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This review contains spoilers
This review will contain minor spoilers.
Nier Replicant was a tough game for me to rate. On one hand, as many will note, it is an entirely magical once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yoko Taro’s storytelling is just built different and unmatched. If it works for you, it hits extremely hard in the feels. The OST is one of a kind and heavenly; Song of the Ancients has to be my favorite track of all time, especially with my now knowledge of its meaning and the many different versions that exist of it enhancing the overall experience of any Nier entry. The gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. The cast is loveable and is enhanced by the found family aspect. The aesthetic art direction is fantastic and the locations are memorable, though a bit simple.
However, as beautiful as it is, Replicant is structurally a lot weaker in comparison to Automata, transforming the once emotional, impactful and depressing storyline into a tedious and repetitive grindfest when you start going for the Endings C to E. I have to say, the impact Ending B had on me almost entirely vanished by the time I got Ending D. That is not because Ending D is not interesting or doesn’t add value to the game, it just means all the time I spent grinding content I have already completed twice at that point felt like a waste of my time, and the added new cutscenes didn’t make me feel like they were worth that grind either. Ending B already gave the storyline a new perspective and having to go through the same motions a second time; and then having to play the whole endgame climax to reach the final-final Ending again just took the kick out of it.
Despite that, Ending E is an entire new addition to Nier itself. I cannot say the grind to get to it was worth the time it took me to get there, but seeing it for myself and it bridging a smoother transition to Nier Automata made it rewarding overall, as Ending C/D didn’t really feel like “Endings” to me.
The plot of Nier replicant is extremely simple at the start and becomes more and more complicated as more lore reveals itself; to then become depressing and even angering by the time you put all the pieces together. The storyline is tragic and makes you question if some characters hadn’t been so selfish or ignorant all of this could’ve been avoided. It is a storyline with themes that make you think about it more after completion rather than during playing. This is easily the greatest aspect of Nier. I value that type of storytelling.
Personally, gameplay wise I preferred the content pre-time skip than the content post-time skip. This may also be because I saw the post-TS content more than two times.
The side quests have charm with some, very often tragic, NPC storylines; but most of them are fetch and errand quests, which becomes very tedious and annoying to a point I stopped doing the side quests entirely and just focused on finishing the game. All the quest NPCs have really memorable personalities though.
The early section doesn’t have any type of fast travel, so you have to run to places yourself every single time. Post-TS has a fast travel option, which gets disabled for a short while because the NPC needed for the fast travel mechanic is involved in a part of the main plot, so that section is running around stupidhead again.
The gameplay as mentioned is smooth and fun, but pretty onenote. You can spam your magic, use a few different weapon types and varying combos but your attacks all end up doing roughly the same thing. Maybe there is more, I didn’t test too much as it was easy to complete the game with the spear of my trust.
You can upgrade your weapons, but grinding for the material looked very unappealing to me. Also, it not being really necessary. My least favorite area in the game is probably junk heap. Grinding that area for materials I needed for side quests, main quests or weapon upgrades made me not want to do them.
For the characters I have to say none of them really top the characters of Nier Automata for me but I liked them all. Kaine being my favorite. I started to dislike Nier because of his ignorance and selfish pursuit in the second half, which he partly is at fault for but also not really because he doesn’t know what I know; so partly innocent. The cast is very enjoyable with interactions between each other during side quests as well. They all bring something unique to their dynamic. Yonah is a very basic whiny, innocent and weak little sister plot device, but I am not a monster, so even the first ending impacted me. And even more enhanced in Ending B.
In summary, Nier Replicant combines fun gameplay, rich atmosphere, memorable characters, a thematically heavy plot and emotional storyline together to create one of the most emotional games of all time; which then is weighted down by tedious tasks, repetition to get a truer ending to the true ending, and lack of QoL like better fast travel options and a lack of variance of gameplay.
Nier Replicant was a tough game for me to rate. On one hand, as many will note, it is an entirely magical once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yoko Taro’s storytelling is just built different and unmatched. If it works for you, it hits extremely hard in the feels. The OST is one of a kind and heavenly; Song of the Ancients has to be my favorite track of all time, especially with my now knowledge of its meaning and the many different versions that exist of it enhancing the overall experience of any Nier entry. The gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. The cast is loveable and is enhanced by the found family aspect. The aesthetic art direction is fantastic and the locations are memorable, though a bit simple.
