I feel like this game does gacha very well, but is also very greedy. The odds are fairer than every other gacha game I've played so far—I have pulled an incredible amount of SSR characters and matrices completely by accident. The 80-pull guarantee doesn't reset if you pull an SSR early; no matter what, you are guaranteed an SSR every 80 pulls. This makes so much sense and I think that more gacha games should implement this. However, the fact that there is a separate gacha for equipment to attach to characters/weapons makes the game feel VERY pay-to-win. The matrices store is a brilliant idea though, as it allows players with dogshit luck to actually power up the weapons they want to if they pull enough times. I also think it's very mindful of the developers to allow players to purchase duplicates of weapons they already own with black gold instead of being forced to pull it over and over again. I sure wish a certain other popular open-world gacha game would do that with constellations and refinement ranks (:
One thing to note is that, once you've explored the entire map, from what I can tell there is very little opportunity to obtain the currency that lets you pull from the gacha. Dailies and respawning loot don't seem to yield any such reward, which means endgame players will be trapped into buying in-game currency if they want to use the gacha at all (outside of the occasional event that gives you pulls). Correct me if I'm wrong on this though, as I am not in this situation—this is just what it looks like from my perspective where I am in the game.
The game is also definitely pandering towards cishet weeb men by making lots of big booby anime women and never releasing a single playable male character besides the 3 that existed in 1.0. Maybe I'm wrong as we haven't seen many new characters at all so far as the game is very new. I don't have much faith though, because the women already FAR outnumber the men and it seems that they're only going to continue to release female characters from what I've seen of the new major NPCs in the recent update. This isn't the end of the world of course, it's just very telling of the intention the developers have to suck the wallets of sad, desperate men on the internet dry. Jokes on them, I'm also a sad, desperate man on the internet and they won't be getting my money because I'm not into women :P
I haven't got very far in the story not through any fault of the game itself, I just don't really have the stamina for long main quest chains in games like this (I'm multiple updates behind in Genshin Impact's Archon Quest). Once I've got further in I'll give my opinion on the story itself. I would like to mention that this game absolutely excels in the combat department—it's super fun and engaging and I love the elements of timed dodging and the different roles the weapons take. Exploration is fun too, as the world is expansive and actively rewards curiosity. There's a lot to do in this game, which is brilliant but at points it can get kind of overwhelming.
Overall, it's a fun game if you're into open-world gacha games but be warned: it's a massive time sink if you want to kick ass. To get stronger you have to do a LOT of co-op grinding. If you're playing casually and don't care much for getting super powerful, I've found you can ignore all the grindy elements and just run around and have a good time on your own, though. It really depends on how you like to play games like this.
One thing to note is that, once you've explored the entire map, from what I can tell there is very little opportunity to obtain the currency that lets you pull from the gacha. Dailies and respawning loot don't seem to yield any such reward, which means endgame players will be trapped into buying in-game currency if they want to use the gacha at all (outside of the occasional event that gives you pulls). Correct me if I'm wrong on this though, as I am not in this situation—this is just what it looks like from my perspective where I am in the game.
The game is also definitely pandering towards cishet weeb men by making lots of big booby anime women and never releasing a single playable male character besides the 3 that existed in 1.0. Maybe I'm wrong as we haven't seen many new characters at all so far as the game is very new. I don't have much faith though, because the women already FAR outnumber the men and it seems that they're only going to continue to release female characters from what I've seen of the new major NPCs in the recent update. This isn't the end of the world of course, it's just very telling of the intention the developers have to suck the wallets of sad, desperate men on the internet dry. Jokes on them, I'm also a sad, desperate man on the internet and they won't be getting my money because I'm not into women :P
I haven't got very far in the story not through any fault of the game itself, I just don't really have the stamina for long main quest chains in games like this (I'm multiple updates behind in Genshin Impact's Archon Quest). Once I've got further in I'll give my opinion on the story itself. I would like to mention that this game absolutely excels in the combat department—it's super fun and engaging and I love the elements of timed dodging and the different roles the weapons take. Exploration is fun too, as the world is expansive and actively rewards curiosity. There's a lot to do in this game, which is brilliant but at points it can get kind of overwhelming.
Overall, it's a fun game if you're into open-world gacha games but be warned: it's a massive time sink if you want to kick ass. To get stronger you have to do a LOT of co-op grinding. If you're playing casually and don't care much for getting super powerful, I've found you can ignore all the grindy elements and just run around and have a good time on your own, though. It really depends on how you like to play games like this.