is pretty generous to free players, even more so a few weeks ago for their new season celebration or something.
Some badly translated lines but not that many, and I'm fucking anal when it come to that. Understandable plot and dialogs or get out.

Prospect of being able to continue playing not great though. The game difficulty seems to spike with chapter 10 and there is a stupidly delirious 'signature' system to gain bonus damage, which consist of sacrificing some of the best characters in the game, multiple times, the same characters that very rarely drop in the gacha.


I also tried/play/soon dropping...

DRAGON QUEST TACT

Tactical gacha where your waifus are Dragon Quest monsters (don't judge !).
It's... inoffensive, You would have to be a HUGE DQ super fan to invest time in it. The plot is not its strong point, but at least it's cute. But the battles are awfully easy with potential to become awfully hard. What I mean is the gameplay is clearly just an excuse for the gacha. Grind this, grind that, oh and there is that. Ok, I mean, why not. But it gets repetitive.

Bonus shitty move by SE : we know you will be bored by the grind, so super fast animation is locked under a monthly 5 bucks sub !

Not the same genre but all this monster collecting just gives me the will to retry Shin Megami Tensei Mobile. It's not a good sign when a game gives you the desire to play another one.

Note :
I would be remiss to not mention something I hate in DQT. Let's call it the low budget effect, or maybe the Retro JGacha plague.
Let me explain : I'm talking about the type of games consisting of 95% menus, with clunky UI, that connects to the server every time you change 'page'. It's not that these loadings are long, but they add up something fierce, and you don't even have eye candy to pass the time.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Gacha almost works for me as i regularly see a few games i am interested in but then i remember that they usually require daily logins, timed exclusive items/characters etc and it starts to look like work. I like watching people play them now and then and seeing the enjoyment and interest they have but i don't think i have the attention required to keep playing for long. Hell, i think i lasted about 3 weeks with the Animal Crossing mobile game thingy before i forgot about it.

Also, as Li Kao said most of them seem to have insane difficulty spikes or you realize that if you don't min/max and study up then you're not "playing efficiently" which is one of the phrases that puts me off a game. Some of the mechanics and multi-currencies in these types of games are insane. I don't know how anyone can say that gacha is "casual" some of the posts i've seen read like technical manuals for a nuclear reactor. lol!

Oh, i almost forgot the obligatory wind-up phrase... "Why are you paying real money for a png file?"

 

[Li Kao]

A lot of truths were spat in rapid succession ! [UWSL][/UWSL]

The 'feels like work' effect struck me a few times indeed. I really enjoyed games like the Star Wars battler or Marvel Strike Force until someday I took a step back and realized the amount of time they asked of me in the morning. The Megaten one is heavy on the time asked too.
I also can't fault you on the second point. After two months of playing Exos Heroes, I still don't understand whatever meta or end game there is. And a lot of the currencies source and use are just unknown to me.

If we are talking about our relationship to those games... I don't totally understand their allure to me. I think it's strongly rooted in their art. And why do I put up with this shit ? Because I have the natural tendency, sometimes involuntarily so, to get a spike of interest for free or low pricing shit like that when the money is low and times are rough. For other examples, see MMORPG, or Pen & Paper RPG.

But let me assure you, people that I strongly suspect of being gacha fans, this is not a place of hate, just differing viewpoints that are interesting in their diversity. You can come.
...
Discuss.

 

[Cacher]

Oh boy, finally a place for me to post about Sakura Kakumei. Thanks Li Kao.

 

[Vantr]

I think there is a lot of 'FOMO' when it comes to dailies/events since dailies are how you get premium currency. I've gotten into that mood a few times but then I take a step back and realise it isn't a big deal and I'm not actually competing with anyone so it is fine to go at my own pace.

I think there is a lot to enjoy in gacha games as some of them are really well made. I think gachas like Genshin Impact have shown people that there can be an amazing high-quality experience to be found in these games.

I typically play gachas with original IP and not ones based off an existing series since I feel like they're just trying to make money based on the IP (Anime gacha games I'm looking at you). The original ones that survive usually have a combination of good story/soundtrack/art/gameplay.

I'm currently balancing 4 gachas right now:
Honkai Impact 3
Arknights
Girls Frontline
Destiny Child

 

[Li Kao]

Worth noting : Disgaea gacha comes out on April 13th.
I don't have much hope, never really played a tactical gacha that held my interest, but hey, you never know.

I'm just replaying the first one and it's the only one I ever played, but for fans of the series the fanservice material should be good.

