RPGHQ

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 28th, 2026, 21:19

Mihoyo is suing HomDGcat in Atlanta for running a Genshin and HSR leaks website.




And the Shanghai police have arrested another Genshin leaker.




It is bizzare how huge the Mihoyo leak scene is. I have never seen any other game company be leaky on this scale.

Lhynn wrote: ↑ February 28th, 2026, 22:00

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 28th, 2026, 21:19

Mihoyo is suing HomDGcat in Atlanta for running a Genshin and HSR leaks website.




And the Shanghai police have arrested another Genshin leaker.




It is bizzare how huge the Mihoyo leak scene is. I have never seen any other game company be leaky on this scale.

The nature of gacha and the popularity of HSR and Genshin make it natural. Without leaks its very hard to decide who to pull on, so theres a lot of interest behind it, meaning it drives a lot of views.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 25th, 2026, 09:10

Three years after Neuvillette, Genshin Impact finally gets a second character who looks older than 30.

Is this game worth playing at this moment in time ?

I know I tried getting into the game with the JP browser version and gave up because was a hassle.

yangg wrote: ↑ March 7th, 2026, 15:40

Is this game worth playing at this moment in time ?

I know I tried getting into the game with the JP browser version and gave up because was a hassle.

I have been playing Granblue Fantasy for its story and arts since 2017. I have had a lot of fun with it. The story is oftentimes better than many box purchase JRPGs and VNs I have played. I have sung praises about GBF several times before on here (and even made an artpost for it), so I don't want to retype up everything again. TL;DR: the initial chapters of the main story are meh, but at around chapter 40 on Amalthea Island, I started getting really invested into the main story. The events are of mixed quality (the early event stories tend to be skips) but the anniversary event storylines are usually pretty fun. Though there is some story wonkiness. The art, music by Uematsu and Tsutom Narita, and Japanese voice acting are great.

Currently the game's 12th anniversary storyline has released, though it takes place after the conclusion of the game's first saga which just ended recently, so you'll get spoiled on the first three main story arcs if you do it. (Whereas for most other anniversary event stories like What Makes the Sky Blue, Seeds of Redemption, Created by the Stars Loved by the Skies, For You, Heart of the Sun, etc, can be done before you even finish the first main story arc). In a couple days, there is going to be a free draw roulette each time you login for several days, so you'll be able to get hundreds to thousands of free draws. I have accumulated over 500 characters just from logging in during these free draw roulette events since 2017. I don't do raiding or farming or anything. I just do the story and the free draws.

Gameplay wise, pull whichever characters you want and assemble a mono element team of your most favorite characters. The story is beatable with any team of characters so long as they are all of the same element, ie all water characters, all light characters, etc. I run with a team of Dragon Knights characters using their fire alts. Not meta but it's what I like.




The events storylines and later main story chapters often have you use a preset team of characters for the scripted story battles rather than use your own team anyway. If you engage with raiding, then the FF11-esque game mechanics can become crazy complicated and require a PHD to understand, but if you just do story then that doesn't matter at all. Just don't use your steel, gold, or damascus bricks unless you are following a walkthrough on what exactly to do with those, because they are extremely limited non-recoverable resources. I would advise not using your crystals on any pulls unless either 1. you have 300 pulls and a character is on banner that you REALLY REALLY want, in which case pull until you get them or hit the 300th pull so you can pick them via spark. Or, if you are on a free draw event and get a lucky spin and it only costs 100 more pulls or less to reach spark, and there is a character available that you somewhat like.

Probably my only gripe with GBF is how newly added event storylines are made unavailable for a couple years before getting a rerun and then eventually made permanently available. If you are new, then you have a huge backlog of event stories that are available to you. But if you are catching up on a current storyline like the Dragon Knights, then eventually you run out of permanently available events and reach a gap where the more recent entries still haven't been added back yet.

I do not use the Steam version so I don't know anything about its quirks or how it measures up to the chrome browser version.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ May 16th, 2025, 06:50

Boontaker wrote: ↑ May 16th, 2025, 05:10

Are there any gacha games with an actual storyline? They all just look like Asian gnosticism with a coomerbait paint job.

