Princess Connect! Re:Dive (2018)
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Publisher: Cygames
Developer: Cygames
Producer: Yuito Kimura
Platform: Android/iOS
Overview:
An amnesiac knight with the ability to draw out girls' latent abilities is at the center of a plot involving the true nature of the world.
Gameplay:
The core gameplay is fairly simple. You put together a team of five characters and send them out into battle. They only thing you control is when to deploy their special attacks, but even this can be automated. Your main task is managing the growth of the characters.
Characters come in three roles: Attack, Defense and Support. They are then divided between physical and magical types and their position in the ranks: Front, Center and Back. The max character level is the same as the player's level. Star level is associated with a character's rarity. The highest rarity a character can start with is three stars. You can upgrade a character's star level by collecting Memory Pieces for that character. Increasing star level carries with it a stat boost. Each character can be outfitted with six pieces of equipment and once you complete a set, you increase their Rank. At Rank 4 they unlock their second ability and at Rank 7 their EX Skill, which is stat boost that either doubles down on their strength or shores up a weakness. Furthermore, equipment can be strengthened to increase their stats. There is also Bond Rank, which opens up character episodes. One- and two-star characters stop at Bond Rank 7, but at three stars they can go all the way to Bond Rank 8. Certain characters also have special weapon that they can unlock at Rank 7 that will boost one of their abilities.
The core action is in the main quest. On Normal difficulty, the quests open up episodes in the main story. On Hard difficulty, you can get Memory Pieces, which is important for upgrading your characters. As you advance you open up other modes. Exploration allows you to collect experience potions and mana (but only two runs for each type of quest per day). The dungeon is a series of battles with good rewards if you can survive long enough. Hallowed Ruins Exploration can net you the valuable Princess Hearts for special weapon unlocks. Clan Battle pits your guild against high-level monsters during a limited run. The Battle Arena lets you challenge other players' teams on a single basis while the Princess Arena uses three teams. You will also have special events during the month, usually one story event and Luna Tower, which is similar to the Dungeon, a gauntlet of over 100 floors.
The Guild House is mostly just for show, a place for you to decorate and watch your characters interact. Whereas Mana is the main currency for upgrades and the like, the gold you earn is used to buy furniture and BGM tracks. A few pieces of furniture are actually functional, yielding stamina, Mana, experience potions, and skip tickets. These can be upgraded as you level (except for the pieces you get as a reward for clearing the Dungeons). As you progress in the main quest, you eventually open up the second and third floors (the latter actually reveals some major plot points).
The shop comes in several types, most of which open up as you unlock different modes. The main shop sells experience potions and refinement crystals for mana. Four others let you trade in the medals from Dungeons, the Battle Arena, the Princess Arena, and Clan Battles for equipment and Memory Pieces. As you play, the limited shop may open up, where you have ten minutes to buy a selection of experience potions and equipment. While the main shop replenishes its stock three times a day, the others replenish only once per day.
As you should be expecting, there is a gacha feature. The Normal gacha gives you two free pulls of materials per day, while the Platinum and Pickup gacha are for characters. The cast is actually fairly small, so you'll quickly collect all the one- and two-star characters, while the three-stars are more elusive. You will get a special item called Goddess Gems for characters you already have and they can be traded in for Memory Pieces in the shop to upgrade the characters in your roster. It's worth noting that if you collect enough Memory Pieces (such as from Hard quests), you can unlock any of the main cast members, which is a nice feature. Limited characters are excluded, though, so I would advise saving your crystals for banners that feature characters you won't otherwise be able to get. Oh, yes, the gacha does differentiate between that crystals you get for free and the ones you pay for, so be mindful of that.
Story/Characters:
This game is actually a sequel to the original Princess Connect!, which ran from 2015 to 2016. It's no longer available and the game doesn't expect you to have played it. That's no doubt the main reason they chose to have the main character (Yuuki by default) be amnesiac. However, he doesn't just have amnesia. Based on his actions, he appears to have severe brain damage. I guess this gives the girls an excuse to dote on him. Besides a few dialog/action choices, he has no lines and honestly, if it wasn't for the influence of his power, you could write him out and lose very little.
The cast of characters is almost exclusively female, not surprising as its predecessor was a "gal game". Most are appealing, but a number of them don't have much depth to them. Take Miyako, for instance. She's a spoiled brat who like purin. That's just about it. When you have characters that are allowed to develop outside their stock types, they're generally quite good. Oh, and of course they're all in love with the MC to varying degrees. All ships are canon, I suppose. This isn't something that's particularly new to Japanese media or even Cygames in particular. The original game's core trio of Rei, Yui and Hiyori have mostly been superseded by the new trio of Pecorine, Kokkoro and Kyaru, but provided you develop your characters, they get their share of screentime not only in the main story, but also in the character episodes, guild episodes and events.
Graphics:
This is a game with some quality production values. Everything is bright, colorful and easy on the eyes. Character designs are appealing and in-game models look quite good. It's also nice how big the models are onscreen compared to most mobile games. We also get animated sequences courtesy of Wit Studio, which are quite nice. Even little things like giving the characters lip flaps during dialog sections is a nice touch.
Music/Sound:
The music is solid. The main theme has a Sakura Taisen vibe to it, which is fairly appropriate thematically (also, it was composed by Kohei Tanaka). I kinda wish the ED for the episodes wasn't so idol pop, but whatever. We also have an all-star voice cast, so don't be surprised to see a number of your favorites. All of the dialog sequences are fully voiced, so it's clear that Cygames spared no expense.
Conclusion:
This is a really fun game. It's as simple as that. It doesn't have the same depth of gameplay as Granblue Fantasy, but if you enjoy raising characters and latch on to the cast, you're sure to enjoy yourself. It's definitely worth getting.
Rating:
Own It