 

[Ascheroth]

I dabbled in some Gacha games every now and then, but could never really stick long to them, since they eventually turned into chores and often the gameplay was essentially "click on the auto-battle button and let the game play itself". (Well and I don't really like playing on mobile and while mobile emulators are an option, it's still an extra hassle)

Right now I'm still playing Genshin Impact though, that game has managed to definitely grab me, even though there's some criticism I have and the previous big update was kind of a dud.

The base of it is just super appealing to me. Great production values and exploration is absolutely fantastic. Story is "okay", but there's a lot of care put into world-building and NPC dialogue. Combat's fun and in general the game is pretty stress-fee.
It's not really difficult outside of 1 single end-game activity and there's no PVP stuff, so there's no realy need to "follow the meta" or min-max stuff, every character is viable. The daily routine doesn't really require much time/effort too.

It also helps that I regularly co-op with a friend and am in a small Discord, the community aspect definitely helps.

As I said, the last update was a bit of a dud, but they have already shown they can make really good content (the one area released post-launch was really good, in general there's a clear upwards trend in quality for every area) and the current update is already more interesting as well.

Well and a native PC client definitely helps too, lol.

 

[Cacher]

I feel that this screenshot from Steamworld Heist belongs here.

 

[Ascheroth]

Genshin Impact is going to get a Genshin Crossing update at the 28th.
The housing system looks really god damn cool. Might be almost more accurate to call it a "towning" system if the stuff in the trailer is true

I tried again to get back into Honkai Impact recently (Played for a bit when it came out), but man it feels impossible.
The main menu is plastered with a billion different events and notices, exclamation marks everywhere, seven thousand different subsystems, stores and currencies.
I just ALT+F4ed right out of it again.


Still playing Another Eden though! Actually on mobile though, since the Steam port is kinda crappy unfortunately, at least it was around release, not sure if they already fixed things.
Having no time pressure and just doing the content at your own pace is nice. The gacha is kinda shitty though.
There's no pity safety net for F2P - you're never guaranteed to get a character you want or even a 5* at all (outside . Free units are technically "viable" and they and some 4* from the gacha can be upgraded to 5*, I guess, but it looks like that'd require a lot of grind to bring them up to par with any random 5* you pull.
I feel like if I didn't have ridiculous luck with the few pulls I did so far I might not be playing anymore. (And I mean ridiculous, I have 5 5* already and the current anniversary event will guarantee me another one in a few days, it's crazy).
It's pretty easy going with my team right now, but I feel like I would have needed to grind at some points if I were less lucky and had worse chars.

 

[Vantr]

I tried again to get back into Honkai Impact recently (Played for a bit when it came out), but man it feels impossible.
The main menu is plastered with a billion different events and notices, exclamation marks everywhere, seven thousand different subsystems, stores and currencies.
I just ALT+F4ed right out of it again.

You should check out the Threshold Breach event. It's a rogue-like mode that's pretty easy but it's fun since you get powerful pretty easily at it lets you used overpowered versions of some of the older underpowered characters.

I think Honkai has quite a few events on right now since it was the CNY patch/1st anniversary (Global) so I can see why it's a bit overloaded. It will die down a bit next patch. The typical Honkai patch is every 1.5 months with event content at the front and story content being unlocked near the end of the patch although this patch it was just events only. As a veteran player I don't even look at half the stores. I just hoard all the currencies.

Anyways I was looking into upcoming games and there's a few I have my eyes on.

Punishing Gray Raven
Gameplay seems similar to Honkai Impact 3 but I'll check it out still because the setting interests me. Also as a NieR Automata collab which was released on the CN server. Not sure if they'll bring it to global when it releases.


Girls Frontline 2
I've been following this for a while and it's a sequel to the first GFL but the gameplay is very different from it's predecessor they've change it to be like X-Com. Some of the guns make a return but it will be a different roster of characters from what I've heard.

 

[Vantr]

Keeping this thread alive with a CBT signup for a new gacha game.

Tears of Themis
A romance x detective x adventure game by miHoYo (Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact). From the trailer it looks like it has some Phoenix Wright gameplay elements but I'm not sure how much of that would be a focus in-game. I've looked up a few gameplay videos and this seems to have the standard PvE battles as well which I assume will be the main focus of gameplay since it is a gacha game. So I guess collect husbandos and fight crime!

CBT Registration

https://tot.mihoyo.com/CBTsign-up/?lang=en-us#/

Trailer

 

[Cacher]

Chapter 4 of Sakura Kakumei is coming next week, so maybe it's time to write about this game. This post will be rather introductory and I plan to write more in the future.

