Mobile Games, Gacha, Android/IOS games

[Kalarion]

Any good non-anime ones yet?

Someone already mentioned Tacticus. I'm enjoying it so far. Give it a try.

[Finarfin]

Warhammer with some cartoony artstyle, great.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why did Silver Wolf get a robot tail? What is it for?










I haven't done the new story chapter yet. I have been doing Currency Wars and DU.

The Welt redesign has been great. I equipped eagle set on him and slotted him back into my third team with Ashveil and Jingyuan. When you use Welt's ultimate, it now delays all enemies by 12% and gives them a 10% speed debuff. If you hold his ult and use it right after the enemies finish their turn (ie when there is 60 AV until their next turn), it will significantly delay their next turn. It massively cuts down on incoming damage. Going through high level DU runs with my Ashveil team was getting pretty dangerous, but now Welt is making it safe to do again. Also, Welt inflicts 40% defense shred on enemies, which stakes with Ashveil's 40% def shred. Eviscerating enemies like tissue paper.

Ashveil is now playable in Currency Wars. Because Ashveil automatically performs a followup attack whenever other characters hit his marked target, he combos VERY well with Firestorm Surge equipment (gain 8% strength each time Ashveil attacks). At one point, he had 2x 24 stacks and I clicked his stat sheet and he had 1,500 attack power. Bonkers. With Feixiao/Moze/Tribbie who can often attack and trigger Ashveil's followups, you can build stacks very quickly. The main limitation is that Ashveil needs to pop his ultimate often to refresh his charges for the followups, which makes him energy hungry.

[rusty_shackleford]

I have a friend that plays Limbus Company, do any of you play it?

[Valter]

I have a friend that plays Limbus Company, do any of you play it?

Weirdly and vocally dedicated fanbase, never played it either

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Genshin Impact

The final chapter has been announced: we go to the last region and the enemy country of Snezhnaya and confront the Tsarista. Coming this August. Seems it might have been reimagined as a romantic Disney castle land? A Winter Night's Lazzo made it out to be more of a brutalist communist looking place.




Unlike with prior expac announcements, they didn't show the last Archon, the Tsaritsa. I guess they are going to hold that closer to their chests.

New Traveller outfits:

[DemoGraph]

the enemy country of Snezhnaya and confront the Tsarista

Evil Russians again.

[Finarfin]

Based

[DemoGraph]

Based

You will never be white.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I went to Fribbels to compare how much more powerful my characters are after farming new relics for them, and...





Sounds like someone is annoyed.

I am getting flashbacks of using Ask Mr. Robot during WoW Legion to compute which legeiondaries you owned were the best.

The game might be getting too nutty if we are having to rely on addons or out of game websites to crunch the numbers and formulas, and now we can't even trust those metrics anymore.

[Valter]

I went to Fribbels to compare how much more powerful my characters are after farming new relics for them, and...





Sounds like someone is annoyed.

I am getting flashbacks of using Ask Mr. Robot during WoW Legion to compute which legeiondaries you owned were the best.

The game might be getting too nutty if we are having to rely on addons or out of game websites to crunch the numbers and formulas, and now we can't even trust those metrics anymore.

Why would this be refused? Not like I'm in the know about Star Rail, but banning calculations? Comparisons? Huh??

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I went to Fribbels to compare how much more powerful my characters are after farming new relics for them, and...





Sounds like someone is annoyed.

I am getting flashbacks of using Ask Mr. Robot during WoW Legion to compute which legeiondaries you owned were the best.

The game might be getting too nutty if we are having to rely on addons or out of game websites to crunch the numbers and formulas, and now we can't even trust those metrics anymore.

Why would this be refused? Not like I'm in the know about Star Rail, but banning calculations? Comparisons? Huh??

HSR character kits are very complex. They have a lot of different moving parts to consider. Take these two recently released characters for instance, Yao Guang and Ashveil (scroll down and click the review subsection). We have to wait for Prydwen's thorough breakdown review of how the character works and what are the possibilities to do with it. And then on top of that, you have additional moving parts such as the light cone they have equipped, and their equipped relics. Further exacerbating this is eidolons (pulling a duplicate of the character) which further unlocks additional mechanics. But then you have parties of 4 characters, which explodes the complexity with there being so many different aspects that might be synergizes or not synergizing with each other. (And then that does not get into enemy mechanics, which have become very complex too). There is a subreddit dedicated to theorycrafting and videos by the best players trying to figure out how to minmax character and equipment combinations and rotations.

