#gacha is just as bad as MMOs if not worse

[clinticalthinkr]

☝️

I'm playing a popular gacha game now that is pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a game as far as genre and story goes. I would NEVER recommend it to anyone for this reason. I've spent very little on it ($15 total) but you could make an argument that the considerable amount of time I've spent on it is its own addiction.

I'm also playing a second gacha game based on a popular franchise that is EXTREMELY pay-to-win (if you go on the subreddit, this is another aspect that fans will downplay). My friend introduced me to it and we play it on Friday once a week (it's also an underrepped genre that I love). I hop on maybe once every few days but my friend is always on and is having marriage trouble in part because of this game.

Don't get into gacha. You have no idea how it's going to affect you until it has its hooks in. And I think it's that second game that is arguably more insidious because (1) it's multiplayer so you might feel you have to play it because your friend is (2) it's competitive so you have to keep pulling to get wins.

The worst part of both of these games is their gacha system. It's predatory and capitalizes on fomo rather than enjoyment of the core game to open up your wallet.

Everytime I make a post like “don’t spend money on gacha” I get a bunch of angry replies to tell me “actually it’s POSSIBLE to gamble responsibly” and “mh how AM i a bad person for deciding to spend MY own money that I earned MYSELF?”

and man… I really wish that people understood that when I say “Don’t spend money on gacha, it might kickstart a gambling addiction” or “if you regularly spend money on gacha you might already have one” I don’t mean it as a moral judgement. Addiction isn’t something that solely affects “bad” or “stupid” people. Addiction isn’t some punishment that is deserved. If you suffer from any kind of addiction, you deserve help. But the first step of getting that help is acknowledging there is a problem in the first place.

also: while this applies to all addictions, gacha addictions especially suck because people keep trivializing it. There are so many memes and so much enabling like “lol just spent all my savings on gacha :p” “3000$ for my waifu, a pretty cheap price!” “lol it’s too late for me I already spend so much on it but you guys stay safe!” “Don’t spend on gacha? No, spend MORE on gacha!” which I believe only adds fuel to the virulent hostility against any post that goes “hey, this isn’t normal, please be careful.”

So yeah all this talk to say: the best way to not get a gambling addiction is to not start gambling at all, so don’t spend money on gacha. If you do spend money on gacha, be careful and watch out that “I’m just spending ten bucks and nothing else” doesn’t morph into “I just spent 140 bucks and got nothing out of it, might as well add ten more at this point.” If you have a gacha addiction and are aware of it, I wish you safety and recovery.

[knightochan-official]

what would you switch between MMOs and Gacha to make them both as bad as possible

take auction houses out of mmos and put them in gachas so people can sell characters and weapons for ingame currency

everything I'd take out of a gacha to make an MMO worse would just make the gacha better, so i think this exchange has to be one sided

[medakakurokami]

I don't get why people stuck with gacha games in general like I'm not trying to maliciously throw shade here but mobage always truly seemed to me to embody actually self-destructive game design making all their ideas worse by nature.

Like I may have always felt the odd man out that I never got hooked on them, but now I feel the odd man out that it's strange I think they're actively *bad* games compared to their full priced alternatives.

Maybe people are just settled in with their stories and characters in mobage they like and have long since stopped caring or maybe even acquired a taste for the infinite grind and generally heavily automated gameplay

Is it not the same problem as live service games? Like why do we give paid $60 live service singleplayer games shit, if that model can make genuinely good experiences then why is it an issue?

Like I know I come across as a contrarian sometimes but I just like what I like and I try to like all sorts of games even if I think I won't like them. I think the closest I've come to enjoying a mobage is Priconne and that was, like everyone else playing, just for the art and characters and storylines. I didn't play much more than a month though because the gameplay loop was a soul sucking tedium, and now it's been discontinued so even if I wanted to power through to go see more character stories, I can't!

Which is another huge problem with mobage! I can think of at least 3 mobage I got temporarily invested in and are now defunct. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think there's any way to play those? Talk about delisted, there's no way to pirate or emulate those games. Even in paid titles that can happen with multiplayer titles, MMO's, and the very rare single player game, but that's almost a certainty with every mobage. We've seen some developers move their mobage off platform like Rockman X Dive and Grisaia Chronos Trigger. We also see them making full price console games like Little Noah and Azur Lane. I honestly sincerely hope this becomes the norm so that more people can experience the art that actually goes into the mobage but without the inherently anti-player designs put in place.

