I like Honkai Star Rail, it is from the developers of Genshin Impact, but unlike Genshin, it is turned based so the grind is automatic(plus has others quality of life features). So i only have to actively play the actual content.
I think the production values are very high, especially for a mobile game. The story and characters are decent. The english localization(it’s a chinese game) is probably the best there is. And finally the music is insane. Hoyoverse is a music company that just happens to make videogames on the side.
What really blew my mind about Star Rail, was the fight against the final boss of the ice planet(second world, after the tutorial one). That was some anime good shit, definitely one of the hypest gaming moments ever and i have played thousands of games. The music they used and how it synced with the gameplay, perfect, absolutely perfect. You can watch this vod of a giant weeb playing the final fight, if you dont care about spoilers or dont intent do play the game(25mins in starts the hype part, though it is worth watching the entire video for context).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnoJFHa4JA
The space china world was kinda mediocre but the new Dream/Inception/Las Vegas world is pretty cool. Here is the trailer for this world(this song would have easily won Eurovision this year)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7W8QR9fsFw
And the trailer for the latest character(least schizo HSR character, persona references, etc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC6wQ-75uQU
I guess the most impressive thing about the game is how much content and care has been put into this game. You have pc/console AAA GaS games, which produce very little new seasonal content, no cool trailers, etc. And you have this, till a few years ago random, chinese developer producing high quality content and advertising all the time, they just never miss. And of course now they can do that, they make a billion+ dollars a year but even with Genshin, they are just too good, not just for mobile games but as games.
And it is pretty f2p friendly.
There’s just one gacha game I play called Genshin Impact; but I ignore its gacha aspect entirely. Used to play way more until I finished the story and made all my characters level 90 + level 20 artifacted, nowadays I play it when a new update comes, complete the story quests and quit until next update. There really isn’t much point.
I have 35k primos, 35 purple pulls, 70 blue pulls and still haven’t pulled any aside from the beginner banner. The free characters that comes with events feel more than enough, but finding weapons is a bit difficult.
Maybe I will start pulling after the storyline ends; but it doesn’t seem likely that it will anytime soon. I don’t get why some people pay so much for this game.
Summoners War. Played for years, gave it up, got back into it recently. Very very good gacha game. Plenty of PvE to keep you coming and working towards something, plenty of great characters with awesome skins, TONNES of free stuff and 3-4 events running parallel at all times, booming community, and a very deep PvP scene if that’s your forte when you want to use the hard work you’ve done in PvE. Can recommend if you’re one for the gacha mobile games.
Any NSFW game that begs you for money to progress without grind
I enjoy Super Mecha Champions. It is a gacha game, but its gameplay is actually pretty good. Its a battle royale where you can summon mecha mid-battle. Not a whole lot of players these days, but TDM is bussin around 2pm PST and every week has two pinnacle games where players compete for a special title that expires each week.