Granblue Fantasy, made by former Final Fantasy talent including Hideo Minaba, Akihiko Yoshida, Tsutomu Narita, and Nobuo Uematsu. It is very story heavy, pretty much a Final Fantasy game and visual novel but available on your phone, with optional endgame stuff if you want to do that. I was took notes down and lots and hundreds of screenshots when I started going through that game's story and its story events years ago, but sadly I never found any forum that was interested in discussing it. On here I have posted writeups on my thoughts of three storylines. I also covered the Relink spinoff game.

The first arc starts off meh as there is a lot of "and then monsters showed up so we have to have a fight!" stuff happening over and over, but eventually they dropped that and just embraced the visual novelness. I started getting really invested by chapter 40 when you capture the Black Knight and then go down to the jail cell to her and realize she is not evil, so you break her out and go save her homeland of Erste, whose name has been hijacked by a military junta. And then there were so many parts of the story that I liked after that. The epilogue to Erste. Reinhardtzar and how he has been sobered by the reality that governments tend to be corrupt and that it is hard to find one worthy to fight for. Fif agonizing that her dear friend is a wanted mass murderer with the authorities closing in on him. Freyr seeing his comrade Baldr off when the latter decides to desert the Astrals. The scene when Phoenix reveals herself to the Enneads. The tidbits whenever GBF touches upon logistics or businesses, especially in relation to the sky world. When characters and eventually entire islands are being erased from history and only Gran - due to his temporal protection - is able to realize the enormity of what has been lost and no one else understands the true nature of the war they are fighting. Etc. Also lots of funny scenes.





I also liked the second arc and the currently running third arc, which will hopefully get a conclusion this year. There are also a few side storylines I quite like, such as the one about the Dragon Knights and their two small kingdoms of Feendrache and Wales which are now becoming swamped with lots of terrorists and rebels. The game has an inbuilt English localization, is very generous (I have over 500 characters just from logging in during the Anniversary/Summer/Christmas events), and does not require any grinding to see its story. So I strongly recommend it.

If I had a complaint, it's my same general issue with Japanese fiction as a whole, which is that after a while you realize that the worldview of these writers is that they don't want to believe in evil or accountability. They want to believe that everyone is some nice, civilized person like themselves and nobody really has malicious intent, and that war is innately evil and never just. They don't want to admit that there is a God or an absolute right or wrong and that a lot of people reject God, and that evil exists and there is a moral imperative to destroy it, etc. So there is a metric ton of murderers and traitors getting redeemed or antagonists getting a second sympathetic look, which is nice at first but then becomes frustrating after a while. And ofcourse a lot of scapegoating everything onto demons.

Also, the other complaint is that years pass and there are several couples but they are never allowed to get married.



GBF revolutionized gachas. After that it became standard for gachas to be very story heavy. Fate/Grand Order, Ark Knights, Girls Frontline, and then eventually Genshin and Honkai Star Rail (though also heavily influenced by Trails according to the developers), etc. However, I have yet to have found another gacha that had a story as engrossing as GBF was to me. Mind you, I really like GBF's story in spite of the obvious hamstring of the gacha business model which is that the characters you are reading about are highly unlikely to die, change in a drastic way like get old or get married or maimed or retire, which removes a lot of the tension. The 3D Chinese gachas in particular suffer from most of the screentime being spent with characters standing around and giving dull exposition dumps, rather than characters having tense conversations between each other and things actually happening.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ November 13th, 2024, 01:15

I play Granblue Fantasy every now and then, usually when a new main story chapter drops or a story event that I am interested in happens like the anniversary or Dragon Knights events. It is a good visual novel/JRPG, I like the setting and characters, it has great art by Uematsu's apprentice Tsutomu Narita, good art by Hideo Minaba, and is almost fully voice acted. It is also far and away the most generous gacha game I have ever played. Three times per year (Christmas/New Year's, Anniversary event in late Februrary through March, and Summer event in August), they give you tens of thousands of crystals just for logging in, and hundreds of free draw roulettes. I have 500+ characters just from logging in during these events, more favorite characters than I have parties to put them in, and meta summons like Beezebulb or Lucifer or Yatima too. I have also never felt a need to grind to progress through the story.