Many people know I am a fan of Sakura Wars. Not too many titles across manga, anime, books or movies can make me cried like a baby, and Sakura Wars is one of them. Somehow, I find that the pursuit of justice, friendship, dream, love and all other beautiful things of this world in Sakura Wars are so genuine that I can get teary eye by just one line of dialogue. Sakura Kakumei is no exception.

Quick summary of the premise: Due to a calamity in the past, all spiritual engines were rendered useless and Japanese development was halted. (In Sakura Wars lore, spirit is the root of everything and can be used like electricity). Fast forward to today, it's Taisho Era Year 100. Japanese government announced a new energy called Mirai ("future" in Japanese). Mirai can generate tremendous power, but all sakura trees around Japan somehow wither and cannot bloom anymore. You, the protagonist, was a former police officer but assigned to lead the Great Imperial Combat Revue "BLACK", a team which is consisted of girls who are singers and actors on the surface but combatants in the dark. In one mission, you are assigned to capture a terrorist group leader, Sakura Nadeshiko, who is working to destroy Mirai facility around Japan. Upon meeting Nadeshiko, a former superstar and leader of the original Imperial Combat Revue, she reveals that Mirai is using human's spiritual power to generate energy (in Sakura Wars lore, sakura tree is very sensitive to spiritual power, so they wither under the influence of Mirai) and the government is planning something great evil. Due to pursuit from BLACK members, she asked the protagonist to take care of her daughter, then you were pushed into a capsule and shot to Aogashima, an island south of Tokyo, to meet her daughter, Sakura Shino...

I left a few things from the summary due to spoiler. I highly recommend you watching this special anime episode (fan subbed) prepared by SEGA prior to the launch (although the story development is a bit different from the prologue in the game).

The games evolved around you, Shino and Shino's friend Fuka travelling around Japan to recruit members for the new-born Imperial Combat Revue and to destroy Mirai facility, ultimately taking back Japan. Different chapters locates in different regions: Kyushu region in chapter 1, Chugoku in chapter 2, Shikoku in chapter 3 and Kinki in chapter 4. Every chapter you encounter a number of girls who join the fight against the evil regime, as well as learning some extra history knowledge of the locales around Japan.

Honestly speaking, I never find the main story being the biggest strength of Sakura Wars. They are usually full of deus ex machina and rather predicable. What really separates Sakura Wars from the rest of waifu collection games / visual novels / dating sim are characters and music. However, it's a bit different in Sakura Kakumei: it has fantastic characters writing and music, as well as a pretty good main story. I will probably write more posts regarding these topics in near future. Hopefully there are people reading these posts

At the end, let's enjoy one of the songs of Sakura Kakumei. I translated the monologue of Shino during the song as it is pretty representative of what Sakura Kakumei really is.

Why are we fighting against each other?
I am certain that we are both wanting to protect Japan
This is the katana to seize something from someone
This is the voice to threaten someone here
But!
I hate a world in grey
I hate a world without music
I hate a world where flowers do not bloom
I hate a world where dreams cannot be pursued
I want to laugh with everyone in a world where sakura dances around
That's why!
I am voicing out!
Raising the flag!
Holding up the sword!
Making flowers bloom under the sky without color
This is not the time to use Mirai ("future")
This is the time to create future ("mirai")
I fight
As I have comrades with me
We will raise the sakura revolution!

 

[Cacher]

Welp
Sega just announced that they will drop Sakura Kakumei
Stopping service on June 30

Edit: going to write my thoughts on this soon

 

[ExistentialThought]

Welp
Sega just announced that they will drop Sakura Kakumei
Stopping service on June 30

Holy moley, that is so soon. I knew it was sort of struggling out the gate, but I assumed they would push more to support it for at least the first year.

Honestly, it continues to reaffirm the issue that so many MMOs had after WoW that folks have too much time and money wrapped up into existing games that it takes something sort of shaking to catch the market.

 

[Cacher]

Holy moley, that is so soon. I knew it was sort of struggling out the gate, but I assumed they would push more to support it for at least the first year.

Honestly, it continues to reaffirm the issue that so many MMOs had after WoW that folks have too much time and money wrapped up into existing games that it takes something sort of shaking to catch the market.

Loving something that others don't love feels bad. The game has many lows, but its highs are really high. Sadly not many people recognize them.

I haven't been this sad for a piece of gaming news for a long time.

 

[Cacher]

Sure, DW, whatever, I don't care.

 

[Ascheroth]

Punishing: Gray Raven is getting a global release for Android and iOS on July 16th:



Shame for no PC client, but it looks pretty cool and the soundtrack seems killer, probably going to give it a try on an emulator until Windows 11 is out and then that just works natively .

