My experience so far.

[Null_User]

So, I said I'd wait to purchase, but curiosity killed this cat and bought it today. Why curious? I have never tried an ex gacha game, and wanted to see how the conversion went.

I have not played much so I'm only on stage 7-2 at the moment. So far the experience has been positive. From the start, I'm thankful about the much quicker loading into the menu. I've been playing the online android version through Bluestacks and loading would take upwards to 2.5 minutes (regardless of using near max Bluestacks settings to show and act as a modern flagship phone), and even then, risk crashing (I've lost a few of those free 10 ticket gacha rolls to crashes). So at lest loading the game is infinitely better.

Stage loop is roughly the same, but now you get to grind for everything (haven't seen stage skip yet), which makes things potentially slower, and since there's no gacha rolls, you won't be getting a high power S class character or weapon by luck from the start. On the other hand, so far it has not been needed, and in my case, I haven't had the need to grind anything other than Zeni in the event stage.

A point about event stages. In my case, the event tab was locked until I activated an event. Lower level accounts cannot access the actual events, but activating an event seems to be necessary to also access the armor, dive trigger and zeni farm stages. It's a little awkward but that's how I managed to get to those necessary grind places.

I have an issue with this version. While it's a boon to be able to edit your gamepad almost at will (minus the R3 and L3 stick clicks), having to use a cursor on a control pad is lame. Glad I'm used to programming and using gamepads on games impossible to play with them, like MMOS, which have trained me to always have a KB and mouse nearby.

There's another thing to point. The game gave me two S rank characters I will be unable to upgrade after awhile or if I grind a lot of zeni. First I got S Class Hunter X, then S Class hunter Zero dropped, both as part of story progression. These are pretty much buffed copies of B rank X and A rank Zero, with extra buffed skills. But as S rank characters, upgrading their stars is extra expensive. They are sitting on my account until I get enough zeni production to get all their fragments.

Speaking of characters, I also see that many are story progression locked. This is good, because it prompts players to do the content to unlock them. Though, some of my favorites (and the ones I have on my online account) are locked as far as stage 20. Oh well, guess we will get there eventually.

I do miss the coop stages regardless of doing them solo, with what you'd get from them now obtainable on the armor exp farm stage. I also don't see the Lab, but since I'm still low level (31 as I write this), I don't know if it will show up later or if it's gone for good. Lab is where you build some items and it also has the Backup function that allowed you to pour in the power from unused weapons into your character. Race mode was also a semi fun activity, while boss rush was something to do once per boss, and then use the skip function for it.

All in all, I'm rather satisfied with this game, regardless of the slightly more lonely nature of being ported to single player. Ironic for me to feel like that since I'm a near %100 solo player...

[Rws vi Britannia]

> the event tab was locked until I activated an event. Lower level accounts cannot access the actual events, but activating an event seems to be necessary to also access the armor, dive trigger and zeni farm stages

Hmmm, I simply unlocked those by leveling up. At around level 20-23 or so, I unlocked armor and the armor event, with more event types unlocking after leveling up more

Also having a good time with the game. Never played the online version, but I enjoy seeing the numbers go brrrrrrrr in this one

[Zeo]

The game is surprisingly good, it blew my mind that I'm really was playing an offline gacha.
My gripe with the game was the same as yours, that we had to use the analog pad, but so far the confirmation of the game was really good, much different from the laggy mess that was the online.

[mimizukari]

There's no grind, every now and then you might do one event stage highest lvl possible for like armor parts/chip enhancement stuff/etc but even though you have to manually do stages it's never grindy IMO unless you make it grindy yourself.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Zeo:

The game is surprisingly good, it blew my mind that I'm really was playing an offline gacha.
My gripe with the game was the same as yours, that we had to use the analog pad, but so far the confirmation of the game was really good, much different from the laggy mess that was the online.

Analog is not necessary you can rebind movement to dpad.