My biggest complaint is that the story is undercut by the gacha format. The monetization model is really about selling people's emotional investment/interest in characters. It is not in a gacha game's financial interest to kill off a playable character that they have sold and people are invested in. You can kill off people in a $60 box purchase game like Suikoden, but most gachas don't do that, GBF included. So it is hard for the writers to generate tension and keep people turning the page to find out what happens next when you know none of the playables will die. Lately, GBF's modus operandi for keeping tension up in the main story has been to get people invested into NPCs who aren't sold, so there is the threat something could happen to them (Repti convincing that mother to hand her daughter over to him so he could "reeducate" her, people dying in the current war against the Otherworlders, etc).

I've tried out a few other gacha games, but I just do not like them anywhere near as much. Don't like their aesthetics, music, writing, gameplay, overly grindy gameplay, etc.

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ September 29th, 2025, 04:34

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ March 8th, 2026, 04:41

https://wikigacha.org/

I got a Legendary Rare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wakeman

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 8th, 2026, 04:58

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ March 8th, 2026, 04:41

https://wikigacha.org/

I got a Legendary Rare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wakeman

Finarfin wrote: ↑ March 15th, 2026, 12:46

Why the **** is Granblue Mostly Negative on Steam? "Veteran" homos getting pissy or what?

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ March 20th, 2026, 05:55

Granblue Fantasy second saga: Earth-Sky Oath

With the end of the 12 year long "reach the island of Estalucia to reunite with dad" original storyline of Granblue Fantasy, the game has begun a new second saga. The new plot objective is to find a journal Abramelin kept (TLDR he was cursed to live for 6,000 years. He wound up forgetting his earlier life, so there are huge gaps in history). The arc has only just started. There are a few interesting tidbits.

► Show Spoiler

Up until now, the cosmology of the GBF universe was that there were three planes:

• The corrupted surface of the Earth that was the Otherworld, aka the Crimson Horizon, overrun by demons (humans who were corrupted).
• Above that, you have the Sky realm, which was the uncorrupted continent on Earth that the alien space dragon god Bahamut found when he arrived, and lifted it up into the sky. Bahamut was killed by mortals, and with his death it sundered the sky realm into two separate worlds: the sky world (and the floating continent into countless small floating islands)...
• and the Astral world where the immortals there walk on stars. From there, the Astrals invaded the sky realm and briefly occupied for a few centuries before being repelled.

The Sky realm is only inhabited by 6 races: humans, Draph, Harvin, Erune, Astrals (defectors, or those who were left behind and trapped after the invasion was pushed back and the dimensional barrier erected), and Primal Beasts (vat grown soldiers created by the Astrals during the occupation, now wandering aimlessly without a master). In the 10th anniversary event storyline, we found out that more races lived in the past (the Monohorn race that Abramelin and his wife were), but they evidently did not survive to the modern day.

*There are also people who built a rocket to escape the increasing corruption on the earth and colonized the moon*

This new storyline introduces a fourth plane, called the Earthen Realm. Apparently it was a vast underground world underneath the Otherworld/Crimson Horizon on the surface of the Earth.






At the end of the original Estalucia storyline, the Otherworld and the demons were wiped out. The huge wall of hurricanes called the Grim Basin which divided the Skydoms also dissipated, so now people can freely sail to anywhere. And now it seems that the surface of the Earth has shattered, and chunks from the Earthen Realm below have floated up into the sky world in an event called the Grand Uplift. The Earthen Realm is populated by four races, who got brought up.








This seems like an interesting way to shake up the setting and inject new material. Seems like we will be exploring this Earthen Realm stuff first before we get to explore the Astral realm.


=========

The main party has changed. Io, Eugen, and Rosetta have left. Seox and Narmaya have joined. Narmaya is interesting because she is one of the most popular GBF characters, but was never involved in any storyline whatsoever, not even in event side storylines.

