I just finished my second “tour” of Princess Connect! Re: Dive. By that I mean I downloaded it in the past, played for a while, uninstalled it, downloaded it again recently, played a little more and uninstalled it again. In that sense, it has a lot in common with Epic Seven. But while Epic Seven had great graphics, passable turn-based gameplay, flashy animations and stories and characters I unexpectedly enjoyed, Princess Connect is a whole lot of nothing. Okay the anime is kinda fun but that’s about it.

However I am writing this post not to trash Princess Connect but to try and figure out what made me play so long and what made me come back again. Okay, the second question is easier to answer. I don’t remember where, but I read somewhere that a top-tier unit named “Summer Saren” was available to be pulled, and I remembered I had a lot of gems saved up, so I logged back in to get her, which I did in about 160 pulls.

The reason I wanted Summer Saren because one of the reason I quit initially was frustration over the slow pace of progress. I was spending a lot of time stuck on certain stages because of a lack of DPS and she was supposed to be a first-class support to solve all my DPS woes. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. It’s hard to tell because I also pulled and raised characters like Djeeta, Monika and Anne (all three from Granblue Fantasy IIRC). If I really cared, I could take them out and run my OG team of Nozomi, Yukari, Rino and Karyl with Summer Saren added and without to see the difference, but I don’t care that much. It’s the game’s job to make me care, preferably by showing me with clear numbers so I can compare characters to each other without resorting to spreadsheets and external sites.

So anyway, I left because I was sucking, came back because I thought SS would help me stop sucking, and I did make a little more progress than before, but then got stuck again so meh. That progress might have to do with the game storing over 9000 stamina for me to use all at once in 24 hours, so I got some good weapon grinding done. But whatever, let’s attribute it to Summer Saren if it makes her feel better.

Now, more reasons why I quit in the first place and why I can’t figure out what on earth possessed me to try again:

1. Most battles are fought on auto, and once you auto them, most battles are skipped using Skip tickets. So for the bulk of the game, you aren’t actually playing much. Just grinding stages for weapons so you can beat more stages so you can grind for more weapons. This is what happens in most gacha games, but in my preferred type, you actually get to play those stages. I intensely dislike games with gameplay so boring the developers encourage you to skip everything. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “I hate skip tickets and everything they stand for,” but I would go about 90% of the way there.

2. The story is confusing. I wanted to get into it but I lost track pretty quickly. I got to the part about some queen who followed us from a previous time loop to try and destroy the MC because he’s a hero, like, IDK, okay? Nobody plays gacha games for the story… do they?

3. Progression is non-intuitive. In most RPGs, online and offline, you get a character and you want to level them up as much as possible. Right? Get them all the best gear, give them all the necessary promotions. Not so in Princess Connect. In fact, some characters like Summer Saren can be ruined by overleveling and overequipping them. Good luck knowing that without the usual spreadsheets and wikis, though.

4. In many cases, ranking up makes your characters weaker. At least temporarily. When you rank up, you lose all the weapons you have equipped (can’t unequip weapons ever) as well as all the refinement you’ve made to them. You now have to collect and refine weapons all over again, even if the next rank uses the same weapon as the previous one. It seems the optimal method would be to research what weapons the next rank needs, farm them while you’re still strong so that you are ready to equip them as soon as you rank up. Yeah, I’m not gonna do that, I’m just gonna complain. Unintuitive and unrewarding gameplay is unintuitive and unrewarding.

5. The grind is way too long. I’ve played up to player level 70 and I only have one 4-star character and one Unique Equipment. That’s because getting character shards for those upgrades are a long, slow process where you accumulate them little by little every day for months. Ain’t nobody got time for that! Actually I’m okay-ish with slow progress in general as long as you’re doing something fun and different all the time. Not stalled on the same few stages with no idea how to make a breakthrough.

6. It’s stressful because you’re always running out of resources, especially mana and EXP potions to upgrade your characters. And you’re all but required to spend about 120 gems a day refreshing stamina or you’ll never get your daily farming done. So I don’t feel compelled to pull for most characters because I know I won’t be able to raise them for a long, long time.

All this listing of reasons is me trying to stop myself from going back to Priconne. I like the bright layout, I like the characters and the voice-acting and the music. And it got me to watch a few episodes of the anime, which I’ve been meaning to continue one of these days. Time to move on and put this game behind me.

In other news, I started Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia recently, and I’m really suffering because it’s making me nostalgic for all the old FFs I used to play. Especially my favorite FFVIII which doesn’t need a remake but I waaant oooone~~~ My Playstation CDs should still be working, and my PS2 as well, but I’m considering buying them on the Switch instead. Nowadays I do my best gaming on my back or on my side in bed, so PC and console games don’t tempt me as much. I’m even thinking I should have bought a Switch Lite instead.

Anyway, none of that is relevant to Princess Connect, which I say a fond-ish frustrated-ish farewell to. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in 27 days! And then Harvestella in November!