However, as beautiful as it is, Replicant is structurally a lot weaker in comparison to Automata, transforming the once emotional, impactful and depressing storyline into a tedious and repetitive grindfest when you start going for the Endings C to E. I have to say, the impact Ending B had on me almost entirely vanished by the time I got Ending D. That is not because Ending D is not interesting or doesn’t add value to the game, it just means all the time I spent grinding content I have already completed twice at that point felt like a waste of my time, and the added new cutscenes didn’t make me feel like they were worth that grind either. Ending B already gave the storyline a new perspective and having to go through the same motions a second time; and then having to play the whole endgame climax to reach the final-final Ending again just took the kick out of it.
Despite that, Ending E is an entire new addition to Nier itself. I cannot say the grind to get to it was worth the time it took me to get there, but seeing it for myself and it bridging a smoother transition to Nier Automata made it rewarding overall, as Ending C/D didn’t really feel like “Endings” to me.
The plot of Nier replicant is extremely simple at the start and becomes more and more complicated as more lore reveals itself; to then become depressing and even angering by the time you put all the pieces together. The storyline is tragic and makes you question if some characters hadn’t been so selfish or ignorant all of this could’ve been avoided. It is a storyline with themes that make you think about it more after completion rather than during playing. This is easily the greatest aspect of Nier. I value that type of storytelling.
Personally, gameplay wise I preferred the content pre-time skip than the content post-time skip. This may also be because I saw the post-TS content more than two times.
The side quests have charm with some, very often tragic, NPC storylines; but most of them are fetch and errand quests, which becomes very tedious and annoying to a point I stopped doing the side quests entirely and just focused on finishing the game. All the quest NPCs have really memorable personalities though.
The early section doesn’t have any type of fast travel, so you have to run to places yourself every single time. Post-TS has a fast travel option, which gets disabled for a short while because the NPC needed for the fast travel mechanic is involved in a part of the main plot, so that section is running around stupidhead again.
The gameplay as mentioned is smooth and fun, but pretty onenote. You can spam your magic, use a few different weapon types and varying combos but your attacks all end up doing roughly the same thing. Maybe there is more, I didn’t test too much as it was easy to complete the game with the spear of my trust.
You can upgrade your weapons, but grinding for the material looked very unappealing to me. Also, it not being really necessary. My least favorite area in the game is probably junk heap. Grinding that area for materials I needed for side quests, main quests or weapon upgrades made me not want to do them.
For the characters I have to say none of them really top the characters of Nier Automata for me but I liked them all. Kaine being my favorite. I started to dislike Nier because of his ignorance and selfish pursuit in the second half, which he partly is at fault for but also not really because he doesn’t know what I know; so partly innocent. The cast is very enjoyable with interactions between each other during side quests as well. They all bring something unique to their dynamic. Yonah is a very basic whiny, innocent and weak little sister plot device, but I am not a monster, so even the first ending impacted me. And even more enhanced in Ending B.
In summary, Nier Replicant combines fun gameplay, rich atmosphere, memorable characters, a thematically heavy plot and emotional storyline together to create one of the most emotional games of all time; which then is weighted down by tedious tasks, repetition to get a truer ending to the true ending, and lack of QoL like better fast travel options and a lack of variance of gameplay.
After having played for over a year and finally completing every instance of available story in the game I can finally write this review.
Honkai Impact is a game with great heights and pretty low lows. Most of these lows are the story and gameplay for the first 20~ chapters. Usually people will tell you the story gets better after chapter 6… It doesn’t really. For me personally, chapter 12, 5, 17 were highlights up until chapter 20. I wouldn’t even include chapter 6 aside from its ending cutscene. Most of the gameplay in these chapters is playing clunky and outdated Valkyries through dialogue dumps and monotone gameplay loops. There are many time skips, worldbuilding bits and characters that kinda get left behind by not getting highlighted over time or properly explained. However the mentioned highlight chapters had decent gameplay and story progression as well as emotional heights.
From chapter 20 onwards the game becomes fantastic though, chapter 25 being my favorite chapter in the game so far. Excellent lengthy and detailed characterization without boring me to tears. Some worldbuilding but still kinda lacking in actually explaining many of the lore especially when it comes to the weapons. Extremely well paced, fun to play trial characters (the trial characters are the ones you are forced to play) with an emotional storyline.