 

[Ascheroth]

Genshin Impact 2.0 is gonna release next week btw.


New area and main story stuff.
Also gardening for the teapot housing system and probably a bunch of other stuff.

 

[Ascheroth]

Been playing Punishing Gray Raven since Friday and it's hella fun.
Unsure for how long I stick with it, but so far I'm having a blast doing missions/challenges that are way above the recommended "Battle Power" of my team.

You get a ticket to select one of the 5 starter S-Rank characters at the start, which is quite nice. I picked Karenina (in the middle) cause her playstyle seemed super fun and it is. Swinging around a bazooka mainly as a melee weapon rules .
There's also the beginner banner that gives you another S-Rank character at less pulls than usual, but I don't have that one yet since it is not advised to spend the premium currency on it and the regular currency acccumulation for that one is rather slow. But whatever.

Combat is just super satisfying. It's a weird mix of Action-RPG with timing perfect dodges and ...Match-3 RNG skills. I don't even know how to really describe it, but it just works and gives combat an ever-present slight puzzle feel that has you adapting to the hand you're dealth with in real-time and makes every fight a bit different.

I've been doing story missions with a recommended BP (Battle Power) of 3200 with this team while they were weaker (Karenina at 1900 i.e.).
And the picture was from a really hard level 75 challenge (I don't really know what that level is supposed to be though, my characters are 40 and the BP recommendations is less than the level 40 story missions) that I just threw myself against and eventually succeeded.
It just feels really nice when you win while punching way above your weight class, because the difficulty isn't really via DPS-checks, it's primarily "can you even stay alive when enemies can one or two-shot you?" - and ifyou can answer that with true, you can generally win while being very under-geared and levelled. It's hard though. But satisfying.

 

[Vantr]

Resurrecting thread for

Heaven Burns Red

So far soundtrack has gotten me pretty hyped.



There was a stream as well.

 

[Ascheroth]

Counter Side is getting a global release in a few days (on the 27th to be exact):

From what I've heard it seems to be pretty popular. Supposedly good story, pretty generous with currency/pulls, good QoL features, etc.
But what's most interesting to me is that it has PC clients in the regions it launched, and Global will get one too - directly on Steam.
Gacha gaming on the Deck
According to their roadmap the Steam client will release in August. I'll probably give it a try on an emulator. Let's see if it can grab me that long.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm enjoying Counterside so far. I like the combat well enough. Visuals are decent, music is good. Just wish there was more voice acting.
It still has the same issues I have with most Gachas, in that it has a gajillion systems it throws at you in rapid succession while also urging you to rush in order to not miss out on time-limited stuff instead of letting things breathe. Do we really need a time-limited event that goes all the way up to level 100 encounters right at launch? (Granted, it's easier than it looks like at first, thankfully, but it still feels like it creates unnecessary pressure).

Not sure how long I'll be sticking with it, usually these mission based gachas lose me after a few weeks at most, BUT. Counterside has 2 particularly appealing selling points for me:
1) So far, I think the setting, characters and story are really good.
2) It will get a Steam release in August, which means it will hopefully work on the Deck. I don't like playing on my phone, but I also don't really like playing these games on an emulator as well, so playing it on the Deck would be ideal.

I'm also really happy with my rolls so far, so that helps a bit too and they're handing out pulls and SSR tickets like candy, feels very generous so far.

 

[Li Kao]

I'm enjoying Counterside so far. I like the combat well enough. Visuals are decent, music is good. Just wish there was more voice acting.
It still has the same issues I have with most Gachas, in that it has a gajillion systems it throws at you in rapid succession while also urging you to rush in order to not miss out on time-limited stuff instead of letting things breathe. Do we really need a time-limited event that goes all the way up to level 100 encounters right at launch? (Granted, it's easier than it looks like at first, thankfully, but it still feels like it creates unnecessary pressure).

Not sure how long I'll be sticking with it, usually these mission based gachas lose me after a few weeks at most, BUT. Counterside has 2 particularly appealing selling points for me:
1) So far, I think the setting, characters and story are really good.
2) It will get a Steam release in August, which means it will hopefully work on the Deck. I don't like playing on my phone, but I also don't really like playing these games on an emulator as well, so playing it on the Deck would be ideal.

I'm also really happy with my rolls so far, so that helps a bit too and they're handing out pulls and SSR tickets like candy, feels very generous so far.

Are you part of a Consortium ? Do we create one ?

 

[Ascheroth]

Are you part of a Consortium ? Do we create one ?

Nope, not yet. Though I guess I'll have to join one soon since one of the beginner missions wants you to.
We could make one, but it costs 1000 Quartz and I also don't really know what a Consortium does. Could also join a random one until we figure out what the system is about. Dunno.