I know a lot of people still complain about mobage so maybe I'm beating a dead horse or preaching to the choir. But it just felt like recently we have just lost all pushback. This might be coming from a place of privelege cause I got the cash to buy paid releases consistently as I see ones that interest me. But I feel like if I went broke and had to choose between mobage and just emulating GBA games on my phone, I'd still be on the latter 100%

Edit:

I guess my question to mobage fans is like. Do you just not care about the infinite grind, FOMO, inevitable closing of the game, limited game mechanics, gacha and paywalled content, etc etc etc

Or do you see it as an inevitability of mobage and a capitalistic genie that could never be put back into the bottle, and you enjoy the mobage for what good they do have despite these issues being unresolvable

[circood]

Alright, I'm going to get my thoughts on gachas and specifically their monetization systems off in one long post. This is really just a way to organize my own thoughts on the matter.

In short, I think that if you have a gambling problem then gacha games are bad and you should stay away from them. If you don't then I don't think they're worse than any other f2p model.

To me any gacha with a transparent pity system is essentially just offering their characters outright for the price it takes to guarantee them. So if you need 180 rolls to 100% guarantee a character, then they cost 180 rolls and maybe there's a slight chance they'll cost less.

Of course, many people object to having any gameplay features be locked behind what is essentially gambling. And I do think it's bad, but I don't think it's THAT worse than most other f2p models. Assuming again you aren't predisposed to gambling problems. And even then, cosmetic gambling like TF2 crates are just as exploitative of gambling addiction as gachas. Just because they don't affect gameplay doesn't mean they don't prey on people.

But back to my point, live service games need to keep people playing and spending to maintain and update the game, and so inherently they need to design their game in a way that encourages this. Many MMOs literally lock you away from your character when you stop paying, and they're designed with a lot of grinding to drag out your play time. Even MMO stories require constant new areas and big events to keep people coming back, which makes telling a concise story almost impossible.

I think a lot of "gacha problems" are just "live service problems" that people look past when it comes to MMOs and other constantly updated games.

And of course, all of this assumes that the gachas I'm talking about DO NOT require meta teams to play through most of the content. This isn't a problem for most popular gachas (certainly not Mihoyo games), but any game that has you hit a wall until you spend money is absolute trash.

Honestly, as much as people see gachas as a supremely greedy genre, they are one of the few types of games that you can play completely free and still enjoy almost all of the content. I don't know, I guess I just don't care about having access to every character when I play a game. I don't try to unlock every character in LoL or Warframe, and hell even in pokemon I usually stick with a team of 6. Getting a new character every 2 months or so from the free currency in gachas just doesn't feel to me like that much of a gameplay impact. Especially when the only difficult content in the game that arguably needs meta builds is like a 10 minute fight every month that rewards you with a single roll and has no impact on story like Genshin lmao

Ultimately even after defending gachas for so long I still prefer real games that you pay once for and own forever, but I don't think you can really compare games that are meant to keep updating forever to games that are meant to be a self-contained experience. What each type of game is going for is just too different.

Anyway this was just disorganized stream of consciousness spewing thoughts before I go to bed

Sorry

[stopgacha-addiction]

Live Service Games: Addiction, Spending, and End of Service

Over the years, games that run on a server, with microtransactions galore, have become rather popular. Even with kids.

Doesn't matter when or what platform, these kind of games can be traced back almost decades.

2007's Club Penguin? An MMO that thrived on making kids feel bad to where they'd want to do nothing more than spend, spend, spend.

Freemium mobile games like 2013's Love Live! School idol festival or 2021's massively popular Genshin Impact? Gacha-styled games that thrive(d) on making players spend their hard-earned premium currencies on gacha to be the best. And when that ran out, what did they do to stay the best? Oh you know. Spend.

Even many games today follow a similar model.

Release a hit game.

Fill it to the brim with microtransactions and DLC.

Make it so that players have to spend in order to consistently keep the top of the leaderboards. Or, even worse, make it so that players need to pay more than a one-time-fee just to be able to play the game.

Jeez, greedy much?

I'd say so.

On the mobile market, gacha games are sweeping the charts everywhere. You have giants like Genshin Impact, or smaller games that appeal only to particular fanbases like the myriad of games based off of pre-existing properties, like Love Live!.

It's safe to say that gacha games are practically everywhere.