Fribbels had been cautioning that his DPS scores were for a theoretical one type of party comp and rotation and could not account for different comps or rotations, and that there were too many variables to compare.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm very opposed to the numbers optimization that a lot of RPGs(incl. "RPG elements" games) fall into, it just ends with you going and looking up builds and calculators

[Lhynn]

I'm very opposed to the numbers optimization that a lot of RPGs(incl. "RPG elements" games) fall into, it just ends with you going and looking up builds and calculators

The thing about HSR is that it becomes so complex that you need to go further into optimization.
More speed is not always better, taking damage is not always bad, and there are no easy ways to control either. It all leads to impossibly complicated feats to manage ultra low clear times as the fight takes shape in the form of a puzzle. Its largely unnecessary, since no content is that demanding, but it manages to be a very challenging game at endgame nontheless.

[Sinfield]

Just jealous that weebs get to play games with regular content + story updates. Sad.

Man gets a taste of the live service dripfeed once and turns evil.

I have a friend that plays Limbus Company, do any of you play it?

I do. Its okay.
I want to say it has the best story of any gacha game, but that's really not a big achievement, gachas have very bad stories on average. I've checked GBF and F/GO and they're pretty overrated, the last one that could have a good story is Girls Frontline and I haven't looked at it yet. And even that is becoming a bit worse with time, last big story chapter was awkward as the actual story was second to the "cool moments" they wanted to slap in.
Lastly, If you want a constant flow of content then this one does not update that often and has no real endgame content.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've checked GBF and F/GO and they're pretty overrated

Which arcs or events did you read? The early ones are meh. GBF's main story up until chapter 40, and first few years of events are lackluster. FGO doesn't pick up until Camelot. It's the same problem as FF14 where the game becomes renowned for its story, but new players join and have to slog through the lackluster early chapters and then become confused.

[Valter]

I'm very opposed to the numbers optimization that a lot of RPGs(incl. "RPG elements" games) fall into, it just ends with you going and looking up builds and calculators

The thing about HSR is that it becomes so complex that you need to go further into optimization.
More speed is not always better, taking damage is not always bad, and there are no easy ways to control either. It all leads to impossibly complicated feats to manage ultra low clear times as the fight takes shape in the form of a puzzle. Its largely unnecessary, since no content is that demanding, but it manages to be a very challenging game at endgame nontheless.

I dropped it at launch 'cause the combat was mindnumbingly simple, so this is good to hear

[Acrux]

HSR? More like HRT amirite?

[Sinfield]

I've checked GBF and F/GO and they're pretty overrated

Which arcs or events did you read? The early ones are meh. GBF's main story up until chapter 40, and first few years of events are lackluster. FGO doesn't pick up until Camelot. It's the same problem as FF14 where the game becomes renowned for its story, but new players join and have to slog through the lackluster early chapters and then become confused.

GBF starting missions aren't good but if you go in knowing they'll be bad for a bit, then its nothing big. You get some decent progression while you're at it. But overall the story never got to the point where I'd say it got really good, I played some years ago and got about to chapter 90.
For F/GO, I just watched it on youtube out of curiosity after having read F/SN and watched F/Zero. Its really not worth it, there are too many slogs even after Camelot, not to mention that Camelot itself just isn't that good.

Look, here's just a few problems I have with most of them:
It feels like most "good chapters" are overrated because the people playing them have already spent thousands of hours and dollars on the game.
At risk of being a big fencesitter here I'd also say some complaints are overblown for the same reason, people spent too much money and time so they're going to nitpick the smallest problems. Just the same problem manifesting in a different way.

Reusing assets. Character talk sprites in particular, everyone is trying to reuse sprites to save on cost and sometimes even using comedic sprites in serious scenes. It gets extremely awkward in a certain places.
To give a example with some light spoilers, in volume 5 of BA Kadenokouji Yukari's friend gets angry at her because she thinks she's acting like a entitled, rich princess. But they use a sprite that makes her look disgusted.
Changing the emotion from anger to disgust in my head just made the character completely unrelatable. What Yukari did would seem upsetting at first but it felt like the other character was extremely edgy instead of just being upset with a old friend. Was there something I was missing? Well, even if I'm wrong in this one I'm sure there are other valid examples.
Those are gacha games with incredibly high profit margins, drawing some new talk sprites isn't going to kill anyone.
There's also a issue of reusing enemies, it usually doesn't impact the story but I wanted to note on it. In F/GO there are some times they need to pull out a justification for why a tank from the earlier Rome chapter is in a completely different time and space. Just draw a fairy footsoldier, its really not that difficult.