[Zeo]

Originally posted by mimizukari:

Originally posted by Zeo:

The game is surprisingly good, it blew my mind that I'm really was playing an offline gacha.
My gripe with the game was the same as yours, that we had to use the analog pad, but so far the confirmation of the game was really good, much different from the laggy mess that was the online.

Analog is not necessary you can rebind movement to dpad.

woah nice I will check it later, I played really quickly but couldn't stop lol.

[Null_User]

Originally posted by Rws vi Britannia:

Hmmm, I simply unlocked those by leveling up. At around level 20-23 or so, I unlocked armor and the armor event, with more event types unlocking after leveling up more

Also having a good time with the game. Never played the online version, but I enjoy seeing the numbers go brrrrrrrr in this one

In my case, the event tab remained locked until I picked an event from the event screen. Any event worked so long as I had one picked.

Originally posted by Zeo:

The game is surprisingly good, it blew my mind that I'm really was playing an offline gacha.
My gripe with the game was the same as yours, that we had to use the analog pad, but so far the confirmation of the game was really good, much different from the laggy mess that was the online.

I have no problem controlling the character with the analog. My one issue was with the cursor. Usually, games with gamepads in mind allow you to scroll through menu items using usually the d-pad.

Originally posted by mimizukari:

There's no grind, every now and then you might do one event stage highest lvl possible for like armor parts/chip enhancement stuff/etc but even though you have to manually do stages it's never grindy IMO unless you make it grindy yourself.

So far I've seen myself spending zeni the most. Anything meaningful requires zeni. The story stages give ample amounts of it on first time completion, which is good enough for most straight forward progression. But grinding may be necessary if you want/need to change characters or weapons. Then again, is not a big grind. Just do zeni event a couple of times to get out of your current bind and move on.

[Jetspark]

You make it sound like the gacha B.S. was holding the game back from being, at least, good.

[mariosonicman1]

Originally posted by I <3 Cyberpunk:

You make it sound like the gacha B.S. was holding the game back from being, at least, good.

to be fair, the rates on those character pulls did indeed sour the mood for anyone whose favourite happened to be an S ranked character (which was about all of them)

[Null_User]

Originally posted by I <3 Cyberpunk:

You make it sound like the gacha B.S. was holding the game back from being, at least, good.

Anything that gets it's gacha removed becomes much better. Good enough to be considered "good"? To me, yes, to the masses, i don't know. But removing that cancer does indeed improve any game.

[Mr.Kill]

Removing the gacha makes the game very good. Only complaint is the extreme gating on a lot of the gacha content. lvl 60 before you can get any of the festive characters. If you want any of the top tier limited weapon banner weapons you'll have to fight to 50% of the game or 80-90% of the game for the best weapons. You also end up having to replay a lot of the levels with pretty much no real reason why that mechanic is in the game (i.e replay boss battle 30 times to max out chip).

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Mr.Kill:

Removing the gacha makes the game very good. Only complaint is the extreme gating on a lot of the gacha content. lvl 60 before you can get any of the festive characters. If you want any of the top tier limited weapon banner weapons you'll have to fight to 50% of the game or 80-90% of the game for the best weapons. You also end up having to replay a lot of the levels with pretty much no real reason why that mechanic is in the game (i.e replay boss battle 30 times to max out chip).

that's because the power level minimum of the festival/special stages are around 307k, even when you hit level 60 you won't be prepared to do it, i wasn't ready until about level 76. they're a lot of fun to play though, espec on challenge mode.

[Mr.Kill]

Originally posted by mimizukari:

Originally posted by Mr.Kill:

Removing the gacha makes the game very good. Only complaint is the extreme gating on a lot of the gacha content. lvl 60 before you can get any of the festive characters. If you want any of the top tier limited weapon banner weapons you'll have to fight to 50% of the game or 80-90% of the game for the best weapons. You also end up having to replay a lot of the levels with pretty much no real reason why that mechanic is in the game (i.e replay boss battle 30 times to max out chip).

that's because the power level minimum of the festival/special stages are around 307k, even when you hit level 60 you won't be prepared to do it, i wasn't ready until about level 76. they're a lot of fun to play though, espec on challenge mode.