 

[Ascheroth]

Honkai Impact 3rd had its 5.8 update today, which supposedly improves the new player experience (by both giving out a huge amount of goodies and also reworking onboarding and other stuff), so now seems to be a good time to jump in!
At least I'm gonna try.
Played it ages ago but could never get back into it once I'd dropped it, made a new account and so far I'm having a much better time.

 

[Satori]

Star Healer OBT. Bullet hell gacha.

Star Healer - Apps on Google Play

A Fantastic RPG for ACG Lovers

play.google.com

YoStar will publish Aether Gazer global



Alice Fiction is releasing this summer

ALICE Fiction - Puzzle RPG - Apps on Google Play

Welcome to the fake world.

play.google.com

Tower of Fantasy will release on Steam alongside Epic and mobile platforms this summer

 

[Li Kao]

Honkai Impact 3rd had its 5.8 update today, which supposedly improves the new player experience (by both giving out a huge amount of goodies and also reworking onboarding and other stuff), so now seems to be a good time to jump in!
At least I'm gonna try.
Played it ages ago but could never get back into it once I'd dropped it, made a new account and so far I'm having a much better time.

That was my plan but someone told me it's 17go on ios once all is said and done !? I have a fucking 64go ipad,
I can't do miracles ! Counterside already takes 7.84go FFS.

 

[Ascheroth]

That was my plan but someone told me it's 17go on ios once all is said and done !? I have a fucking 64go ipad,
I can't do miracles ! Counterside already takes 7.84go FFS.

Haha yeah, it's pretty big, but I'm playing it on PC anyway. (It's both on Steam and has a non-Steam client).

 

[Satori]

I wish every gacha had native pc client.

 

[Li Kao]

I wish every gacha had native pc client.

Mmh, not sure Honkai would be good to play with a pad ? From what I played years ago the good vibe was partly the novelty of a touch action game that works well, but on platforms with controller doesn't it loses its charm ?
Ascheroth ?

 

[Ascheroth]

Mmh, not sure Honkai would be good to play with a pad ? From what I played years ago the good vibe was partly the novelty of a touch action game that works well, but on platforms with controller doesn't it loses its charm ?
Ascheroth ?

I'm playing it with Mouse and Keyboard to have the best of both worlds (mouse for in-depth menu navigation and stuff, keyboard for the combat gameplay).
I do think Honkai has gamepad support and for combat it should definitely work perfectly well - it shouldn't use that many buttons there.
I just don't know if it has proper menu navigation with say the DPAD or if it's just moving a cursor with the analogue stick or something - you can definitely still see that this was a mobile-first game and not like Genshin which was made with mouse/keyboard and controller control schemes in mind.
It works pretty well though, just make sure to turn off "Tips" in the options to get rid of ugly keyboard (and probably button) prompts plastered everywhere.

I do quite like it. The new beginner rewards are super nice and showers you with cool characters and good gear. The story stage segmentation feels a lot better than I remember (though the initial story is not that great, but I'm looking forward to the part where it "gets really good" supposedly.)
Also the big event has completely different gameplay and is totally separate from your own units, so you can just jump in, play it and get goodies. I have no idea who the character is though, but the story at least feels mostly standalone, which means I'm not totally lost. (And her gameplay looks amazing, and you can get the character for free from the event shop. I guess rolling is more for unlocking additional power and equipment and stuff? Which I don't care about.)

 

[Li Kao]

I finished Old Fear in Counterside today myself. For an event that is supposedly one of the best written, I can't help but feel underwhelmed. I blame the serviceable but subpar localization. Was a nice event overall, I evidently like the body horror.

 

[Satori]

 

[Ascheroth]

Really looking forward to giving this one a try whenever it releases.
Combat and animations look absolutely incredible.
I'm not completely sold on the environment art and the exploration will have to prove itself as well, but that's a bit hard to gauge from just a short overview video.
And I'll need to know how time-consuming and difficult it's gonna be (wasn't a fan of their other game I've played, Punishing: Gray Raven. Super solid initially with killer combat and great animations as well, but keeping up with it felt like too much work and everything you did was pretty samey. Since it all it has was essentially combat arenas and nothing else. An open world could alleviate that).

 

[Ascheroth]

Gacha update!

Counterside has fallen squarely to the "I'm just gonna read the story and ignore everything else" camp. Stopped doing dailies. They aren't exactly much work, but it's just going through a gajillion menus. The event shops are annoying as well, you literally need to burn all your stamina every day all day to maybe clean them out. I don't like that "pressure", much prefer the way Genshin handles its events where the different stages just roll out over time but once they are unlocked you can do them whenever you want and they don't require any resin or anything.