Is that a good thing?

..No. It's not.

Over the years, as the gacha game market has become more saturated, it's become a competition on who can get players to spend the most money before the game ends service. Also known as, "whoops, sorry, you didn't give us enough money so we're going to throw you in the bin! Thank you for playing! Go away."

In a study done in an MPDI article, it was discovered that over half of the sample (44%) spend money on gacha (loot box) purchases, while another 40% gambled online in addition to playing games that basically encourage underage gambling.

It's no brainer that gacha games, filled to the brim with microtransactions and more to make you gamble your life away, contribute heavily to depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. In fact, according to the article (linked above), "The results revealed that adolescents with mobile game addiction had higher depression, social anxiety, and loneliness, which confirmed their three hypotheses regarding the association between mobile game addiction and depression, social anxiety, and loneliness..... In a recent study, it was reported that young adults addicted to video games showed increased depression and anxiety and felt more socially isolated. The link between mobile game addiction and mental health may be a consequence of the social isolation resulting from spending too much time gaming, which, in turn, leads to undermined psychological well-being." ("Addiction and Spending in Mobile Games").

If you look online, even at places like Reddit, you can see that not only young adults, but minors too struggle heavily with mental health, thanks to gacha and live service games.

It hurts to know something you poured so much time and money into is going to shut down someday. Trust me, I know well.

However, it doesn't do you any better, though, to get to a point where you're so addicted that you do so.

Gaming sometimes can help mental health, it can reduce stress and increase happiness. But, once you have some of something, you can't get enough.

And that's the problem.

Every once in a while, gamers need to step back, relax, and re-evaluate what they're doing. If you ask yourself, "is this going to ruin my mental state?" and you scramble to find reasons to prove yourself wrong, that's a problem.

Take a step back from the games, and start to live a little more.

It's not only good for your eyes, but for your muscles and your mental state.

It'll definitely do you some good.

[findingoblivion]

Fallout 3 was an incredible game for its time and while it has its issues and hasn't aged well it's far better than FO76 ever has been and likely ever will be. Fallout 3 has a soul and is a labour of love that shines through. It's a game with many of the things that made Bethesda so popular in the first place. It's a story as much as it is a game and the writing and dialogue are amazing. The core mechanics of the game are great. The places and concept in the game are some of the best of the series.

Fallout 76 doesn't have shit on it. It's an MMO through and through, not a Fallout game. It improves on Fallout 4, but F4 is also a trash game that takes itself far too seriously and buys into the hype from people who loved NV and 3. Because it's an MMO it's even worse as the writing is by no means good and there's little environmental storytelling. It's a huge slog to even get through the game because it's designed so that you can never get ahead of the level curve and have to keep grinding for max efficiency, it's not a game you want to play, it's a game you have to play. And Lordy is the progression bad. The perk system is a novel and cool idea, except it's just loot boxes all over again, yet another gacha-lite that makes it so you need multiple copies of things to even start to do what you want. Fallout 3 isn't perfect. But it's a hell of a lot better than 76.

I've been kinda beating around this in a couple of posts lately but i may as well just make a post specifically about it.

If you were disappointed in Fallout 76, that is your fault.

I'm not here to defend that game. I'm here to say that every aspect of what a trainwreck it was was knowable in advance. ESO was a disaster on release, Bethesda's contempt for lore and theme was well-established, and even the canvas bag fiasco has a precedent (Nuka Dark, anyone?)

Is it good? No, it sucks, but dear god why would you expect it to be good?

Anyway Fallout 3 was worse.

[alfredsoldmanor]

Genshin vs. Tower of Fantasy - Preliminary Thoughts

I've been on ToF for two days now, and I'm also a Genshin player since its early days. I play mostly on mobile; I have not yet been able to play ToF on PC since it came out on a weekday.  Some thoughts.

1. I have always been of the opinion that the ability to customize the main character's appearance and clothes was the number one thing that I wanted and Genshin did not have. So I was anticipating ToF a great deal. The character customization did not disappoint;  I was able to make a creepy but cute unsmiling cybernetic shota with one human eye and one very inhuman eye. Oh and hair that shades from crimson through purple to blue. He's unique and 100% me. The PC clothes are all good looking and easily customizable.  