There's more I wanted to complain about but I can't remember it right all now. Maybe later.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Asset reuse laziness is definitely an issue. (Later) GBF does better than most in that I don't feel it is an issue.

FGO's main problem is that they got lucky and stumbled on a winning story structure formula and then began rehashing it repeatedly. The nakama power plot. This is common to a lot of Japanese media but FGO overuses it. The hero develops an emotional bond with the character of the week. Near the end of the story, the huge, insurmountable adversary is winning (usually not just physically powerful but conceptually powerful, like time manipulation, aliens/beasts/etc. Right when all seems lost, the MC's bond with that character turns out to somehow to be the key to resolving the plot. Emotional goodbye. FF14 stumbled upon it too with Shadowbringers (you are bonding with Ardbert throughout the expansion, the ancient 14,000 year old unsundered wizard is just too powerful and the hero collapses at his feet, Ardbert realizes that he is your other sundered self and he sacrifices himself to merge with you to make you more complete which causes Emet-Selch's convictions to waver, etc) and they have been rehashing it since.

[Sinfield]

Asset reuse laziness is definitely an issue. (Later) GBF does better than most in that I don't feel it is an issue.

FGO's main problem is that they got lucky and stumbled on a winning story structure formula and then began rehashing it repeatedly. The nakama power plot. This is common to a lot of Japanese media but FGO overuses it. The hero develops an emotional bond with the character of the week. Near the end of the story, the huge, insurmountable adversary is winning (usually not just physically powerful but conceptually powerful, like time manipulation, aliens/beasts/etc. Right when all seems lost, the MC's bond with that character turns out to somehow to be the key to resolving the plot. Emotional goodbye. FF14 stumbled upon it too with Shadowbringers (you are bonding with Ardbert throughout the expansion, the ancient 14,000 year old unsundered wizard is just too powerful and the hero collapses at his feet, Ardbert realizes that he is your other sundered self and he sacrifices himself to merge with you to make you more complete which causes Emet-Selch's convictions to waver, etc) and they have been rehashing it since.

That's probably the kind of critique I'd level at the games if I could remember them better.

Another thing I wanted to mention was the shonen habit of trying to deal with anything that's complicated/emotional by repeating it 100 times. Or just repeating something 100 times just for the sake of it. Like when Lancer is about to pierce Artoria with his spear that causes wounds that can't be healed and he remarks "Heh, good, but you made one mistake..." multiple times. Just in case the audience was about to miss it.
But the only time I can remember something like that happening in a game was at the end of Fae Britain when you get to the end and there are multiple choice lines of red text going "Hm, SOMEONE must have betrayed us..." over and over.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Honkai Star Rail - patch 4.2 story

The new story chapter is overall okay. The main problem is the lack of tension. The premise of this 4.X Planarcadia storyline is that we have entered a battle royale over who gets to become an aeon. But we are 20+ hours in and there has not been an exciting battle royale so far. Nobody is fighting each other. It was just the Astral Express fighting against Sparxie towards the end of 4.0 with the other contestants standing around doing nothing. In 4.1 we didn't even fight other contestants but lobotomized actors. And then everybody uniting against Fulwish in 4.2. I anticipate that 4.3 will once again be about uniting against generic evils.

► Show Spoiler

The writers also have become afraid to let anything catastrophic happen. In 3.X Amphoreus, everybody died. The story ended with an entire world being snuffed out - the entire population - and all of the 3.X Amphoreus characters being dead, only getting jokish non-canon cameos in events after Amphoreus, like Anaxa trying to conquer a highschool with his little cartoon soldiers.




In 4.2, representatives from the different offworlder factions meet to swap info. It turns out that Fulwish's Happiness Surgery is actually cells from Shuhu - the late Emanator of Abundance- being implanted into people. Everyone in the HSR setting has Synthesia Beacons surgically implanted into their brains, which allows them to perceive the words of any world they visit, and its language models are automatically updated by the Interastral Peace Corporation. Fulwish is going to send a signal that will be received by people's synthesia's beacons, and whoever has had the Happiness Surgery/Shuhu cells will erupt into an abomination of the Abundance. 200,000 people on this planet have had the surgery thus far. If this happens, the planet will be at risk of being overrun, and also at risk of Lan - Aeon of the Hunt and sworn enemy of the Abundance - will fire a nuke arrow across the universe towards Planarcadia.




And then Fulwish hits the button the send the radio signal, and 200,000 people turn into plant zombies.




