Happy new year everyone! Can you believe we’re already 10 days into the year? It feels like Christmas was only yesterday, but now it’s already time to go back to school/work. And so another year begins.

I had a lot of time to think about gaming over the new year break. Specifically why I’ve moved away from regular gaming to mobile/gacha ones so much these days. It boils down to a few simple reasons:

1. Bright happy colors. Self-explanatory. There are gacha games with duller palettes I’m sure, but I’m not attracted to those.

2. Quick thrills and cheap dopamine hits. Bosses everywhere, loot everywhere, new stuff to chase all the time, etc.

3. Fear of missing out. Free time-limited stuff like banners and events keep you coming back again and again.

4. JRPGs ain’t that great. I’ve played my fair share and most of the time it’s 60 hours of blah blah talking, go here, go there, then the ending is the same old “Mankind needs no gods!” and/or “The power of friendship triumphs over all” spiel I’ve seen a hundred times before. Nowadays I aim for interesting gameplay like exploration (e.g. dungeon crawlers), crafting, action-based combat or some other gimmick, and gacha games have all of that as well.

5. Gacha games never end. Until they suddenly do, but you know what I mean. With a regular JRPG, it may take 100 hours, but you’re still going to finish, roll credits, the end. Gacha games are designed to keep you playing for years if they can. And there are only so many hours in a day, so every neverending game you add to your list is another chunk of time out of your day. That’s less time to spend on work, sleep, food, other hobbies or other video games.

With that in mind, I’m not going to start any gacha games from now on. If I’m not already playing it, too bad. Moreover I’m going to definitively drop those that just aren’t “sparking joy” or that I hardly play any more.

Gacha games to drop

Shining Nikki – Already deleted. It was fun in its own way, but I wasn’t getting much out of it. The heavy focus on stats made collecting low-scoring clothes feel pointless, especially since the 3D look didn’t interest me. Meanwhile events were so expensive that an F2P has to save months to afford a full suit in a UR event. It’s not worth the effort.

Sdorica – Tried it briefly over the holidays. Lovely and unusual art style and character designs. Everything else I just didn’t like, especially the draggy story (how many monsters must we kill in the slums?), sluggish combat, lack of clear tier lists (this might be a plus for some people), the double-edged sword combat mechanics, etc etc. It’s just not my kind of thing.

Granblue Fantasy – It’s pretty much dropped already, but I did log in every day during the roulette because hey, free stuff. And I discovered how meaningless it is to get free stuff  you have no use for. I also discovered that it’s still possible GBF to rope me back in, but it would require a much faster internet connection than I currently have. As it is, the loading times drive me crazy and make everything from raids to story quests a huge chore. And you can’t even tab out and let things load, like seriously? As a bonus I was also able to delete Google Chrome since I only had it for GBF purposes.

Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsujimura – One of my longest-played online games. Now sadly in decline. The developers are putting much less effort into events – rerun upon rerun. They’re not fixing bugs or giving compensation for login problems any more. And they keep tightening the screws to make things less fun and less rewarding unless you spend money. It’s always been like that but now it’s totally blatant. Doomed game is doomed.

Guardian Tales – Really wanted to get into this because I think it’s cute. Unfortunately it doesn’t play nice with emulators. In the past two weeks I’ve only been able to get into the game three times. All other times, it gets stuck on the “Checking newly acquired resources” screen or the “Now loading” screen. I’m not going to put it on my phone no matter what, so unless it comes to Steam or gets a PC client, it’s not meant to be.

Gacha games on probation (not dropped but not playing regularly)

Genshin Impact – Great game when a new map comes out. Boring otherwise. Rather than stick out and complain or start to hate it, I plan to get Zhongli (or fail 50/50) when his banner returns and then relax until the next big map update. I know a smaller update with Enkanomiya came out a few days ago so I’ll check that out for a bit while getting Zhongli. After that, it’s the backburner for Genshin.

Another Eden – Great JRPG, nice cast, interesting stories, highly recommended. Not your typical gacha game at all. However I ran into a massive difficulty spike against the final boss of the Western Mythos and it made me think “What am I doing with my life?” so I got mad and so I’m going to delete it. There’s slightly more to it than that, but not really. Difficulty spikes are annoying. Getting stuck and having to grind for gear is unpardonable.

More importantly, I want to reclaim my phone from videogames, so it definitely has to move. But since it’s actually pretty good, I’ll look into picking up where I left off on emulator or Steam. That will take a couple of months, though. First I gotta let this anger pass. Damned double-attack spamming crystal-using, cheating lying sunuva…

Gacha games to keep playing with great joy

Love Nikki – Almost caught up to the story. Should take another week or two to clear Volume 2 chapter 9 and then…???? Either I will enjoy crafting suits without being forced to by the story, or I will get bored with the lack of direction and reduce my playtime before too long. Most likely the former because the story is bogus and I’m well rid of it, but you never know.

Epic Seven – Started two weeks ago. Today is day 16 IIRC.

What I like most is that there’s auto-battling for when you just want to farm in the background. So convenient. Though you just know that any game with auto-battle is going to be super duper grindy. I’m at Abyss floor 46, level 8 in most hunts, for those familiar with the game. I’ll do a proper post on it one of these days, so no need to say much.

Happy Color & Water Sort Puzzle: My go-to casual games/apps for when I’m in an offline environment or just chilling mindlessly. Nothing much to say about them either.

Games to play in 2022

I’ve had success in the past assigning games to actual months so I know what to play at any given time. I’ll try it again this year and see if it gives gaming a much-needed shot in the arm. 6 months, 5 games (January is virtually over as far as I’m concerned). If it works out, I’ll do another batch to take me to December.

Jan/Feb – Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi. I’m already 10 hours in and it’s pretty good. If I finish it soon, I’ll try to get back into Ray Gigant. It would be nice if I could play all of Experience Inc.’s dungeon crawlers, I always tell myself.

March – Zwei: the Ilvard Insurrection. My mind tells me I like anime-style action RPGs, but for some reason I just can’t get into Ys. Maybe Zwei 2 will do the trick? If it doesn’t, I’ve been meaning to restart Dark Cloud 2 for the past little while, so I might go with that.

April – Atelier Lydie & Scumbag. I haven’t played any Atelier stuff in a while. I’m not missing it, but maybe I will be by April.

May – Final Fantasy XIII. Started it long ago, made some progress, got tired and quit. Time to give it a final try or just delete it from my PC once and for all. If I finish/quit it early, I’ll do the same for Tokyo Xanadu eX+. I can consider the FFXIII sequels if I really, really like the game by the end, but I’m not holding my breath.

June – The Caligula Effect: Overdose. I’ve enjoyed other JRPGs from Furyu Corporation, so despite the scathing reviews, I still want to try it. I’ll also use June as a “free month” to try other stuff I’ve been curious about as well as random stuff that happens to be on my hard drive.

And that’s it for new year’s resolutions this year. Hope you all had a great holiday! See you around!