2. The servers are bad.  Bad that I have to make sure that I'm on the same server as people from /r/GenshinGays I want to play with, bad that I have to reroll and start from the beginning on each server I join, and really really bad that I need to wait for 30 minutes before I can start playing because the server is overcrowded (the hourlong estimates are never actually true, but the actual waits are still not really acceptable long term).  Here ToF differentiated themselves from Genshin by going MMO with servers, when copying Genshin (single player worlds, with interaction taking place by jumping into one person's world) would have actually made for a much better experience. Mind you, I was not a day one player of Genshin, I started a month after launch.  So jank may have been ironed out before I started.

3. Exploration and combat really feel like Tencent looked at Genshin Impact, copied the UI, then said "how can we change this enough so that we don't infringe on MiHoYo's copyright?"  This is actually fine to me as a consumer; Genshin combat is fun, and the differences only make things more interesting.  Swimming as a male is much less frustrating in ToF then in Genshin.  That's a little thing, but it's noticeable. OTOH time gating chests is 😡🤬😡.

4. NPCs look much better in TOF than in Genshin, while gacha PCs look a little bit worse - ToF's Diluc clone is clearly inferior to the real thing.   The overall environment is essentially just as good looking in both games IMHO.  Of course, background NPCs will need to share a common model, but even very important NPCs in Genshin share the same generic models as the vendors and people walking around.  In ToF plot-important NPCs look as good as the PCs.  And even the more generic ToF NPCs are more interesting then Genshin's IMHO.  

5. On the other had the English voice acting in ToF is atrocious and often does not match the subtitles. I'm considering switching to JP voices, which I generally **never** do when English is an option.

6. The ratio of waifus to husbandos is much worse in ToF than in Genshin Impact.  But that matters a lot less when the waifus are just skins, and you can use their weapon without using them or looking at them.  90% of the time I will probably use my own PC, not the gacha skin, even when the weapon comes with a husbando.  

7. I haven’t gotten far enough in ToF to experience PVP or manditory co-op, so I can’t really speak to how those aspects make the game more or less fun for me.

All in all I am still undecided about whether I want to go over to ToF full time, drop ToF when Sumeru releases in Genshin, or try to keep playing both games.

[genshinconfessions]

I had my expectations low as I've said and it's like, I don't know. I feel thankful they're giving us anything at all. They update consistently with story, and there's always an event going on.

I think people who rush through the story and the events and everything are the ones that complain about no endgame content. It's the same for a (real) MMO that I play, people rush through the MSQ & the raids and then complain there's nothing but leveling, even though there's... so much to do in that game. Much more than Genshin, too.

People feel very entitled. I once fought with someone about how whales would appreciate free things too. He kept insisting he was a whale (but he... isn't, by the definition of the term) and he was specifically talking about the community event rewards. He was saying it's stupid that it's a lottery and just for only 300 primos etc because every whale would appreciate 300 primos. And it was so strange to me. Like in what universe would a whale really care about a free month of Welkin? If I was a whale (I'm a dolphin), and I had enough disposable income to be a whale, I would be like, wow! free things! but that's about it. Like I wouldn't be disappointed to not get the thing worth 5$ if I'm spending so much more all the time, but I also wouldn't pass it up if I did end up getting it.

One of my friends and I were talking today and she feels the same way. Like we're both over caring about anniv. rewards solely because the fandom keeps talking about how disappointing it is. They're review bombing genshin in playstore, for instance, demanding things. But yet they will still continue to play the game. It's such a weird feeling because if I don't like playing something or don't like the ideals behind a company, I will stop playing.

The same friend mentioned how people feel this way because they're addicted to the gacha and they're only playing the game to wish as the "endgame". Like they only want to wish on every banner or something. And I know that feeling - I was addicted to one gacha a few years ago (and I could have been considered a whale then). It got so bad that I had to stop playing the game I loved so much because I loved all the characters and the stories, but I literally would just keep charging just because of the thrill. It's gambling addiction and it's real and it's perhaps even worse because you don't receive anything physical in return sometimes, like a casino.

Anyway, man. I really love this new event. I love the story so much! Xiangling doesn't get a lot of time in game for the most part, so I'm excited to see her back. And Baizhu and Hu Tao!!! Two of my favorites!!!!! I also like all the interactions from characters from a different angle, like Ningguang and Beidou! And Keqing and Xiangling are sooo cute. I'm also excited to see more adepti... So honestly, I'm having a good anniversary, and I hope everyone else does too!!!