But then, 30 minutes later, we defeat Fulwish, and Blade absorbs her Shuhu cells to gain dominion over all of the infected people on the planet, and reverses their transformations. So everybody lives. Bullocks. Also, all of the people killed by the abominations are also handwaved away too. It's as if there wasn't a mass casualty event on this planet just now. Everything is all fine and dandy.

The patch ends with the cop revealing that there is a Lord Ravager sealed inside this world that we need to stop from waking up or kill, but that does not feel threatening given what had just happened.

The new co-op event was neat. It is actually co-op (HSR uses the term "co-op" for any multiplayer event, but they were all PvP events). It's the card game from a couple patches ago, but you work with another player to defeat a boss. I thought it was pretty fun playing Robin and trying to be a supporter for the other player, taking his dice and upgrading them, trying to give my teammates the odds or evens or 1s or 6s he needed to fulfill his character's win condition, spending my coins on equipment to protect him or double his attack power, etc. Though it does suck when you get a partner who doesn't seem to understand that I am trying to help him and declines the dice I give him or the requests I make to take his bad dice.

[Lhynn]

Honkai Star Rail - patch 4.2 story

The new story chapter is overall okay. The main problem is the lack of tension. The premise of this 4.X Planarcadia storyline is that we have entered a battle royale over who gets to become an aeon. But we are 20+ hours in and there has not been an exciting battle royale so far. Nobody is fighting each other. It was just the Astral Express fighting against Sparxie towards the end of 4.0 with the other contestants standing around doing nothing. In 4.1 we didn't even fight other contestants but lobotomized actors. And then everybody uniting against Fulwish in 4.2. I anticipate that 4.3 will once again be about uniting against generic evils.

Coming out of amphoreus, a story that tried to hold tension for like 6 months (And failed miserably because the writing made it hard to give a **** about anyone). I think they wanted to try a more lighthearted tone. The games writing wont improve until they get rid of the guy thats been at it since, idk, penacony?

[ManjuShri]

Moldvay's Labyrinth
https://minireview.io/role-playing/moldvay-s-labyrinth

Free/basic version also available.

This is a solo old-school CRPG built in the spirit of Wizardry, Bronze Dragon, and the 1981 Moldvay Basic Set. No handholding, no timers, no glowing quest markers — just you, your party, and the dungeon.

This full version includes:

42+ handcrafted + semi-randomized dungeon levels
12 classic classes
Level progression up to 14+
Puzzles, traps, poison, secret doors, stat drains, cursed gear, and a final multi-level puzzle boss
New "Graveyard" for cashing out loot from characters who didn't make it out
No ads, no IAP — just the game

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Reverse 1999's anniversary event is happening. I am jealous because they are giving away a really cool inhuman looking character, Charon, a flower that grew out of the dead body of a WW1 soldier. Wish we had that in HSR. 85 characters so far but they are all beautiful human people.

[Finarfin]

ZZZ also gets a different looking character
https://zenless.hoyoverse.com/m/de-de/news/163755

[Val the Moofia Boss]

ZZZ also gets a different looking character
https://zenless.hoyoverse.com/m/de-de/news/163755

Looks like you will get it as part of the story, which is neat. I dumped all of the pulls I had when Banyue came out, since he was the only character released that really interested me beyond panda and tiger.

[DemoGraph]

ZZZ also gets a different looking character
https://zenless.hoyoverse.com/m/de-de/news/163755

Looks like you will get it as part of the story, which is neat. I dumped all of the pulls I had when Banyue came out, since he was the only character released that really interested me beyond panda and tiger.

This is a cat with ball yarns.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Aether has a halo rifle now... did he get this from his spaceship that was clumsily retconned in last year?

Snezhnaya Preview Teaser - \u0022Frozen Tundra Shrouded in Wind and Snow\u0022 | Genshin Impact

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There have been allegations that LDplayer, a popular emulator for older android mobile games that do not have PC ports like Fate Grand/Order and Arknights, has been recording people's sessions and their login credentials.

Wuthering Waves players who used LDshop for discounted top ups are also at risk because apparently the website was keylogging and saving the account information that has to be inputted. (Unlike with Genshin/HSR/ZZZ, simply inputting your UID is not enough to get the top up. For WuWa, you have to put into account name and account password too). LDshop has been saving this as unencrypted info. Supposedly 190k accounts have been exposed.

https://archive.fo/o4bmQ
https://archive.fo/VgcUI
https://archive.fo/lWckL