Every time I see a cool gacha game, I think to myself:
"Wow, you look amazing. I just wish you weren't a gacha."
Because in truth, I like the core of most gacha games. Most of them have a ton of character options, satisfying progression, deep character building, and enough content to bury myself under.
But they're gachas. Live service trash. I hate dailies, folks. Gambling, too. And FOMO. So I try not to play them, because I find the genre ontologically evil. That's not even getting into my own issues with impulse control and my vulnerability to time-blackholes like VS-clones
I also, for the longest time, held a grudge against this game. Why? Because it's good. It is really good. The MMX formula should not translate this well to a mobile title, and the roster on display is obscene for a fan of the entire IP - like me!
But again, gacha.
So, looping back, I repeatedly said "Wow, MMX Dive looks amazing. I just wish it wasn't a gacha". I've said this about other gacha games, of course, but for the first time ever my prayer was answered.
MMX Dive Offline is, in most respects, just another MMX game. The jump 'n' shoot formula is still there basically untouched, just adapted for a game with a huge roster. Levels are a bit straightforward at first, but once the story hits the ZX levels it's just straight up from there quality-wise. Bosses, too, are surprisingly well thought out for a game like this. Getting my ass savaged by Magma Dragoon was almost nostalgic.
Where this game really shines, though, is in its adaptation of gacha mechanics for a 'real' game. It has all of the good bits (tons of options to stick into a build, relative ease of upgrading, character exclusive shit, lots of weapons) without most of the bad shit. There's no daily-capped events or FOMO shit and the rate of drops has been buffed exponentially compared to the live version... but there is one little gripe I have. Namely, that a lot of the resources required for gear enhancement do come from event stages, and while these are available indefinitely they also tend to be deeply repetitive or worse; easy. Still, it's minor in the grand scheme of things.
If you've read this far you might be wondering what replaced the actual gacha system. It's just currency, now. Most characters/weapons are available for Zeni (which drops in bulk) or Element Metal, which gates off stronger characters and weapons. You get all of these in substantial amounts just by gunning the story, and dipping into side stuff will hoist even more on you.
There is one caveat though. For the sake of balance, most stronger characters are story-gated. You cannot, for instance, immediately buy Bass XX or DiVE Armor X at the start of the game. No, you're gated to relatively less powerful characters. This was expected, since all gachas suffer hardcore power creep, but if you're buying into this in the hopes of getting a certain character, you may have to sink some time into the game.
That all said though, I'm in love with this game. The only part I particularly dislike is the story, but it's thankfully extraneous and every cutscene has a skip button.
This review is flagged as 'completed' because I just gunned the main story, but there are a ton of events ahead, to say nothing of challenge mode and the tower climbing mode. I'll be here for a while.
"Wow, you look amazing. I just wish you weren't a gacha."
Because in truth, I like the core of most gacha games. Most of them have a ton of character options, satisfying progression, deep character building, and enough content to bury myself under.
But they're gachas. Live service trash. I hate dailies, folks. Gambling, too. And FOMO. So I try not to play them, because I find the genre ontologically evil. That's not even getting into my own issues with impulse control and my vulnerability to time-blackholes like VS-clones
I also, for the longest time, held a grudge against this game. Why? Because it's good. It is really good. The MMX formula should not translate this well to a mobile title, and the roster on display is obscene for a fan of the entire IP - like me!
But again, gacha.
So, looping back, I repeatedly said "Wow, MMX Dive looks amazing. I just wish it wasn't a gacha". I've said this about other gacha games, of course, but for the first time ever my prayer was answered.
MMX Dive Offline is, in most respects, just another MMX game. The jump 'n' shoot formula is still there basically untouched, just adapted for a game with a huge roster. Levels are a bit straightforward at first, but once the story hits the ZX levels it's just straight up from there quality-wise. Bosses, too, are surprisingly well thought out for a game like this. Getting my ass savaged by Magma Dragoon was almost nostalgic.
Where this game really shines, though, is in its adaptation of gacha mechanics for a 'real' game. It has all of the good bits (tons of options to stick into a build, relative ease of upgrading, character exclusive shit, lots of weapons) without most of the bad shit. There's no daily-capped events or FOMO shit and the rate of drops has been buffed exponentially compared to the live version... but there is one little gripe I have. Namely, that a lot of the resources required for gear enhancement do come from event stages, and while these are available indefinitely they also tend to be deeply repetitive or worse; easy. Still, it's minor in the grand scheme of things.
If you've read this far you might be wondering what replaced the actual gacha system. It's just currency, now. Most characters/weapons are available for Zeni (which drops in bulk) or Element Metal, which gates off stronger characters and weapons. You get all of these in substantial amounts just by gunning the story, and dipping into side stuff will hoist even more on you.
There is one caveat though. For the sake of balance, most stronger characters are story-gated. You cannot, for instance, immediately buy Bass XX or DiVE Armor X at the start of the game. No, you're gated to relatively less powerful characters. This was expected, since all gachas suffer hardcore power creep, but if you're buying into this in the hopes of getting a certain character, you may have to sink some time into the game.
That all said though, I'm in love with this game. The only part I particularly dislike is the story, but it's thankfully extraneous and every cutscene has a skip button.
This review is flagged as 'completed' because I just gunned the main story, but there are a ton of events ahead, to say nothing of challenge mode and the tower climbing mode. I'll be here for a while.