"But it is also possible that since the film is only concerned with producing a set of marketable effects, it cannot at the same time be concerned with producing the minimal internal consistency required to produce a meaning."
- Nicholas Brown, The Work of Art in the Age of its Real Subsumption under Capital (2012)

My enjoyment of Another Eden has solidified my issue with Mihoyo gacha games. No matter how much you viral market your games to be these epic singleplayer experiences on par with traditional console RPGs, the stamina system automatically makes them 10x worse. That's what hampers these titles as games to me. The profit motive itself becomes a game mechanic. Or lack thereof.

Another Eden feels like a good case study on how live service doesn't necessarily doom a game to feeling like a dopamine stimulant rather than a genuine experience, but it still has issues emblematic of the format. The microtransactions are obscenely expensive and the currency gain is extremely slow. It feels like overcompensation for how "F2P-friendly" the game feels at face value. Everything can supposedly be cleared with non-gacha units (per Reddit testimonials, so I can't verify whether this is true) collaboration units are permanently available, no stamina system. They have to make their money somehow. Just feels like a pockmark on what is otherwise a pretty coherent experience. It's nothing special, but it feels more like something I would actually play to play, rather than play out of a fear of missing out.

Adorno would spontaneously combust if he ever learned about a battle pass.

"Early" review shortly after beating Episode 1:

Its the best gacha ive played.
Story takes a while to pick up but it does get pretty interesting.

Combat gets interesting by either getting new units from the gacha, it is a free to play game after all, or some of the free ones- i personally found kid and harle from the chrono cross colab really good. But if you dont engage with the gacha, the collabs or the more involved side quests the game calls "Episodes" which also give free characters are where the interesting characters are, i dont think the base roster offers enough to be too interesting.

Ive played this as a regular game, doing side quests, side stories and progressing the story on my own pace and i can say this offered me the most fun ive had all year, and im only still at the start of the game, even with 100 hours under my belt. Looking forwards to keep playing this.

It does have some positives but in the end it did not surprise me with anything.
The story starts in a very stereotypical way with the first twist being that you can go through time to different eras of the same planet; this is nothin new to JRPGs and just an excuse to have more freedom in designing characters (which I can respect).
The gameplay is reminiscent of the older turn-based JRPGs but while the art for the characters looks nice, the animations themselves look like they're from a Flash game.