Haven't play JP nor other servers except EN so this might lean towards a biased review.
GRAPHICS:
Well... homescreen buttons are a bit scattered everywhere IMO. Like the left side ones (news, gift box, friends) are lined up horizontally while on the other side (story, cards, society) are in vertical positions. Devs, please decide only one position lol.
The GUI can improve but idk if HapiEle will take that into consideration.
SOUND:
Most songs are catchy fr and it made me use one of their songs as my wake up alarm for the Joint Live lmao. The downside for catchy is the beatmaps kek.
(*pretends idk that certain Eden song* π€‘)
GAMEPLAY:
- Ahhh my biggest enemy, my phone's specs are decent yet still lags in 3D standard mode despite I don't have much heavy games except Twisted Wonderland, rip.
- I miss some notes because of my eyes' sensitivity with BG brightness even if both in-game and phone system's brightness are at the lowest. Have to switch cards in center if their art contains vibrant colors too. (ILY perm Hiiro but S+ combo is my goal)
- Bulk download for songs. THIS ONE PRETTY PLEASE. I regularly cleans storage to prevent unwanted lags because most games don't offer that feature. It is a hassle to download them manually.
-LAST MAJOR ISSUE I HAVE WITH. GUIDE.
This is my greatest headache esp. when it comes to society. I mentally flipped a table out of frustration when the requirement for getting extra stamps in JLs (joint live) isn't clearly explained.
I think we would all agree devs planned to give only general, worst if vague, explanation of game mechanics to leave players in the dark so they'll make mistakes (and be salty about it). /hj
Also I checked the note speed before joining a team in JL but the notes approached me like a turtle that I had so much good if not missed notes. Feels like the custom speed only works in solo JLs but not in team.
VALUE:
4/5 overall. I already read some reviews since pre-reg about the game being hells and it isn't really a joke lmfao.
- all events are hell for me; 5β
welfare card placed at 3.5m
- HARD pity (harder than Disney and Themis' but all three still fckn hurt me so bad)
- scary fans (saw someone at 700k points already in less than 30mins the event had started π€£)
- some translations are weird to read...
- do the devs thought adding another '0' in the cost of gacha makes players to save?
(35 in JP = 350 in other servers π€‘)
PS
I am NOT YET OVER in being salty to the Dash Missions!!! π€¬
The pulls made prior reaching the last stage for each phase DID NOT count in! Like why??? It IS unfair!
The refund I got wasn't even half of what I wasted.
After playing for another year and months since my original review, I decided to REVAMP it.
β οΈ my newer review might came off biased towards whaling
β οΈ broken English incoming
β οΈ THIS IS FREAKIN' SO LONG AS HECK BECAUSE I'M CHATTY WHEN IT COMES TO THINGS I LOVE!!!
π GRAPHICS
Still 5β
... or maybe 4.5β
to 4.8β
after seeing some illustrations from future events got injustice.
Best example for this are from 3rd anniv cards. (fuuuuu, the artists/ responsible for my baby did dirtied his hair , I dropped the hint now guess who I'm talking about)
Despite my decreased rating, I would like to thank and give the artists behind a huge respect for giving their best in making beautiful arts. They draw better than me so who am I to complain too much?
Branching a bit, I WAS EXTREMELY OVER THE CLOUDS when they brought to EN server the CG title screen! (But sheeet I still have to wait for indefinite time before I can set the CG I really want to; they're still rolling out the CG nodes by batches and I'm dyinggg hngggggh)
π SOUNDS
Still ever 4.9/5β
. I don't have much to say in this except that I'm glad they added the twin's song, instrumental version however, and given us chance to get it for 80 imperial medals.
I turned off the BGM and SFX because I listen to dialogues (especially from anniversary and birthday logins).
π STORY
I sincerely apologise that... well... I really only stories that are related to my oshi, thus I cannot rate this overall (including the other characters).
Maybe my fellow ARR friends high likely would rate this not less than 4β
.
After all the company put (possibly) a lot of effort in making the lore, world system, personalities and even physical appearance for each boys while staying close/related to what their ayakashi counterparts in real life are.