Honkai I also decided to call it quits. I'm probably still going to go through the rest of the story eventually, especially since you just use predefined characters instead of your own after the very very early chapters, so it's not like I have to work on upgrading my chars.
I think it's a fun game, but the dailies are too much work and there are too many of them. I can barely be bothered doing the biweekly Abyss in Genshin, Honkai has multipe weekly things going on, some that even refresh twice a week. And quite frankly, while the combat is pretty awesome initially, it does get old fairly quickly - at least for me.

 

[Satori]

Man.. I love hero collectors but i hate the gacha model..
Iv burned out on all the recent gacha games pretty quickly.

 

[Ascheroth]

Man.. I love hero collectors but i hate the gacha model..
Iv burned out on all the recent gacha games pretty quickly.

Genshin Impact has been the only one I've managed to stick with for a long amount of time.
Usually gachas can only can keep me for a few weeks, then they start feeling like work, get too repetitive, have no "content" or multiple of these.

For me Genshin manages to toe the line between "one-and-done single-player experience" and "live-service game that you should be playing every day" just well enough, that I haven't really tired of it yet. I big point for that is definitely that it feels like it doesn't completely disrespect my time (there is some of that for sure, but at least it's very loose with the "schedule" it enforces - you really don't miss out much if you don't play every day) and also that it has shockingly good balancing and hasn't really had much of a powercreep at all, all units are still viable for the vast majority of the content.


I'm really looking forward to Hoyo's next games Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, but them not being open world has me slightly worried about things getting repetitive. Star Rail at least has maps you can walk around in and ZZZ should have some variety with its rogue-lite dungeons.
But we'll have to see.

 

[Satori]

After i got my new Steam account sorted i ended up deleting all my mobile games.

I saw this indie game on the upcoming steam list.

its a roguelite with hero collecting, and it will be paid, i think its out on switch

 

[Line]

So Tower of Fantasy was released today.

Seems... okay I guess? It's Genshin but kinda worse all around, the world and character designs are a bit uninspired, the combat feedback seems really crappy but that might be server lag, I feel like mobs die before I finish them off, it's weird.

Dunno, might play a bit more to have a full idea.
I got Tsubasa in my first 30 rolls, apparently a good character? She's pretty much Ganyu

 

[Ascheroth]

It's okay, I'm having fun so far but it's pretty janky and unpolished. It's basically budget Genshin gone MMO. The single-player aspects are weaker but it has a lot more multi-player stuff, though other then seeing other people running around, I haven't interacted with any of that yet. I guess it will mostly appeal to people who aren't satisfied with Genshin being 99% single-player.

 

[Line]

Dropped Tower of Fantasy.
It's competent as far as mobile games go, not pretty, the lore and world are not very interesting at all and it's just bootleg Borderlands and not SciFi, but okay. The music is fine, the voice acting is awfully directed, there are skips and little bugs everywhere...
No, the problem lies in the controls that are just fucked. Controller is only partial and feels terrible, but I play M+KB... and it works... more or less. Except changing keys which doesn't work for some of them.

It's the engine and the physics that are traaash, just moving is slippery and unprecise, climbing is mega jank, you get stuck on shit all the time, some platforms are juuust the wrong height so you can't double jump on them because reasons, the "jetpack" is limited and has too long a CD, the bike and the surfboard are completely pointless, they are stiff, constantly get stuck on shit too, which breaks them and resets their NINETY SECONDS cd..

And it applies to combat, which is just bad. There's no depth here, it's just a mash a button, use ult when available, dodge to slow down time, mash more. Except when you do instances, where the whales will do it for you. And world bosses on the other hand have far too much HP and not enough mechanics.
It might be cool to see people in the world, but it brings nothing gameplay wise.

The game really needed more time to cook. And to copy the Genshin systems better, really. Sure now it's a juggernaut, but it was fun t play day one. Not half broken all over the gameplay pieces.
It's very much a "it's pretty good... for a mobile game".

 

[Ascheroth]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna call it quits as well.
The exploration is just legitimately bad. No cohesion in the world design (there are regular human NPCs in all the cities but when go outside suddenly you're fighting Borderlands enemies). Minimap is littered with icons telling you where to go to collect your stuff instead of encouraging exploration on your own, straight out of the Ubisoft open-world design school. TIME-GATED CHESTS (Nothing more fun than just following along the main story, seeing a chest in the vicinity and being told "come back tomorrow, sucker").
Climbing is complete jank. Way too many relics with way too long cooldowns. For some reasons ladders use a different climbing-system entirely than the rest of the game.
Combat is really shallow. As far as I could see, there's absolutely no depth when it comes to "team-building" (your weapon loadout in this game).
The UI and UX is complete mess.
Etc.
It has the character customization and more multiplayer stuff, but other than that, eh.