After chapter 26 the game becomes a bit too complex by overexplaining in-universe science jango that are alienating and adding even more (lovely) characters to the roster. The Elysium realm and the flame chasers was a great risk but overall a rewarding experience, even when I found some sections a bit tedious and grindy to play. Not my personal highest emotional heights either but strong.
One thing this game has over other gacha is that you could actually watch the main trio grow and age and their maturity is reflected in their newer battle suits. While I feel some characters were left in the dust when it comes to characterization and backstory (Ritta, Theresa, Seele), the main trio got most of the attention aside from some of the flame chasers and the antagonists Otto and Kevin, making them the most fleshed out characters. Their growth and characterization are remarkable and I really enjoy that they went past cliché character stereotypes that were present at the very start of the game.
The combat is fun, fluid and very flashy. However Honkai is very team building reliant, you cannot mix and mash most units especially if they aren’t of the same elements, you cannot force build a support to a DPS (unless u hard whale and go into the Elysium Realm ig), making you locked in very character specific team comps. You have a singular DPS and two supports, always. You also lack a decent amount of support or damage when you don’t have very specific units. Some characters are stables in their element and are a must have. This is not very good in my opinion as it restricts player freedom, but since rolling for units is really expensive, having a small roster be meta for a very long time is beneficent also.
This doesn’t apply to all characters however. While certain team comps / elements can stay high meta for a long time, some get powercreept seemingly every version, making it exhausting for f2p and low spenders to catch up. If meta and being high ranked in abyss / ER is something you care about.
I also found myself getting fairly easily jaded with new battlesuit gameplay after the initial impression. Every new battlesuit has a “oh new and shiny” fun phase for a few weeks if not barely few hours, but since you have not much chance for alternative team building, you keep doing the same combo order on each battlesuit per same team comp, which makes it a bit boring rather fast, even when the animations are excellent.
As already mentioned, the story mode provides you with trial units, meaning that the entire story mode is f2p and you can beat it without playing much gacha at all. Though for some chapters you can use your own units, where it is beneficial to use a strong team you’ve already obtained. I think this is a very underrated aspect of the game. Usually, gacha will meta gate story content and make it hard to beat if you are not very knowledgeable or don’t pull meta units. Honkai makes it easy to just enjoy the story if you want to. It does take a decent amount of time to get the story completed however.
Looping back to meta, pulling weapons is mandatory in honkai unfortunately. While there are craftable- and sometimes weapons to be obtained through events, they are usually very bad and very little, so you are very easily convinced into pulling a best in slot weapon per character. Also, these weapon passives usually do not work on any other characters. I had a lot of luck with my weapon pulling, but trying to get a character fully geared each time can be a daunting endeavor. With stigmata it is not much better. While there are many stigmata that can be forged, the farming of those materials takes forever. Some support stigmatas are cheap to get at least. By the time you grinded a singular stigmata, the BiS supply for the character you were farming that for is already rerunning. While I do not pull for the stigmata specifically, if there is a cheap opportunity to get a character fully geared, it Is definitely recommended to do so. Even if you do not care for meta and ranking highly in the game modes, the meta for the looping endgame content changes fairly often and you need to play it to have any content to play when your story chapters are completed. And to get gacha currency of course.
As far as content goes, honkai has a few renewing endgame modes. Abyss, Elysium realm and Memorial Arena.
Abyss is a mode where you use different meta teams to beat a few floors with specific enemies in a determined time frame. The faster you are at a certain floor the more points you get which results in more rewards as you uprank. The abyss has a ladder system which makes you compete with other players. This means if you are outgeared, you may not uprank or even downrank, resulting in losing rewards. You also downrank if you miss rotations. Abyss refreshes every 3 days. I really dislike this system.
Memorial arena is a weekly resetting boss fighting arena, where you fight 3 bosses refreshing each week.
Elysium realm is a weekly refreshing endgame mode where you use specific DPS in the roster to complete a 17 floor deep combat stage with certain enemies and bosses on specific floors. You can choose buffs per floor and pre entering as well as trial supports. There are also buffs that refresh every week to appease newly released units and meta. Not every DPS is available in the Elysium realm. ER is also a story mode. Easily one of my favorite modes Honkai has ever made, however the weekly experience has become boring now.