- SusZhongli

people complain how genshin has a cap limit on resin or how they wont give more discounts for the anniversary or about their gacha system, but then simultaneously complain about how genshin doesnt care about them. like as you said gachas can get really addicting and you end up just pumping out money and time, so genshins resin caps and their lack of discounting the paid content to attract more buyers is a sign to me that they do care about their players. i assume they do this so people wont become ridiculously addicted and its to help people who have that problem with gacha games. the game tries to get you to focus on the story aspects and all the other content and the resin caps and lack of discounts i think are because of that. honestly the pity system on genshin's banners are really nice too because you know exactly what youre getting since theres a 50/50 which doesnt exist in a lot of gachas. so even if you do want to spend money on a character you at least know to only spend up to 90 wishes at a time. so yeah i think they arent doing discounts or giving more resin or doing something with the gacha for the anniversary because they actually do care about their players and dont want people with addictions to go around blowing so much money away. at the same time they are giving free stuff, just not as much as what everyone wants. people are greedy and weird i dont know why they keep playing either. couldnt be me i stop playing genshin when i get bored of it and then play again when i want to because its a relaxing and pretty game. its not meant to be stressful this fandom is just on straight crack.

- keith

.

sighhh. i really am tired of this debate (nothing against you, suszhong! you just happened to send this in right after we said no more hAHA).

i would encourage everyone to look at this post by @/dainsloaf.diary on instagram. it's just a thread on how many primogems these content creators (and the majority of them are whales) actually get. in particular, tectone received 15k primos (and possibly more). he spends a lot on gacha games, but that's his problem. if i was getting 15k+ primos just for promoting this game, i wouldn't be complaining at all.

no, i don't like tectone, and this reply was indeed meant to criticize him, but not for his person, only for his hypocrisy.

- katheryne from liyue

[zelskzerker]

Mangadex went down so I read alot 1/7

Lets review a bunch of isekai and related stuff I binged because mangadex went down. The scale will be a single thumbs up to a single thumbs down in terms of how much I would consider recommending it in general.

Legend

Chapters 1-51 Pretty straight forward in most aspects. For the best. Nothing crazy bad or good happening, making it surprisingly straight forward for an isekai. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC is given a super magic body and the knowledge of ancient magic. Which he promptly uses to create a griffon buddy. Gets a THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER for just being a nice, believable stay in a world, but I have read some stuff that really has interesting sparks the way this doesnt. MC is brutal at times and General Princess is cute. They make a good pair for each other.  Although there are no ecchi situations, that artist really knows how to slide in the lewds, whether its mid combat flourishes or pre chapter artwork.

The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated

All Chapters

Truly is revolting. A resounding THUMBS DOWN.  Apparently this was just an advertisement manga, which means that its intentionally incomplete and unsatisfying. Ontop of that, the sketchy artwork was generally rough and got worse to look at the more it went on. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time he has a grimoire that lets him summon stuff he draws. The power isn’t used that much though or in that creative of ways. Characters didn’t really leave an impact except maybe the elf little sister that is stubborn yet knows she is incompotent and recruits a dragon out of stubbornness. 

Minotaur’s Sweetheart

Chapters 1-16

So what if a minotaur accidentally seduced the adventurer that was assigned to kill him? This is a good romance manga deserving a THUMBS UP because the pure-hearted minotaur boy and the unmarriageable adventurer girl actually develop a relationship and progress as people. The manga is ultimately about monsters and humans interacting and is fresh due to having a plot that evolves the situation a lot beyond the initial setup of the manga.

Moon-led Journey Across Another World

Chapters 1-64

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time the god of the new world calls the MC ugly and banishes him to the edge of the world to die off. In order to help out the MC, the god of our world (Tsukuyomi) gives him a bit of power. The MC is funny to watch once you realize that he is an incredibly cautious pureboy and expecting every common street thug to potentially end him but in reality he is a god-rivaling cataclysm himself and never realizes. He is so powerful that he recruits the blue haired mist dragon, Tomoe, and accidentally turns her into a weeaboo. Tomoe can read minds and access pocket space with her mist ontop of her sick weeaboo katana skills. She really shines as the most mature person in the story, gaining information that no one else in the story has and carefully withholding it from the MC in order to protect his innocence. She is a DAMN good tomboyish waifu and sarashii is a blessing. Other main girl is yandere spider, Mio, which has shockingly good and well conveyed bouts of emotion. She has an extremely rare “can’t cook at all” joke that is explained due to her “eat literally anything” nature. In terms of plot, the MC hates the god of the world he is in and pretty much plans to do everything she doesn’t want him to. Which means mingling with humans, and eventually, god slaying/usurption. Odd think about this manga is that it’s heavily Japanese-inspired. That may sound odd because its a manga, but generally isekai are most medieval/western skinned than this one which leans in on Japanese mythos. Just look at the god of our world in the manga.

