In case you’re wondering what I’m up to since I dropped Persona 5 Royal, I finished a playthrough of Lair Land Story, tried to get back into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with limited success (haven’t given up, but the magic is totally gone) and kind of gave up on console games for now.

I’ve mainly been playing Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space, and regretting the loss of my previous account because I realise now that I had done a LOT of content that I’ll need to do again, urgh. Okay not need, but really. The game has a ton of content. On the other hand, insane power creep means the Jillfunny and Piggie I pulled can one-shot or two-shot just about every mob or boss that doesn’t absorb Water. More on AE if/when I exceed my previous stage in the story.

Today I’m here to talk about another game I’ve been playing, an idle game called Magic Chronicle Isekai RPG. It’s my first idle gacha, I think? “Idle games” are a genre of games where resources accumulate in the game over time and you log in once or twice a day to collect and allocate them. Strengthen your characters a bit, enhance your facilities so you can collect more resources, then log out again.

In theory it’s perfect for the busy gamer because it doesn’t make many demands on your time. Daily tasks don’t take long, and there’s no need to log in on specific days or at specific times for rewards/guild wars/all that nonsense. At the same time you still get the dopamine hit from raising stronger characters and getting better gear, progressing in the various modes, etc. so it’s the best of both worlds. In theory.

Mobile/gacha games have a reputation for cash-grabbing which I think is both fair and unfair. We’re all trying to make a buck here, but some practices are downright scummy. On the other hand, no game holds a gun to your head to spend on it, and I’ve gotten just as much entertainment from free games as from paid, so I’m not against the free-to-play model. Value for money counts for a lot.

That said, while there’s nothing with a game company trying to make money to keep the lights on, when does monetization go too far? Magic Chronicle Isekai RPG (name is too long, will call it MCIR from now on) has so many daily, weekly, monthly and progress passes and assorted packages that I got dizzy trying to keep up with them. Plus whenever you complete any achievement in the game, a character pops up offering you a long list of packages you can buy to “celebrate.”

I tried to screenshot all the various packages available, though I’m sure I’ve missed a few, plus new ones are always coming out. Check these out, though:

First thing you see every time you log in. Who decided it was 5000% value anyway?

Lots of these every time you clear anything.

Gold weekly pass, not to be confused with other weekly passes.

Just because it’s fun to paywall QOL features. I do prefer permanent stuff to temporary passes, but this game is too over the top for me.

Material pack (you can get most of this stuff just by playing, but that’s how these games roll)

Daily pack. I forgot to screenshot the weekly and monthly packs, but you get the picture.

Different types of daily pack in addition to those above.

More montly packs separate from those above.

Space-time heroes are super powerful and can’t be pulled normally, but this doesn’t even give you Odin, just his gear. And those prices…

I don’t know what that statue does. I’m assuming it washes your car and makes you breakfast in bed, otherwise why would it cost $49.99?

More “just because” offers.

Not sure what the point of buying just one Chronos is, TBH, since you need tons of dupes to max a character. Maybe there are more copies below the fold, dunno, duncare.

Meh. They should have at least made her cute.

I think it’s about 100 gems to $1, so this would be $1,500 for a single character. And you think your gacha game is greedy. Ahaha, ahahaha.

Incremental strength increases for your character. Not worth it IMO. Actually almost nothing I’ve posted so far is worth it.

I recently made an Eternal+ character and unlocked the Ancient Relics mode, which came with, you guessed it, another pack offer.

Assorted passes for clearing various game modes.

I have no idea what this one is about.

Or this one either, TBH. There’s nothing to exorcise in this game. Hm…

Ah, this one. Treasure hunt is a board game mode with piddling rewards, and what you get for $22.99 here is even more piddling.

Now this powder does significantly boost your party’s power… but I’d rather be weak than spend $29.99 on it.

If you’ve been counting, that’s 26 passes, packages or offers so far, and I didn’t even get all of them.

Luckily this game doesn’t have any meaningful PVP or rankings, so there’s no real pressure to get stronger other than at your own pace. I like the art direction and the character designs (the chibis are not too chibi either, which is good). I also enjoy some of the modes like the Valley and the race trials and sanctum. It’s more of competition against yourself than against others, and in fact, taking longer to grow means you’ve got that much more content to cover without burning out, so it’s all good.

I quite like MCIR TBH, so I might write a proper post about it later, especially since there isn’t much information about it out there. And I’ll probably try other idle gachas as well when I get tired of it. The reason I made this post was just to marvel at all the monetization, because I’ve never seen anything this aggressive in all my gaming years. It also answers the question: “What world-shatteringly important things have I been up to that kept me from posting for almost a month?” Now you know.