Just completed a 130-day login streak, where I got down and dirty with Romancing Saga Re;Universe and explored all its nooks and crannies, doing all the story chapters and events that later went away in the 3.0 overhaul, doing plenty of Spiral Corridor (180) and Remembrance Battles as well as catching up to the latest story.
My initial thoughts about Romancing Saga Re;Universe are captured in this post I wrote years ago, trying to talk myself out of playing it. It worked for a while, but eventually the other stingy gacha games wore me down and I fled for comfort to the arms of RSRU. It’s not as ridiculously generous all the time once you run out of welcoming bonuses and the like, but it is still far better than most other games I’ve played, both in terms of gem income and in terms of regular giveaways. There’s always something being given away for free, sometimes useless stamina but often gems, tickets, characters, even excellent SSS weapons. For the freebies alone, I’d rate this game 1000/10.
The reason I dropped it is because of the gameplay loop. Or lack thereof. You get the latest characters, grind them up, use them for some content, newer and better characters come out, newer and harder content comes out, repeat the process endlessly. It’s fun to get shiny new characters, and the high gem income in the game makes it possible for even F2P players to get the majority of powerful characters. Equipment is not gated by gacha or even by hard content, so you can get the best weapons, armors, accessories etc. without breaking a sweat.
It’s just… it gets tiring after a while. Get characters, use characters, get more, use more. And the constant powercreep gets me down. The Orlette I pulled when I first returned was recently powercrept by an even better Orlette, same for the Esper Girl I got, and I know it will happen to all my other characters sooner or later. So on one hand I like getting new characters with flashy and powerful new moves, but on the other hand there’s a very “Why do I even bother” feel about the whole affair.
In a very recent update (February 2024), Romancing Saga Re;Universe finally did the sensible thing and gave us offline farming, a.k.a. “Memory Rematch.” The game records the skills you use in a match and the time it took to clear it, then reruns it for up to 24 hours in the background. No more leaving your phone on charge overnight or getting a second phone just to grind stats forever. It was a much-needed and very welcome addition to the game, but ironically it also made it much easier for me to drop the game.
The first reason is that RSRU became a pure idle game where you just log in once or twice a day, check your stat growths, queue up more matches and dip. That isn’t my idea of a “game,” or at least not one I want to stick with for any length of time. It’s very easy to forget to even load the game once a day, and I haven’t missed it since I uninstalled it yesterday.
The second, bigger reason is that it will make it very easy for me to jump back into the game whenever I’m ready to. I was reluctant to drop it at first because I was thinking of all the hours I would have spend grinding up the latest styles when I returned, but this Memory Rematch system takes all the pain out of it. I even saved enough gems for a pity so I can get whoever the latest and hottest style is if/when I jump back into the game.
When will that be? Honestly, not any time soon. It really isn’t much of a “game,” much as I enjoy the bright, happy colours, the killer soundtracks and the bountiful freebies. However, thanks to it my interest in the SaGa games has been revived, so I’m going to work on those for a while, especially Romancing Saga 2 and 3, Scarlet Grace and SaGa Frontier 1 since I already have those. If I miss Romancing Saga Re;Universe after I’m done with all that, then maybe I’ll dive back in again. Until then, it’s goodbye to this game.
