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There's never been a better time to play Honkai: Star Rail
Honkai: Star Rail just dropped its juiciest expansion yet with version 2.0
Honkai: Star Rail 2.0 is here. It's a major milestone for the game to see its first expansive update of the year while somehow accomplishing this task before the game has reached its first anniversary. Honkai: Star Rail remains ambitious and fun as we enter the new year, especially now that a new update has dropped. In version 2.0, players will enter Penacony, where the line between dreams and reality becomes heavily blurred, bringing new content for everyone to enjoy. So, let's dig into exactly what you can expect from Star Rail's 2.0 update, as it's a big one you'll want to see for yourself.
I'm glad Atelier Resleriana wasn't my first Gust game
A gacha where only your wallet will bring the magic of alchemy back
As much as I want to rope more people into playing Gust titles, I cannot honestly recommend Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator to be anyone's first (Gust) game. If you're a big fan of the Atelier series, you may appreciate the fan service and eye candy this title brings, but it still comes at a hefty price, and this time, it's not because you're juggling multiple deadlines to save your workshop/reputation. Instead, you'll succumb to the brutal gacha Atelier Resleriana throws your way. So, gear up for a turbulent ride as I go hands-on with Gust's new gacha Atelier Resleriana, which is sadly far from one of Android's best gaming gems.
Rebooting Tower of Fantasy could be a huge mistake
Please, Hotta, don't hit the delete key on my game data
Since its launch, I've been playing Tower of Fantasy and have yet to miss a day. Initially, I was drawn to the game's post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy themes and was enthralled with the idea of a casual open-world MMO that didn't contain a punishing gacha system.
I've waited to play Reverse: 1999 for over a year — the wait wasn't worth it
The experience is soured by sloppy translation work
Outside of HoYoverse's offerings, most gacha games fail to meet my expectations. So many of the mobile gachas I've tried have felt underwhelming: terrible story, baiting character designs, and a general lack of passion and care for these projects (outside of finding ways to extract money). But three gacha titles have kept my eyes peeled and lit with hope: Project Moon's Limbus Company, Jun Maeda's Heaven Burns Red, and Bluepoch's Reverse: 1999. My hope lies in the willingness of these games to dive into deeper, more profound themes that you cannot reproduce in surface-level, cash-first gachas. So, since 2022, I've been waiting patiently to play Reverse: 1999 on my phone. Now that the game is out, it saddens me to say Reverse: 1999 isn't ready.
Now that Tower of Fantasy is on version 3.2, is it worth playing in 2023?
Discover the truth behind this ambitious gacha MMO
Tower of Fantasy had survived the 1-year mark and only recently celebrated its first anniversary over the summer, which isn't surprising given the nature of the game. Tower of Fantasy is an ambitious open-world gacha MMO that most releases can't compare to in scale. The closest competitor in size is Genshin Impact. Both titles offer expansive worlds to explore but still offer gacha mechanics to pay the bills. Outside of that, Tower of Fantasy and Genshin Impact cater to different audiences (with some overlap).
Honkai Star Rail hands-on: A spectacular digital casino with stunning graphics
Our gameplay video highlights Honkai Star Rail's improvements over Genshin Impact
Honkai: Star Rail, the sci-fi follow-up from the creators of Genshin Impact, is out now. While it's not technically a sequel, it borrows so many features from the popular 2020 gacha game it feels like one. However, there's a new cast of characters (with some returning from previous Honkai games), new gameplay mechanics, and of course, a space train. Choo choo, let's get this hands-on rolling!
Alchemy Stars celebrates its first anniversary with tons of free content
This post is sponsored by Alchemy Stars
Mobile gacha RPG, Alchemy Stars, is one year old, so with the birthday party in full swing, it is throwing out freebies like you've never seen. As you might guess, there’s some pretty cool stuff up for grabs.
There's a new XCOM game coming to mobile, and it's already in testing
It's called XCOM Legends, but it's a turn-based RPG for some reason
Now that the XCOM 2 Collection has finally found its way to Android, I suppose it was inevitable that 2K would be looking to cash in with a lazy mobile interpretation of the series. While there were rumblings last year that a game called XCOM Legends would be coming to mobile, it's now official the game exists, and it has already entered early access in limited territories, confirmed by PCGamesN. Sadly this game is described as an RPG, so it would seem this offshoot is forgoing the turn-based tactics of the core series to offer gameplay we've seen a thousand times over on mobile. That's right, XCOM: Legends is a squad-based gacha RPG, and it honestly looks awful.