Yeah I played global version so a lot of the content in offline is basically a repeat of stuff I've already done. The event stages are really good with the exception of the valentine day stage. It's going to be a long grind in offline since you have to get most of the festive characters to 5 stars to really get good use out of them. It was a lot easier in online version since you got patches for every dupe (but then again as people have noted you also ran the high risk of simply not having the character or weapon you wanted which means all your extra patches are going to be unspent and useless).

[CrowRising]

Originally posted by Null_User:

Originally posted by I <3 Cyberpunk:

You make it sound like the gacha B.S. was holding the game back from being, at least, good.

Anything that gets it's gacha removed becomes much better. Good enough to be considered "good"? To me, yes, to the masses, i don't know. But removing that cancer does indeed improve any game.

Almost anything. It depends on implementation and whether it's monetized. For instance, there's gacha drops and lootboxes in the Borderlands series, but it's actually handled really well there and doesn't cost you anything. Sure you might have to do some grinding if you want to get a rare drop with a particular combination of parts you want, but at least doing so is free.

In fact, Borderlands 2 in particular is basically a textbook example of exactly how to do Gacha right without it becoming a plague to a game's detriment. Their idea of there being no microtransactions tied to the system, making Eridium a semi-rare drop, and then placing lootboxes that you can spend Eridum on for the chance to get a really good gun or shield or relic or etc. in the Tiny Tina DLC was a stroke of genius, but even without those particular boxes the entire randomized drops system is really well designed and engaging and allows for easy enough progression even if you don't get super lucky. There's also no "You need to collect them all" emphasis either, which also helps a lot.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Mr.Kill:

Originally posted by mimizukari:

that's because the power level minimum of the festival/special stages are around 307k, even when you hit level 60 you won't be prepared to do it, i wasn't ready until about level 76. they're a lot of fun to play though, espec on challenge mode.

Yeah I played global version so a lot of the content in offline is basically a repeat of stuff I've already done. The event stages are really good with the exception of the valentine day stage. It's going to be a long grind in offline since you have to get most of the festive characters to 5 stars to really get good use out of them. It was a lot easier in online version since you got patches for every dupe (but then again as people have noted you also ran the high risk of simply not having the character or weapon you wanted which means all your extra patches are going to be unspent and useless).

Grind won't be that long, you get a lot of tickets per festival/special stage clear... of course if you want to get every single char 5 star then the grind will be long but that's any game

[Null_User]

Originally posted by CrowRising:

Almost anything. It depends on implementation and whether it's monetized. For instance, there's gacha drops and lootboxes in the Borderlands series, but it's actually handled really well there and doesn't cost you anything. Sure you might have to do some grinding if you want to get a rare drop with a particular combination of parts you want, but at least doing so is free.

In fact, Borderlands 2 in particular is basically a textbook example of exactly how to do Gacha right without it becoming a plague to a game's detriment. Their idea of there being no microtransactions tied to the system, making Eridium a semi-rare drop, and then placing lootboxes that you can spend Eridum on for the chance to get a really good gun or shield or relic or etc. in the Tiny Tina DLC was a stroke of genius, but even without those particular boxes the entire randomized drops system is really well designed and engaging and allows for easy enough progression even if you don't get super lucky. There's also no "You need to collect them all" emphasis either, which also helps a lot.

Don't remember BL too well. But if it has no real money requirement, I just call it RNG. Sure, a free gacha ticket on a gacha game, those given to players to lure them, could be considered "RNG" using my definition. But since those are part of a monetization system, those are the ones I refer to as gacha.

I'm not too serious with my definition, though.