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.
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.