Overall it has made me appreciate the polish and attention to detail in Genshin a whole lot more.

 

[Line]

Foe a palette cleanser, I was looking at some Wuthering Waves videos.
I love the near future aesthetic and the very muted tones, with the ambiant sound design being very calm and ethereal, it really has a stronger identity than a lot of open worlds. Kinda reminds me a bit of Elden Ring.
Plus it's made by Kuro (Punishing Gray Raven), so combat being fantastic is a given.


I just hope it won't get crazy like PGR, that game got way, WAY too hard. And way too repetitive, you don't want players to give 100% of themselves all the time to complete challenges... and to force them to them to do it 20 or 30 times every week!

 

[ExistentialThought]

Thought we had a gacha OT here and sure enough haha. For the record, I hardly play gachas these days and I am out of touch with where the games have trended, I mostly cut myself from them since I spend too much money on them.

Played Nikke and I am not sure how much I enjoy it. Game was recommended by someone I know.

My initial complaints are the inflated SSR pool. I do not think I have seen a game launch with so many SSR units along with such a low rate. There are clearly a lot of SR units added into the SSR pool to keep folks from getting units they want out of the pool. Whatsmore there is no pity system in the ordinary recruit, not even something absurd like 100-200-300 pulls or something. I probably should have waited for a rate up event or something, but as it stands now I have hardly anything from several pulls and hate rerolling. I know there are other mobile games just as bad or worse, but I have personally not played one that someone could put in so much money and get nothing.

My other compliant is the targeting, not sure how they could mess this up, but they somehow made targeting feel so bad with touch controls.

I think before I get gambler's fallacy, I might cut my losses after the initial login event runs out.

 

[Ascheroth]

Thought we had a gacha OT here and sure enough haha. For the record, I hardly play gachas these days and I am out of touch with where the games have trended, I mostly cut myself from them since I spend too much money on them.

Played Nikke and I am not sure how much I enjoy it. Game was recommended by someone I know.

My initial complaints are the inflated SSR pool. I do not think I have seen a game launch with so many SSR units along with such a low rate. There are clearly a lot of SR units added into the SSR pool to keep folks from getting units they want out of the pool. Whatsmore there is no pity system in the ordinary recruit, not even something absurd like 100-200-300 pulls or something. I probably should have waited for a rate up event or something, but as it stands now I have hardly anything from several pulls and hate rerolling. I know there are other mobile games just as bad or worse, but I have personally not played one that someone could put in so much money and get nothing.

My other compliant is the targeting, not sure how they could mess this up, but they somehow made targeting feel so bad with touch controls.

I think before I get gambler's fallacy, I might cut my losses after the initial login event runs out.

I tend to try out the "flavor of the month" new gachas, but usually don't stick with them. Couterside was the last one I played for more than a day or two, but that got annoying as well. Unfortunately, since I really enjoyed the story.
Tried Nikke for a couple hours as well, but already dropped it. It does have some cool aspects to it (music, some boss fights), but as you say their gacha implementation is terrible and in the end the game just kinda turns into "turn on automode and do something else". And I'm really not a fan of those. If your game just plays itself, I tend to lose interest very quickly.

Genshin has been the only one I've stuck with because it has a ton of "proper" game to it to justify its threadmill, unlike most other gachas I've tried.
The only other ones I think have a chance of keeping me around are probably Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero and Wuthering Waves (Star Rail and Zenless are probably next year, not sure if Wuthering Waves would make it that early) as far as upcoming games I'm aware of are concerned.

 

[Line]

Yeah I tried Nikke, and same biiiig problem with the targeting: it just doesn't work.
There's massive amount of autotargeting no matter what you do, which constantly gets in the way... and it does not actually target where you point, it's more like using a weird sling with random tracking and acceleration, and the different ranges also mean that you fight constantly with the game telling to shoot in in one while you're trying to target another... which forces you to go back to cover to retarget.
Absolute shitshow of a gameplay, just dumbfounded.

I genuinely think that they misfired the platform entirely, there would be no such problems on PC or console (or with a light gun of course). They try something simply too complex and demanding for a touchscreen, and end up crippling their game with auto helpers that get in the way... especially with how microscopic the reticle is, and being white on white UI elements in the middle of hundreds of white damage pop ups...