THUMBS UP.

The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~

Chapter 1-10 So lets set up this genre here. This is a part of the “reincarnation” genre, which is a spinoff of isekai. They generally depict a very capable mage who reincarnates themselves into the future of their own world. At which point they realize that although they were pretty strong in their day, they are now practically a god in the deteriorated modern day. This genre will hereby be indicated by [Insert reincarnation startup here]. For this manga in specific, [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC could only use lightning magic and was the best at it but failed the gene gacha then [Insert reincarnation startup here] and he fails gene gacha again but is still the walking thunder god. These kinds of manga are always precious when the MC can walk through the world and see the fruits of their past labor. Specifically through Merlin, the MC’s adopted demon daughter who has grown up to be his heritor and bridge human/demon relationships. Truly adorable and heart warming. Lacks a bit of spice from themeing or ongoing plot due to its short length however. THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me

Chapters 1-17.1

THUMBS UP. This is an oneshota manga where shota is a chad with incredibly good tastes. A really good ecchi manga with a light hearted story featuring Haru(the shota) knight that joins Karen’s(the oneesan) knight crew. As with all good romance manga, the main plot isn’t romance. Knight shenanigins are always happening, with a big (and lewd) bad entering recently. Top tier variation on the lewds, even including a princess loli in on the fun. Must read for all oneshota fans.

Lonely Attack on A Different World

Chapter 1-91

[Insert isekai startup forma de classroom here] but this time the MC gets leftover garbage skills and has to learn to survive. Learning to survive thus makes him the most op and he can magic trick his way out of literally anything. Strong start as the whole classroom first tries to get their footing, but after the starting arc is done this manga starts spinning it’s wheels. The manga is kinda lacking in themes, overarching plot and end goals, so stuff just happens to make this a sort of slice of life trap room escape manga. Magic “just works” in this universe so its not very dramatic when the MC pulls out a new trick out of his bag of million tricks. Just kinda stagnates too much for my liking. THUMB IN THE BOTTOM CORNER.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Chapters 1-34

Rentt Faina, the MC, is a good guy with no talent who aspires to be a legendary adventurer. But then he gets turned into a skeleton, giving the chance to evolve his way to greatness, kinda like in Spider isekai or Dragon isekai. The MC is most like Goblin Slayer in his serious and knowledgeable approach to the world, how characters that know him revere him. End goal so far is just him seeing how far he can evolve as he comes across other vampires and vampire hunters. Really want to see him go to the top. Fuckin great art. Girls drawn perfect. Like the hat on the guild girl, but nothing beats the witch Lorraine. THUMBS UP.

Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan

Chapters 1-13

THUMB IN UPPER CORNER. Pretty funny comedy about a lord of a poor land who wants to be a stereotypical evil lord but can only use healing magic. Therefore he bumbles his way into accepting a heretical cult nun, beast men who hate humans, etc. All the girls are to crazy for him to want to sex them(weak. give the assassin nun your babies). Most interesting parts are aforementioned nun, his fujoshi assistant, and the MC’s willingness to use his power to commit heretical and immoral warcrimes. 

The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness

Chapters 1-11

Art average, don’t come to this one for spectacle. It’s strength is in the subertfuge that it’s recently-necromanced-back-to-life MC goes through to get his Master killed and to later, probably, evolve into a vampire. MC isn’t evil though, just wants to survive. Main girl on cover was born and raised to hunt vampires but has a compassionate heart. Obviously she goes easy on and relates to MC. Story is still kinda in it’s first arc so the overall trajectory of the story is a bit hard to gauge and not quite satisfying enough by its own right. Probably a thumb up with more chapters but for now THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman

Chapters 1-38

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time.... uh... THUMB SIDEWAYS. Usually I am patient, but 31 chapters with no goal and just barely plot? Wow. Saving grace is uh... I guess the world of “other isekai people existed but they sucked because they didn’t level uncap like MC” could go somewhere but. I take it back, lowering this one to a THUMB DOWN.