SINoALICE is the latest RPG from Yoko Taro, and it's available today for the first time in the West
Coming from the head video game director behind Nier: Automata
Yoko Taro's mobile RPG SINoALICE will finally see a worldwide release after an indefinite delay last year. The game was initially published in Japan back in 2017 by Nexon, and yet it would appear that the publisher wants nothing to do with the title anymore, and so Nexon is transferring the license to the original developer Pokelabo. Interestingly Pokelabo has just announced that it's cooperating with Square Enix to bring the game to the West on July 1st, though I have to wonder if this announcement is simply a last-ditch effort to make money with an aging mobile game that even Nexon couldn't bring to fruition as a global release.
Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe is a collection-based RPG from Square Enix, now available worldwide
Yet another F2P collection-based RPG from Square Enix
Much like Dragon Quest of the Stars (coincidentally released today), Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe is an older gacha RPG that's coming to the West. You see, Square Enix actually released Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe in Japan back in 2018, and apparently the title is coming to the West with an English translation in tow sometime this summer, and guess what, this English version just landed on the Play Store as a pre-registration listing.
Epic Games has teamed up with the gaming division of Bad Robot (a studio created in partnership with Tencent) to create a mobile game set in a secret world of espionage called Spyjinx. The title was originally announced back in 2015 (yes, you read that right), and was supposed to enter into a beta in 2016. Clearly, that never happened (even the social media for this game went silent for four years), though it would appear the two studios haven't abandoned the game since Epic recently published an overview of the title while announcing a beta test for iOS.
Pokémon Masters has arrived, and while the release was slightly unexpected, the date falls in line with the previously announced summer-release window. Of course, this isn't a mainline Pokémon game, since it comes from DeNA, the same company behind Nintendo's Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. As expected, Pokémon Masters is a free-to-play release packed with in-app purchases and loot boxes, and this time around, instead of collecting adorable creatures, you'll spend your time collecting trainers to play through 3v3 battles, similar in style to the many MARVEL Strike Force clones already available on the Play Store.
Last month we learned that Nintendo would offer a closed beta test of Mario Kart Tour to select users that applied for access. Well, it looks like I got in, so now that I've had some time to play the beta I figured I'd share my impressions for those that are curious how its development is shaping up.
Skylanders Ring of Heroes is a new free-to-play team-based gacha RPG that was just launched on the Google Play Store, all thanks to a partnership between Activision and Com2uS. Much of the game's inspiration comes from Summoners War, another gacha RPG from Com2uS. Of course, Skylanders Ring of Heroes brings along its own set of heroes that stem from the Skylanders universe as well as an original story that fleshes out its hero-collection gameplay.
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Back in August Nintendo announced that Dragalia Lost would launch on Android on September 27th. Well, today is the day, and Nintendo has indeed delivered. So if you have been hankering for a new gacha RPG with pleasant chibi graphics, and some of the best music found on Android, then you're going to want to check this out. Not everything is perfect, but there is still enough to like here to give it a shot.
Ankama Games is a consistent developer that offers a solid library of mobile games, and if you're a fan of roguelikes, you're going to want to take a look at the developer's latest release King Crusher. It's a pixel-based RPG that mixes hero collection and puzzle sliding mechanics with an honest monetization system. The result is an enjoyable roguelike that's easy to pick up and difficult to put down.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a gorgeous narrative adventure, a digital adaptation of a stock market investing board game, an escape the room game, a kawaii-themed casual adventure, an anime-theme gacha game, a MOBA and PvP duel card battler that takes place in the Warhammer universe, and the sequel to Brave Frontier. Without further ado:
Last month, the English version of Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2 was listed on the Play Store for pre-registration. At the time, I assumed the official release would follow shortly, so it's not much of a surprise to see that it's available for download today. Fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series will be able to jump into an all-new story in the long-running post-apocalyptic adventure. So get ready to explore 3D dungeons as you collect a massive amount of demons in this new gacha JRPG from Sega.
Sega's Shin Megami Tensei series has been running since 1987, and in the last thirty years some great titles have come and gone including a few offshoot series such as Persona or Devil Summoner. So, of course, it was only a matter of time before a Shin Megami Tensei game was created for mobile. Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2 is the result of that creation and it was released in Japan back in January of this year. I'm also glad to report that an English version is indeed coming over to the West, and you can pre-register for a notification upon its official release starting today.
Firefly Games Inc. has released DreamWorks Universe of Legends. At its core, it is yet another lazy hero collection game starring many of the famous characters found in DreamWorks Animation's films, with a few base-building aspects thrown into the mix to round the whole thing out. Of course, a hero collection game wouldn't be complete without simplistic battles that require little to no input from the user. Sadly this is all par for the course in a game filled with in-app purchases that are squarely targeted at children, though I suppose Dreamworks doesn't care where the money comes from as long as it keeps filling their coffers.