Playing Arknights in 2019 and now means having two completely different experiences. By now, threads and talkpoints are kind of taking their time being developed, in a never ending, as the cool kids say, yapping. They, them characters, do yap, in this game. If you're not willing to read, the game's main motif of interest is not for you.

Who knows what the future will hold, with gacha games being a commodity not in short supply and ending as soon as the interest wanes, but thematically we're kind of passing the baton to the new generation, thanks to events like The Rides to Lake Silberneherze but especially thanks to Lone Trail. Terra is a hellish place, but the writing does the place justice by offering different perspectives of what life means, what hope is, what different societies do with a never ending source of pain, Oripathy, which we, as a pharmaceutical company and defense contractor, do kind of offer solace from. 2024 might be an awkward moment to start playing this game, but its different events and a multitude of stories, characters and themes all intersecting and weaving their way towards the future have left a mark. Sometimes the writing's goofy, but when it hits, it hits, hard.

I have a hole School Idol Festival left; unwilling to let go, I was looking for other things to keep me busy, occupied, up at night when the sweet release of sleep from consciousness would not come, especially during hard times like the pandemic. Arknights is not a rhythm game, it's a tower defense game, awkward to play, not always clear in its intent and definitely not balanced. There are operators who are better than others and the odds are mostly stacked against newcomers.

I just hope this hole won't be left vacant, again. I wish I could be younger again and never instruct my neurons to hold information such as Texas mommy and Bagpipe lemmy, but here we are. It's my brainrot and I do, as I please, anything I want with it.

Also it's kinda fucked how Gummy, balanced and good in everything Defender operator, was replaced by Myrtle, a DP printing machine, in the beginners' case, this is a scenario where if anything is too broken, the designers have the moral obligation to break anything else to balance it out and cater content to a demographic, in this case redirecting the newcomers towards a certain frowned upon gameplay loop. Please just don't bother with the meta, there's a world of hurt there and the grind necessary to even glance the thing isn't worth it in my opinion.

one of my favourite universes with one of my favourite compositions, character designs and more- for a game that I'm particularly not fond of.
I played this game for so long, and I genuienly thing arknights's story is some of the most fun, and original to delve into- theres nothing like arknights lore out there, but i am not a fan of tower defenses, i could stick for it because of the amount of interactivity, i wish arknights was just a real game instead of a gacha- because honestly like i absoluetly would love to enter into a yapping contest about just this game
if you chill with gachas more though, it is more generous than the average game, but it is not the most generous gacha out there either. check it out, and hey, maybe you'll like it ; it's free so it doesn't hurt trying

Gameplay is fairly fun but I hate how grindy it is.

I wouldn't mind the grind if I wasn't gated by the energy system. It's incredibly annoying as to why both progression, story--everything is barred by this energy system.

I wouldn't recommend this for those that like to play games in long sessions.

Possibly the greatest gacha game in terms of worldbuilding and rich original creative history and lore, it features some of the best-designed characters I've seen, amazing top-notch tower defense combat, and the widest range of music and lore of practically any game I've ever played. From Mafia, Gangsters, Prison Break, Fire Fest, Bloodborne, NFL, China, and Brazil (props to Haedal for the naming lol 😂) but seriously this game is a gold mine, and since the gacha is so forgiving I don't even think it's much of a downside.
The game also has practically all genres of music from rap (yes, I mean actual authentic western rap one of the characters in the game even has a shirt based on Tupac), Opera, Pop rock, Orchestral, etc etc

you baby gays are so fucking stupid istg. i'm so SICK of your tourists stealing our BL ships from our culture for your colonizer bullshit. you CANNOT claim to enjoy yaoi and then go around to ship those men with women THAT'S NOT WHAT THESE STORIES ARE FOR LEAVE HET OUT OF BL WOMEN DO NOT DESERVE TO BE AROUND GAY SHIPS. and the way you go around whoring out tequila to every characters in arknights without proper tagging is so INFURIATING. you don't like TEQLUMEN you like LUMENQUILA. THE TOP'S NAME IS SUPPOSED TO ALWAYS GO BEFORE THE BOTTOM'S IN THE SHIP NAME. THEY'RE DIFFERENT. SHIPS. THE DYNAMICS ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BETWEEN THE TWO. and i didn't even begin on how you completely ruin these characters for your dumb shipping agenda. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE HAD TO SEE TOP LUMEN BECAUSE OF YOU? LUMEN! IS! NOT! A! TOP!!!!! making tequila act so weak just so lumen can be a top is so pathetic did you even read the story do you actually know what BL is supposed to be like?? TAKE YOUR FUCKING FAKE YAOI BAKE WHERE YOUR SHITTY AKTWT CIRCLE CAME FROM AND LEAVE ACTUAL FUJOSHIS ALONE

Arknights is probably the best gacha game I've played purely in terms of production value and player retention. It has avoided many of the pitfalls that other games fell into over the years, and I've been pretty into it ever since the global server came out.