Speaking of the gacha, I personally do not think gacha is the devil, but honkai is insanely expensive when you want everything. Gear is partly mandatory, a unit has a 100 pull guarantee but a single pull is 280, which is gacha average but a lot to me. It is also not that easy to get those crystals, and even less if you are behind on meta, as you are unable to clear higher ranked endgame content for more rewards. Therefore, if you want to participate in the gacha and meta, honkai can become very grindy, which has burned me out on a regular basis. I keep coming back though.
One important skill every honkai player has to learn is the menue navigation. Honkai has a fuckton of menues and they are very outdated and hard to navigate. It is easily one of the top things scaring new players away.
Going back to story and worldbuilding, for some reason a lot of backstory and worldbuilding is only explored in the mangas, of which I haven’t read all yet. I find that a bit annoying. Honkai is also known for retconning some of its earlier established worldbuilding, though I would say from my understanding at least some things were just renewed explanations rather than retcons.
Regarding production: cutscenes, music, gameplay animations and voice acting are all fantastic even if the game engine is very outdated and the backgrounds look underrendered. Some of the area designs are very memorable, some are copy pasta and basic. The story is told in a type of visual novel style with the characters somewhat moving in 3D sprite format. In later chapters they stand around in stiff RPG fashion. Character designs have also improved as the game developed. Earlier character designs borderline on obscene fetishism at worst to clunky messes at best. Newer ones at worst are uninspired.
Events are generally sleepers. Can be very grindy for measly rewards. A lot of the events make you play chibi versions of the characters with gameplay outside of honkai’s usual, I don’t really like that personally. Combat events are welcome but can be hard even with trial units.
Summary (including not mentioned points)
-Early story chapters have clunky gameplay with boring storylines; takes a long time to spike (basically until chapter 20)
-the gacha is very expensive and some of the gear is mandatory to stay afloat in the meta
-some characters also need “constellations” to fix some issues like energy regen (SS rank etc)
-+ very regularly looping endgame content (3 days to a week), with a fairly punishing meta for unlucky f2p
-abyss has a ladder system, which makes you compete with other players. If someone outranks your damage (better gear etc) you may not rise or fall even
~Elysium realm specifically takes a lot of time to complete once a week unless you are a whale and while fun at the start, even with new battlesuits, becomes a chore (if you care about ranking high)
++main trio is very fleshed out and you actually watch them grow and age
++small pool of characters you get very easily attached to, great characterization, fun personalities
-some characters are still kinda behind even with a lot of story presence (or backstory is manga gated)
~tons of fantasy science jango when it comes to worldbuilding, some of the worldbuilding is slightly retconned or manga gated
++story is completable without participating in meta gacha
+storyline is thematically poignant and emotional
+-much reading (idc personally)
+amazing production even with outdated game engine, music is a highlight
-horrible UI
+learns from its story faults from early game and even saves some characters through improved writing later down
+well written main antagonists
-f2p gear grinding is basically impossible
+consistent updates that change up the meta, update endgame content, story, etc
-above changes can also powercreep units you have invested into and make them useless
+- unless the character is a herrscher it is a coinflip if they stay meta for the next version
+herrscher are guaranteed perma meta/useable for a very long time
-events are repetitive or are chibi events that are very grindy for measly rewards (400 crystals each)
~character designs range from obscene fanservice, clunky trash (older units), to beautiful and unique
Conclusion: It is a bit confusing how Honkai is not talked about more when it comes to gacha games. While the gacha is expensive and not really f2p friendly, the story is entirely f2p and definitely above average. The pool of characters stays relatively small which makes it easy to get attached to them and get invested in the overarching storylines. The gameplay is also unique. The story can be confusing at first but you can get the hang of it as you keep playing.
I wish more people would talk about Honkai on its own merits and less comparing it to other games of the same company. Live and laugh with each other.
Honkai Impact is a game with great heights and pretty low lows. Most of these lows are the story and gameplay for the first 20~ chapters. Usually people will tell you the story gets better after chapter 6… It doesn’t really. For me personally, chapter 12, 5, 17 were highlights up until chapter 20. I wouldn’t even include chapter 6 aside from its ending cutscene. Most of the gameplay in these chapters is playing clunky and outdated Valkyries through dialogue dumps and monotone gameplay loops. There are many time skips, worldbuilding bits and characters that kinda get left behind by not getting highlighted over time or properly explained. However the mentioned highlight chapters had decent gameplay and story progression as well as emotional heights.