The gacha seems exceedingly shady, but even the PR is: they claim that you get 110 rolls... which is true. IF you complete 100% of the content available in the game right now (which is obviously going to take a long time - and rolls).
And even then, 110 rolls is absolutely bugger all.
You need to make 200 rolls to guarantee an SSR dupe item, not an SSR by itself (which is not available beside special event items).
4% to get an SSR on wishlisted rolls with no pity at all, and that means rolling on 15 characters with no way to choose further? That's baaaad.

This is one of the scummiest gacha systems I've ever seen. Having technically higher drop rates than average means nothing when the pool is so gigantic with no pity.
Also, endgame it's mandatory to get at least one SSR with three dupes to reach lvl200 (but at least there is a lvl share with other units - else that means 600 rolls minimum even IF you get the char you need...).

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm trying out Project Neural Cloud and so far I'm enjoying it.
It's pretty crazy coming from Nikke: Goddess of Loading Screens. The game is blazing fast. Super snappy UI, no loading screens, fast transitions, feels very polished.
The gacha seems pretty decent too.
It's obviously a lower budget title (story isn't voiced, character images are static during the story, etc), but hey.
Gameplay is auto-chess/rogue-like mix, I think. Not sure if it's for me longterm, but so far so fine.

 

[Ascheroth]

Well, I'm having way more fun with Neural Cloud than I expected.

Funnily enough I was most unconvinced about the gameplay, didn't really think it was something I'd enjoy when I saw it, but turns out its really fun and addictive.

As I said, it helps a lot that the game is insanely snappy and fast.

But the gameplay is very fast too. You set up your team on the map and go. Most fights are over in seconds and transitions back to the map or right into the next battle are basically instant too.
Longer fights are maybe half a minute up to a minute (but I haven't actually payed attention).
And despite the fast pace and the auto-nature of the combat (since your units fight on their own), it feels very engaging. You have the initial almost puzzle-like setup where you position your team as best as you can based on the special effect tiles, their ability ranges and enemy lineup and during the fights you can influence things with Tactical Abilities and character ultimates.
The game also keeps introducing new enemies and special tiles that shake things up.
Combined with the rogue-like mission structure it's really addicting.

And they are also smart enough to realize that all the individual resource stages don't need the full-blown rogue like dungeon crawling (which can take a while), but instead are better off as very fast individual stages.

The game in general just feels very smartly designed. All the progression systems feel well-thought out too.

I can't say too much about the gacha yet, because I haven't really engaged much with it - I used the initial 30 rolls on the Hubble banner and got her (not sure how lucky that is), picked another 3 star with the selector and have since then just let pulls accumulate (already have another 30 in tickets saved and currency for some more).
The free characters are very strong, and even 1 and 2 star characters seem to be good, since they can be upgraded into higher rarities via farmable resources.
So basically the actual game part currently has its hooks in me, with the gacha just being secondary background noise. Which is how I like my gachas

All in all this has been a real positive surprise.

 

[Ascheroth]

Star Rail signup for the Closed Beta is live:

Honkai: Star Rail – May this journey lead us starward

Honkai: Star Rail is an all-new strategy-RPG title in the Honkai series that takes players on a cosmic adventure across the stars. Hop aboard the Astral Express and experience the galaxy's infinite wonders on this journey filled with adventure and thrill.

hsr.hoyoverse.com

Also seems to count as pre-registration for the actual game. Personally not gonna sign up, since I don't wanna play the same thing twice, but it's getting closer. I'm guessing once the beta signup period is over, it will just turn into a regular pre-register link.
Pre-registration rewards seem to be 20 pulls, 100k credits (no idea how much that is worth in-game, probably not much) and free 4* Serval.
Very happy with Serval being free, I really like her.

 

[BaoLunia]

Honkai Star rail April 26

‎Honkai: Star Rail

‎They call them, "Aeons" in this galaxy. They construct reality, erase stars, and leave their marks on countless worlds. Together with your companions you'll travel across the galaxy on the Astral Express, following the path once traveled by the Aeons. From here, you will explore new...

apps.apple.com

Honkai: Star Rail - Apps on Google Play

HoYoverse's cosmic adventure strategy RPG with over 100 million downloads!

play.google.com

Limbus company February 26

‎Limbus Company

‎▶ A Combination of Turn-based RPG and Realtime Brawl Each turn results in a display of exhilarating action. In the combat phase, units on both sides will act simultaneously. During the scramble, characters targeting each other may Clash. The outcome of a Clash depends on the strength of their...

apps.apple.com

Limbus Company - Apps on Google Play

A Vicious Sin-resonating RPG

play.google.com