At Port Breeze, we meet Flykis, who was on one of the Earthen Realm chunks that flew up here into the Sky world. She joins the crew. She rides a bipedal mech like it was a motorcycle, which is neat.




We also meet a... flying furball anime mascot named Pho, who insists upon joining the crew. Since Vyrn ascended into becoming a real dragon and a playable party member at the end of Estalucia, apparently we need a new cute vulnerable mascot character. Westerners were already complaining about Vyrn in steam discussion of Relink. I can only imagine how much more they will whine if the next Relink game is set after the Grand Uplift featuring the new characters.






Pho is a Dawnlight Spirit from the Earthen Realm, and can purify demons. No, not the Otherworlder demons. No, not those regular monster demons in the Sky realm. No, this brand new type of demon race (simply called demons) that are unique to the Earthen Realm, and have been brought up to the Sky realm in the Grand Uplift. I have to question why the writers eliminated all of demonkind 6 months ago at the end of the Estalucia saga, only to then immediately reintroduce "demons" as a threat again.




A second furball Dawnlight Spirit named Uran appears and tries to join our crew. At the same time, there is a family of criminals who were uplifted from the Earthen realm. They are hired by an organization in the Sky realm to kidnap one of these new Dawnlight Spirits so that the Skydwellers can study it. They target Pho who belongs the Grancypher crew, but wind up bagging Uran instead, and convince Uran to go with them.




Looking at the Famitsu cover art for the new saga, it is disappointing that it seems to be entirely a cast of young people. They got rid of Eugen and didn't add another old guy. Fingers crossed that we are early in the arc and another old party member will be added later, but with four new people being added right off the bat, the party is already somewhat large.

=========

With the demise of Tau'luk, the previous True King of the Istavion Empire, and the abdication of Gran as the True King, it's not clear what is the status of the empire. Caesar the White Knight is apparently quitting and wants to go find work on his home island of Winseria, but the people there hate him for having been one of the head honchos of the empire. I do like how people don't forgive and forget right off the bat. Rare to see this in Eastern games.






That being said, each of the seven Luminary Knights was in charge of a fleet, and Walfrid the Blue Knight continues to lead the Crew of Enforcers policing each skydom. Why doesn't Casear do the same with the rank and resources he has at his disposal?

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ March 8th, 2026, 04:41

https://wikigacha.org/

I got a Legendary Rare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wakeman

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 20th, 2026, 11:30

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ March 8th, 2026, 04:41

https://wikigacha.org/

I got a Legendary Rare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wakeman

It's dead

Valter wrote: ↑ March 20th, 2026, 11:30

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ March 20th, 2026, 05:55

Granblue Fantasy second saga: Earth-Sky Oath

With the end of the 12 year long "reach the island of Estalucia to reunite with dad" original storyline of Granblue Fantasy, the game has begun a new second saga. The new plot objective is to find a journal Abramelin kept (TLDR he was cursed to live for 6,000 years. He wound up forgetting his earlier life, so there are huge gaps in history). The arc has only just started. There are a few interesting tidbits.

► Show Spoiler

Up until now, the cosmology of the GBF universe was that there were three planes:

• The corrupted surface of the Earth that was the Otherworld, aka the Crimson Horizon, overrun by demons (humans who were corrupted).
• Above that, you have the Sky realm, which was the uncorrupted continent on Earth that the alien space dragon god Bahamut found when he arrived, and lifted it up into the sky. Bahamut was killed by mortals, and with his death it sundered the sky realm into two separate worlds: the sky world (and the floating continent into countless small floating islands)...
• and the Astral world where the immortals there walk on stars. From there, the Astrals invaded the sky realm and briefly occupied for a few centuries before being repelled.

The Sky realm is only inhabited by 6 races: humans, Draph, Harvin, Erune, Astrals (defectors, or those who were left behind and trapped after the invasion was pushed back and the dimensional barrier erected), and Primal Beasts (vat grown soldiers created by the Astrals during the occupation, now wandering aimlessly without a master). In the 10th anniversary event storyline, we found out that more races lived in the past (the Monohorn race that Abramelin and his wife were), but they evidently did not survive to the modern day.

