No surprises with this one. I already mentioned last month that I was going to delete Another Eden: The Cat beyond Time and Space from my phone and possibly pick up where I left off on Steam. It’s unlikely that this will happen any time soon, though, because I don’t miss it very much right now. It helps that because of the way Another Eden is structured, there’s very little permanently missable content. I could come back three years later and pick up right where I left off, so I don’t feel any urgency to jump back in again. This is actually a very good thing, because it makes the full game accessible to new players and old ones alike. Plus the power creep isn’t completely horrible (or more like I haven’t gotten very far into the game) so I won’t have to worry about being unable to compete at all when I return.
To summarize all I’ve said about Another Eden in the past, it’s a good JRPG disguised as a gacha game. The main story is pointless, drawn-out and nonsensical in places, which is why I was really baffled by all the praise this game got for its writing. Turns out all the good stuff is in the side stories, many of which could be spun off as complete RPGs on their own. I was enjoying the Western Mythos until the final boss, and I really like the atmosphere of the IDA School arcs. The music especially reminds me of other high school RPGs like Tokyo Xanadu and the Persona games.
Nice one, Another Eden! Now I know everyone who will join me in Persona 5!
The battle gameplay is ordinary. Hit-me-I-hit-you, as a friend of mine once described turn-based RPGs. Speed is very important, but it’s not the end all and be all stat like it is in many such games. I would be in real trouble if the stories were interesting, the music was great AND the gameplay was super-interesting, but no game is perfect. I actually liked that the gameplay was plain and not too challenging. You didn’t need to grind too much for weapons or armor; the occasional upgrade was okay. Until the Western Mythos last boss…
That thing really broke my immersion. If it was a grindy game from the start, that would be understandable, but progress had been so smooth until then, I lost half of my motivation to continue. So I thought, “I’ll just watch the conclusion on YouTube and play the rest.” But once “just watch it on YouTube” became an option for Another Eden, the rest of my motivation dropped off as well. If it’s the story that is good and I don’t actually have to play to get the story, then…
Nowadays there are many places to find good stories: novels, light novels, webnovels, live-action series, anime (just started Kimetsu no Yaiba), manga… That means the plot is way down on my list of priorities when I play a video game, instead I’m looking for things that non-interactive media can’t offer, like exploration, a sense of progression and increasing power, etc.
Hehe, I filled all this out and more.
Pretty sure I’ve said all this before, and this isn’t to put Another Eden down. It’s just to note that a game that prides itself on its writing should be very careful when throwing roadblocks in the way of enjoying that writing. No matter how engrossing the TV thriller is, if the last scene comes up: “The true killer is…!!” and then you have to watch episode 10 fifteen times and episode 2 five times before maaaybe you get the answer, most people will just head to Wikipedia.
Eh? All this over one difficult side story boss? It sounds like I’m saying “Wah, I suck, so I quit!” Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying. It’s not the first game I’ve quit over a hard boss, and it’s only going to get more frequent from now on. But usually when I quit like that, I feel a pang of regret, or a blow to my gamer’s pride, or just nostalgia for the rest of the game and the characters. That moment might come someday for Another Eden, and when it does I’ll reinstall it and pick up where I left off. Until then, it’s bye for now.
“I would be in real trouble if the stories were interesting, the music was great AND the gameplay was super-interesting, but no game is perfect.”
Funny you mentioned that…the Another Eden dev recently released another game in Japan called Heaven Burns Red and I think it might actually fit that bill somewhat. The scenario’s written by Maeda Jun and it’s pretty good despite it being steeped heavily in boomer style humor, so far only the first two chapters have been released and all of it, including character bond episodes are all fully voiced. Also, the music are absolutely stellar, especially the vocal songs written by Maeda, I’m glad to see that he hasn’t lost his touch on that front after all these years.
As for the gameplay, it’s interesting enough. Most of the game is presented like a VN but there are also sections where you run around dungeons with a limited amount of energy that drops down whenever you engages in combat, the more turn it takes for you to kill the enemies the more it drops by. When it reaches zero you start losing health every turn so you want to leave the dungeon before your party wipes. It also has a front and backrow and you gain SP passively every turn, both you and the enemies have a shield and HP bar, while the shield bar can be healed, HP cannot. Essentially it’s a turn based combat system focused around switching characters around to manage their SP and attack order to do as much damage as possible.
I heard about Heaven Burns Red, but it was an easy skip for me because so much of the marketing was focused on the art, girls and writing. Plus Key is known for visual novels that I have absolutely no interest in, so I have almost zero familiarity with Maeda Jun’s work.
The gameplay sounds interesting but nothing I haven’t seen before (Epic Seven has a very similar gimmick in its labyrinth). If it were a standalone game with a set conclusion then I’d consider it, but I don’t want to start any new mobile games. The better it is, the less I want to start it because it will be harder to quit, if that makes any sense.
haha, I know exactly what you mean. I’m incredibly wary about starting new mobile games as well since they more often than not turn out to be such a time sink over a long period of time if they end up being good.
Which makes them great value for money since they’re technically free… Maybe I’ll give HBR a try when it comes out in English. The localization for Another Eden is pretty good.
It’s really good in writing and stories and just polluted with keep you playing grinds trying to make you spend $ in gacha.
Like you complete a good episode and what’ll happen is it will unlock an AD thing to grind it out 60 times over 10 days or such for some free gacha bucks (terrible odds) to drive you crazy so you buy gacha bucks to get a character not needing treatises and all that.
So everytime you do something good in this game, it’s going to unlock something horrible and it’ll be like hey do this too.
It’s something you need to either be able to make decent macro’s for or not be a completionist. If you are a completionist this game will chew you up and spit you out. If you are willing to spend money, this game will show you no pity and will bleed you dry.
It’s a good game on top of a gacha that wants to just bleed you dry/keep you repeating the tasks.
It’s really good sugar on top of poison. You’ll get both, you gotta be able to juggle the poison about it (macros and being willing to settle for not having all 160 characters or such as you draw nearer the odds of getting the missing ones get worse and worse)
I went with the “abandon completionism” approach quite quickly because the Another Dungeon levels were just too boring. And as interesting as the side stories were, I couldn’t find the energy to run them so often as to get 100% rewards. It’s best to focus on the JRPG part and treat the gacha as an optional extra. Unless your gacha luck is terrible, you should be able to get enough characters to clear most content.
It’s a good game but merciless with the gacha, and all the packages are really expensive. If you spend money, it should be with an attitude of “I like this game and want to throw some money at it” versus actually expecting much by way of returns. In a way that applies to all gacha games, but especially this one.
I play Genshin Impact that’s why I quit ANOTHER EDEN > <
Haha, I get it. Two text-heavy RPG-gachas with unskippable dialogue… One definitely has to go, and GI has the better gameplay. That said, I later dropped Genshin as well and don’t miss it either.