I find Arknights pretty hard to review because the game is always being updated and changed, and to really review it I need to generalize a lot. Bear with that.

What I love about Arknights more than anything is the character designs. Due to the game's world, Terra, being wildly diverse and taking a lot from our world, many playable characters and NPCs have tons of awesome designs that scratch every type of itch someone may have. You like streetwear? Done. You like knights? Done. You like officer worker mercenaries? Done. A design will eventually catch someone's eye.

The storyline. Note, I actually kind of hate the game's main story, where Arknights really shines is in it's side events that flesh out side characters and the world as a whole. These things are long. Like REALLY long. It's insane how much story they cram into some of these, it's even more insane that they're all written so well. Of course, some miss the mark or have their issues, but I've been satisfied with them generally, there are very few event stories I genuinely regret reading. This extends to character writing and world building, since characters come from all walks of life, tons of tropes and character personalities are there. The variety is very nice, and most characters have some complexity to them.

Third, the gameplay. Arknights is very unique, it's a tower defense gacha. The characters you roll are essentially towers that you place, letting their AI do the rest with you activating skills or placing down other units. The game does have a small powercreep issue, and many of the lower rarity characters lose their niche pretty easily. Thoguh I'd say Arknights is better than most gachas, broken units don't seem to shatter the game too much overall. (There are a few exceptions to this.)

Lastly the music. MMmmmm. That's some good shit. Go to Youtube right now and listen to some of it. The variety continues here, music matching where in Terra an event or battle is taking place, or maybe it's just gonna be some sick ass electronic music, who cares it's all fire.

Now, some criticism. The challenge content in this game is getting a little ridiculous. I understand challenge is in the name, but I generally don't like how Arknights handles difficulty longterm. Just stacking more HP or damage onto enemies without much else. There also have been some seriously scummy practices done by the devs, which is expected from gachas, but Arknights used to carry itself much better, now we get limited time units all the time, and a lot of harder content essentially demands the most OP units or a video walkthrough just to find any success. Lastly I mentioned this before but I do not like the main story. Mostly a personal thing but I find it annoying because I always love the side events so much.

Overall, Arknights is probably one of the most important games to me. It's art style and storytelling is unreal to me, and I do think it has wider appeal outside of gacha losers like me. I got many of my friends to try the game and they all liked it a lot.

I don't recommend gachas easily, but please try Arknights. It's free, do not spend any fucking money on it.

Hab mich das erste mal getraut ein Handy-Gacha zu probieren weil ich ein Fanart mochte.
Habs son bisschen gespielt, hab son bisschen gegrindet, hatte auch echt Spaß dabei, hab son paar gute Pulls gehabt, hatte nie das Verlangen echtes Geld auszugeben und weil ich unendlich sparen müsste bis ich mir endlich einen dieser 10-Pulls holen könnte, hab ich das interesse verloren.

Fantastisches Genre was ihr da habt, guys!

Ansonsten, fun kleines Tower Defense Game. Gute Artworks. Finds unfair, dass all die besten Character Designer der Industrie nun dafür arbeiten PNGs in Kisten ziehen zu dürfen.

An engaging tower defense combined with incredible novels, of which new ones release every few months. The lore of Arknights's world is breathtaking and an inspiration, the characters are wonderfully complex, and the OST is full of bangers. It's just such an incredibly pity that all of this good -- all of this greatness, even -- is stuck inside a gacha game that wants to suck out all of your time and your money.

Spend any large amount of time in this game and you'll feel the rot flow through you like you've also contracted the rock cancer. This is not a recommendation. I can't recommend any gacha game in good faith. If you ever find yourself Berenstein Bear'd into a grand reality where Arknights is a timeless singleplayer joint tower defense-visual novel game franchise, please play it then.