*There are also people who built a rocket to escape the increasing corruption on the earth and colonized the moon*

This new storyline introduces a fourth plane, called the Earthen Realm. Apparently it was a vast underground world underneath the Otherworld/Crimson Horizon on the surface of the Earth.






At the end of the original Estalucia storyline, the Otherworld and the demons were wiped out. The huge wall of hurricanes called the Grim Basin which divided the Skydoms also dissipated, so now people can freely sail to anywhere. And now it seems that the surface of the Earth has shattered, and chunks from the Earthen Realm below have floated up into the sky world in an event called the Grand Uplift. The Earthen Realm is populated by four races, who got brought up.








This seems like an interesting way to shake up the setting and inject new material. Seems like we will be exploring this Earthen Realm stuff first before we get to explore the Astral realm.


=========

The main party has changed. Io, Eugen, and Rosetta have left. Seox and Narmaya have joined. Narmaya is interesting because she is one of the most popular GBF characters, but was never involved in any storyline whatsoever, not even in event side storylines.

At Port Breeze, we meet Flykis, who was on one of the Earthen Realm chunks that flew up here into the Sky world. She joins the crew. She rides a bipedal mech like it was a motorcycle, which is neat.




We also meet a... flying furball anime mascot named Pho, who insists upon joining the crew. Since Vyrn ascended into becoming a real dragon and a playable party member at the end of Estalucia, apparently we need a new cute vulnerable mascot character. Westerners were already complaining about Vyrn in steam discussion of Relink. I can only imagine how much more they will whine if the next Relink game is set after the Grand Uplift featuring the new characters.






Pho is a Dawnlight Spirit from the Earthen Realm, and can purify demons. No, not the Otherworlder demons. No, not those regular monster demons in the Sky realm. No, this brand new type of demon race (simply called demons) that are unique to the Earthen Realm, and have been brought up to the Sky realm in the Grand Uplift. I have to question why the writers eliminated all of demonkind 6 months ago at the end of the Estalucia saga, only to then immediately reintroduce "demons" as a threat again.




A second furball Dawnlight Spirit named Uran appears and tries to join our crew. At the same time, there is a family of criminals who were uplifted from the Earthen realm. They are hired by an organization in the Sky realm to kidnap one of these new Dawnlight Spirits so that the Skydwellers can study it. They target Pho who belongs the Grancypher crew, but wind up bagging Uran instead, and convince Uran to go with them.




Looking at the Famitsu cover art for the new saga, it is disappointing that it seems to be entirely a cast of young people. They got rid of Eugen and didn't add another old guy. Fingers crossed that we are early in the arc and another old party member will be added later, but with four new people being added right off the bat, the party is already somewhat large.

=========

With the demise of Tau'luk, the previous True King of the Istavion Empire, and the abdication of Gran as the True King, it's not clear what is the status of the empire. Caesar the White Knight is apparently quitting and wants to go find work on his home island of Winseria, but the people there hate him for having been one of the head honchos of the empire. I do like how people don't forgive and forget right off the bat. Rare to see this in Eastern games.






That being said, each of the seven Luminary Knights was in charge of a fleet, and Walfrid the Blue Knight continues to lead the Crew of Enforcers policing each skydom. Why doesn't Casear do the same with the rank and resources he has at his disposal?

12 years and more story planned. Now that FGO story is over, is this the longest-running gacha ever or what?

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 28th, 2026, 18:29

Why is it called honkai?

Valter wrote: ↑ March 28th, 2026, 19:03

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 28th, 2026, 18:29

Why is it called honkai?

In the game predating Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai is type of negative primordial energy that manifests in various forms, the most common one being the monsters you fight. They are called Honkai, and the term Impact is, while also an Evangelion reference, the name given the birth of a Herrscher, a kind of leader of Honkai, which always results in a great calamity to the world at large. So it's essentially titled The 3rd Honkai Disaster.
And Star Rail is directly tied to HI3, so it borrowed the name, although I don't remember enough of the story to say whether Honkai as it was known before is also part of this game.

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 28th, 2026, 18:29

Why is it called honkai?