From chapter 20 onwards the game becomes fantastic though, chapter 25 being my favorite chapter in the game so far. Excellent lengthy and detailed characterization without boring me to tears. Some worldbuilding but still kinda lacking in actually explaining many of the lore especially when it comes to the weapons. Extremely well paced, fun to play trial characters (the trial characters are the ones you are forced to play) with an emotional storyline.
After chapter 26 the game becomes a bit too complex by overexplaining in-universe science jango that are alienating and adding even more (lovely) characters to the roster. The Elysium realm and the flame chasers was a great risk but overall a rewarding experience, even when I found some sections a bit tedious and grindy to play. Not my personal highest emotional heights either but strong.
One thing this game has over other gacha is that you could actually watch the main trio grow and age and their maturity is reflected in their newer battle suits. While I feel some characters were left in the dust when it comes to characterization and backstory (Ritta, Theresa, Seele), the main trio got most of the attention aside from some of the flame chasers and the antagonists Otto and Kevin, making them the most fleshed out characters. Their growth and characterization are remarkable and I really enjoy that they went past cliché character stereotypes that were present at the very start of the game.
The combat is fun, fluid and very flashy. However Honkai is very team building reliant, you cannot mix and mash most units especially if they aren’t of the same elements, you cannot force build a support to a DPS (unless u hard whale and go into the Elysium Realm ig), making you locked in very character specific team comps. You have a singular DPS and two supports, always. You also lack a decent amount of support or damage when you don’t have very specific units. Some characters are stables in their element and are a must have. This is not very good in my opinion as it restricts player freedom, but since rolling for units is really expensive, having a small roster be meta for a very long time is beneficent also.
This doesn’t apply to all characters however. While certain team comps / elements can stay high meta for a long time, some get powercreept seemingly every version, making it exhausting for f2p and low spenders to catch up. If meta and being high ranked in abyss / ER is something you care about.
I also found myself getting fairly easily jaded with new battlesuit gameplay after the initial impression. Every new battlesuit has a “oh new and shiny” fun phase for a few weeks if not barely few hours, but since you have not much chance for alternative team building, you keep doing the same combo order on each battlesuit per same team comp, which makes it a bit boring rather fast, even when the animations are excellent.
As already mentioned, the story mode provides you with trial units, meaning that the entire story mode is f2p and you can beat it without playing much gacha at all. Though for some chapters you can use your own units, where it is beneficial to use a strong team you’ve already obtained. I think this is a very underrated aspect of the game. Usually, gacha will meta gate story content and make it hard to beat if you are not very knowledgeable or don’t pull meta units. Honkai makes it easy to just enjoy the story if you want to. It does take a decent amount of time to get the story completed however.
Looping back to meta, pulling weapons is mandatory in honkai unfortunately. While there are craftable- and sometimes weapons to be obtained through events, they are usually very bad and very little, so you are very easily convinced into pulling a best in slot weapon per character. Also, these weapon passives usually do not work on any other characters. I had a lot of luck with my weapon pulling, but trying to get a character fully geared each time can be a daunting endeavor. With stigmata it is not much better. While there are many stigmata that can be forged, the farming of those materials takes forever. Some support stigmatas are cheap to get at least. By the time you grinded a singular stigmata, the BiS supply for the character you were farming that for is already rerunning. While I do not pull for the stigmata specifically, if there is a cheap opportunity to get a character fully geared, it Is definitely recommended to do so. Even if you do not care for meta and ranking highly in the game modes, the meta for the looping endgame content changes fairly often and you need to play it to have any content to play when your story chapters are completed. And to get gacha currency of course.
As far as content goes, honkai has a few renewing endgame modes. Abyss, Elysium realm and Memorial Arena.
Abyss is a mode where you use different meta teams to beat a few floors with specific enemies in a determined time frame. The faster you are at a certain floor the more points you get which results in more rewards as you uprank. The abyss has a ladder system which makes you compete with other players. This means if you are outgeared, you may not uprank or even downrank, resulting in losing rewards. You also downrank if you miss rotations. Abyss refreshes every 3 days. I really dislike this system.
Memorial arena is a weekly resetting boss fighting arena, where you fight 3 bosses refreshing each week.