π GAMEPLAY
Back when I was F2P, I often sleep less sacrificing it just to farm event points. 'Cause 5 SP doesn't give me a lot of event points especially when I don't own premium cards. Mainly the fault why I faced with hardships was because of my unwise play style, not to mention sometimes I succumbed to my inner demons to pull (aka not saving resources), LOL.
This whole so-called hardships changed when EN got that sweet little thing called 'special link skill' monthly. That dang LS brought me to higher duel levels earning more points, faster to reach my goals, still within my deck's capabilities.
Regarding to event types... haha it is tiresome sometimes. You do run a patrol in an area, wait for a duel to appear then accept/reject it depending on your play style (some or most players with decent deck are skipping weak duels because they aren't worth spending SP over rip), and repeat.
Or you spam a lot of your diamonds for SP until it nearly go two-digit just for you to rank within the tier rank goal in your oshi's challenge "tower" event haha. (this is the time for others to know who are hardcore stans and befriend them when they get a chance so to leech for premium points WWWWW)
But still keep an eye open when they release events unexpectedly throwing players off. EN likes to deviate sometimes from JP schedule haha.
π SHOP / SALES
Once I bought a premium ticket and honestly didn't feel good since I knew beforehand I'll get the premium SSR guaranteed. Most likely won't buy anymore unless my boy f*cking refuses to come home even throwing a lot of dias into the fire.
The most noticeable in the shop are:
- AMULET SET (this deal is damn worth it especially I take it to my advantage haha)
- MULTI-CHARM SET (haven't bought one yet; looks promising when you have a plan to subscribe on it monthly)
- ANNIVERSARY PACKS (bronze and silver set are *chef's kiss*; totally up to the player if they badly want the contents included)
- COLLECTION FEST PACKS (yes if you have less time to give for farming, no if you can spare time, and then there's the no option available if you don't have a thick wallet to slap to the company and scream "TAKE MY MONEY!" )
- LUCKY BAG DEAL (forgot what's the exact name for that pack, mostly they appear in the shop at the end of the year iirc; totally up to the player)
π GACHA
Last but not the least! I saved this topic! After another changes with their gacha system, I take back what I said that this isn't still a f2p-friendly.
By far, I can scream this isthe most F2P-friendly gacha I ever played!
Their soft pity is NOT A JOKE! Literally a soft one! (I said this 'cause I f*cking play too much gacha gamess and they hurt me so bad af!!! )
Imagine the rate for premium SSR (and SRs possibly too) increases whenever you don't get an SSR every ten pulls. This means it increases your chance to get it next time every time you failed.
The downside for this is THE DROP RATE RESETS if you get one SSR, whether it be the premium or a duplicate that you already maxed just to hurt you. But hey atleast you don't need to reach hard pity (mostly gacha games have it at 100th pull) because with only 30 pulls (you get 1 binding bell for every succeeding 10 pulls and stops at certain amount) you can already exchange 1 premium SSR for 3 bells.
Some gacha games don't even offer the feature of exchanging premium cards leaving you salty af when RNG gods has forsaken you.
What's more nasty, not in bad way, about their gacha system are the tickets β event and birthday ones. Event tickets can be earned once in weekly missions and also can be bought in the shop along with birthday ones for a price of 15, saving 10!
So imagine if you diligently do the weeklies... I'll leave the computation to yourselves.
I'm afraid I won't stop blabbering so I better cut here before it gets longer. Well, can't blame me when I've been playing this since its release in 2019. I stayed despite the pain it gave from gachas especially when it was still in dark era haha.
Hopefully this review helps others deciding whether to play this or not. (And better not get out of gacha hell and join me /j)
Original: July 28, 2020 17:13:15
Revamped: April 23, 2022 04:55:--
I really like this game except how whacked the RNG is. I wished I saw this first than global server as the said is already too late of 1 year in schedule from JP's and even trailed off from it. I found global's (only?) compensation from that is more crystals from maintenance, tw banner that gives rainbow gems which JP donβt, and more platforms for share rewards.
Ensemble Stars!! Music | QooApp Global
4.2Why storyline is 3? 'Cause honestly I can't keep up with how the story goes. Sorry but I really get thrown in confusion when reading them because I don't know the backstory!
It's like hanging out with your friends but can't keep up with their work-related convo where they work at same company but you don't.
Else, I'm fine :)