The Invincible Sage in the Second World.

Chapters 1-12

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time a pro mmo player in a game called “Broken Balance Online.” Guess what his class, the sage class, was considered in the game? Not far along enough to really pop off but it isn’t horrible. MC is moderately cautious to a healthy degree which is actually rare in most isekai. THUMB IN BOTTOM LEFT CORNER. 

The Dark Queen and I Strike Back

Chapters 1-29.5

Although technically an isekai, no isekai startup here. This a battle manga with a big mystery on the backdrop of a war. That is to say, the MC gets teleported to a world to kill the demons but he ends up defending them from the humans with all he’s got. Of special note is the complete seriousness of this manga that whiplashes into debauchery like tentacles, the above cover, oneshota, and even really dark jokes in some of the omake. That tonal lash effect will be either make or break, and it is a HUGE make for me. I love when a single piece can have both absolute serious scenes and utterly lighthearted and fluffy ones. Or in this case utterly lewd ones. May the average-human-amount-of-perverted MC one day slam some demon lord loli. THUMBS UP.

Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

Chapters 1-24

THUMB SIDEWAYS. Has the feeling of a nerfed slime isekai. Nerfed in all ways except romance. Art surprisingly good.

[ikari-eu]

This comment being translated to ENG would be something like this: "Without an option to write in Chat... I'm bored with no option to flame". This is what someone did show me by random. It was from a moba.

And then ppl ask me why I don't play Multiplayer/Competitive games. Well... my personal reasons:

• I see Wailords/Smurfs everywhere!: Imagine a Whale paradise. The water is the game and they are happy, predating on smaller fish. Yeah. Smurfs are another kind of thing. Evil blue-skinned creatures that can't win on their own level/need attention and gets cocky bcs they just stomped a newbie. Wow, congratulations! You did prove your mental maturity! :D If someone is better/worse than you at some game so what? I know that even having 1cc'ed many Touhou games I can't even compare with so many people at that. And you don't even need to. Are you enjoying? Videogames are for that. (To those who are toxic with newbies) Instead of saying idiocies like "git gud" you should be giving advices to newbies. Or are you 5 years old yet?

• Balanced!: I don't tend to value pvp/ranks because of such things like the ones before and the power creep/bad balance that normally exist on the games. Well much people talk about "Perfect Imbalance" which I personally imo (yes, imo so dont kill me thank you) call "Perfect lie." Why? The argument is "if it's static it will become boring". I would answer "It will become boring anyway if ppl plays always 10 from 50 things -to give an example- so it would be less bored if... (call me crazy) you could play 40+ from 50?" And the power creep with generally """""more complex effects"""" (yeasuretheyusuallyareawallotextwith9999chainedeffectsfrombefore). Balance is a word that is 666 for those things. I've seen that. Rare is the contrary case. In some cases is a cash grab like gachas or some mmos. In other cases there is a flawed matchmaking that reacts if you have a winning streak. You probably think. "If you are good you climb" if it's a thing like a moba. But... please ♡ have the same measure way with yourself and don't call your mates retarded if you can't climb your division okay?~ It's an ugly thing to be like that with low placed ppl and then if you lose you don't apply that sentence in yourself because... oh I see you are special :3.

• If you don't value pvp then?... : Time-consuming. If you are a 15 yrs old you'll of course have plenty of time. But say to a 20+years old that have responsabilities in life to find time for just one game to keep yourself in a max f2p path existing plenty of other games. Playing videogames shouldn't be a job except if you become pro (scene that in most cases won't happen)

• Toxics! :D: You did see my translation at the start of the post~. Ppl who did study anthropology and psychologist would sure be in a proper environment to research but most of us would prefer to conserve our sanity. Chat can be disabled and in games like Competitive Pokemon you can just ignore and play but in a Team game well~ you better get popcorn and take this like a meme. Just enjoy and laugh! Anyway I'm kinda a hermit since massified communities have become radioactive in many cases like no one can say anything except for some counted cases.

After my general thoughts I will conclude that playing SHMUP/BHells or Mega Man saga, or Metal Slug, etc etc... is still a skill-demanding thing, but in a much more healthier way for me. If you enjoy those games I don't tend to have for much time, allright, is your time after all. But I won't play them no matter how much my friends want to drag me. Sorry :'D. I don't feel comfy among people who don't respect.