Elysium realm is a weekly refreshing endgame mode where you use specific DPS in the roster to complete a 17 floor deep combat stage with certain enemies and bosses on specific floors. You can choose buffs per floor and pre entering as well as trial supports. There are also buffs that refresh every week to appease newly released units and meta. Not every DPS is available in the Elysium realm. ER is also a story mode. Easily one of my favorite modes Honkai has ever made, however the weekly experience has become boring now.
Speaking of the gacha, I personally do not think gacha is the devil, but honkai is insanely expensive when you want everything. Gear is partly mandatory, a unit has a 100 pull guarantee but a single pull is 280, which is gacha average but a lot to me. It is also not that easy to get those crystals, and even less if you are behind on meta, as you are unable to clear higher ranked endgame content for more rewards. Therefore, if you want to participate in the gacha and meta, honkai can become very grindy, which has burned me out on a regular basis. I keep coming back though.
One important skill every honkai player has to learn is the menue navigation. Honkai has a fuckton of menues and they are very outdated and hard to navigate. It is easily one of the top things scaring new players away.
Going back to story and worldbuilding, for some reason a lot of backstory and worldbuilding is only explored in the mangas, of which I haven’t read all yet. I find that a bit annoying. Honkai is also known for retconning some of its earlier established worldbuilding, though I would say from my understanding at least some things were just renewed explanations rather than retcons.
Regarding production: cutscenes, music, gameplay animations and voice acting are all fantastic even if the game engine is very outdated and the backgrounds look underrendered. Some of the area designs are very memorable, some are copy pasta and basic. The story is told in a type of visual novel style with the characters somewhat moving in 3D sprite format. In later chapters they stand around in stiff RPG fashion. Character designs have also improved as the game developed. Earlier character designs borderline on obscene fetishism at worst to clunky messes at best. Newer ones at worst are uninspired.
Events are generally sleepers. Can be very grindy for measly rewards. A lot of the events make you play chibi versions of the characters with gameplay outside of honkai’s usual, I don’t really like that personally. Combat events are welcome but can be hard even with trial units.
Summary (including not mentioned points)
-Early story chapters have clunky gameplay with boring storylines; takes a long time to spike (basically until chapter 20)
-the gacha is very expensive and some of the gear is mandatory to stay afloat in the meta
-some characters also need “constellations” to fix some issues like energy regen (SS rank etc)
-+ very regularly looping endgame content (3 days to a week), with a fairly punishing meta for unlucky f2p
-abyss has a ladder system, which makes you compete with other players. If someone outranks your damage (better gear etc) you may not rise or fall even
~Elysium realm specifically takes a lot of time to complete once a week unless you are a whale and while fun at the start, even with new battlesuits, becomes a chore (if you care about ranking high)
++main trio is very fleshed out and you actually watch them grow and age
++small pool of characters you get very easily attached to, great characterization, fun personalities
-some characters are still kinda behind even with a lot of story presence (or backstory is manga gated)
~tons of fantasy science jango when it comes to worldbuilding, some of the worldbuilding is slightly retconned or manga gated
++story is completable without participating in meta gacha
+storyline is thematically poignant and emotional
+-much reading (idc personally)
+amazing production even with outdated game engine, music is a highlight
-horrible UI
+learns from its story faults from early game and even saves some characters through improved writing later down
+well written main antagonists
-f2p gear grinding is basically impossible
+consistent updates that change up the meta, update endgame content, story, etc
-above changes can also powercreep units you have invested into and make them useless
+- unless the character is a herrscher it is a coinflip if they stay meta for the next version
+herrscher are guaranteed perma meta/useable for a very long time
-events are repetitive or are chibi events that are very grindy for measly rewards (400 crystals each)
~character designs range from obscene fanservice, clunky trash (older units), to beautiful and unique
Conclusion: It is a bit confusing how Honkai is not talked about more when it comes to gacha games. While the gacha is expensive and not really f2p friendly, the story is entirely f2p and definitely above average. The pool of characters stays relatively small which makes it easy to get attached to them and get invested in the overarching storylines. The gameplay is also unique. The story can be confusing at first but you can get the hang of it as you keep playing.
I wish more people would talk about Honkai on its own merits and less comparing it to other games of the same company. Live and laugh with each other.
definitely feels more like the gacha aspect is so the company opens itself to a busy market than abusing the system for greed of money. I have beat chapter 3 with mostly the base units and ignore the gacha and daily grinding for the most part. Very enjoyable story and characters. I will keep playing as long as the philosophy stays this.