While the gaming community doesn’t look at gacha games too fondly, I can’t deny that I have a soft spot for these games. It’s partly because of the fun RPG based gameplay that these games tend to use. It’s also because of the fun designs of the characters. Finally, I get the gambling thrill without spending any real-life money. Yes, you can play gacha games if the devs are generous enough. Princess Connect! Re:Dive embraces everything I love about the genre, which is why it is my favorite gacha game out right now.

Princess Connect! Re:Dive is the sequel to Princess Connect, a moderately successful gacha game from Cygames. Re:Dive takes the characters from the previous game and builds upon the world and lore. The end result is a fun strategy game that gives players access to tons of characters and modes to play with. The game is currently only in the Japanese language, but stick around! I’ll give you tons of resources to make this game as easy as possible for you to play through. It’s very possible to play Princess Connect without knowing a bit of Japanese. Even better, it’s likely that you will enjoy the game even if you can’t read Japanese.

After picking a party of five, players will send their characters out to battle enemies in 2D environments. What’s interesting about Princess Connect is how passive the gameplay is while still engaging the players. After players choose who is going into battle they will mostly spend the rest of the time watching the characters clash. Players have the option to time when specials are used, but that is it. A level in Princess Connect is decided before the game is even started.

While this sounds awful in practice, there are so many characters with so many skills that deciding who to use is exciting. Unlike most games in the genre, picking five really strong characters isn’t enough to carry players through story content. In fact, having the five best characters from the tier lists won’t even win every level. Instead, players are rewarded for using all of their characters and experimenting with team compositions. Not all DPS’ are equal, and the same goes for tanks and supporters.

Like most fantasy games, there are physical and magical properties. Some damage dealers do physical, others magical. Some tanks handle physical better than others. The buffers and debuffers are capable of tipping the scales as well. There are so many combinations to choose from. Finally figuring out a level that has stumped you for a while is incredibly satisfying.

The understanding of the various characters and their abilities is vital to succeeding in Princess Connect. The basic strategy gameplay can be applied to all of the game modes, including events and PVP. When it comes to the PVP, this is one of the few gacha games where players can still succeed without spending currency. While strong characters can certainly carry players to a certain point, playing against the parties of other players is dependent on bringing counters into the matchup. The events and raids come often, giving players plenty of opportunities to gather resources, currency, and even characters.

These events are just a glimpse at how generous Cygames is. Cygames is a company known for spoiling its players with tons of in-game currency. With games like Shadowverse, Dragalia Lost, and Granblue Fantasy, few mobile game companies have the resume that Cygames has. If you’ve played any of these games, you know how easy it is to be a free-to-play player. In Princess Connect players will get the premium currency needed to summon quite regularly. Completing levels, participating in events and raids, and winning PVP matches will help players pull for characters regularly. Cygames is also known for giving players currency just because. In less than a year of playing, a player will have access to almost every essential character in the game.

Not only is Cygames charitable, but they have created an extraordinary product. The text is fully voiced, the game is full of anime cutscenes with stellar animation, and the music is fun and full of life. Princess Connect feels like a complete experience in a way that I’ve never seen from another gacha game. The game’s artistic style is also gorgeous, with good character art and adorable chibis.

All of this comes with a caveat: The game is currently only in Japanese. This would be a dealbreaker for most English players, but hear me out for a moment. The Princess Connect community is incredible and has done a fantastic job of making the game accessible. The discord community has plenty of resources to get players through the game. There are guides to navigate through the Japanese menus, removing almost all of the hardships involved with playing a foreign game. Understanding the characters’ abilities is also possible thanks to another guide found in the discord. If you can’t find a guide for a question you have, there is someone that will answer it within a minute in the discord. There are tons of resources out there, even translations for the story segments in case you want to be invested in the characters and lore.

If you want to play Princess Connect! Re:Dive, you’ll need to download QooApp, a popular app store in Japan. From there it’s easy to get one of the best gacha experiences out right now. You can also download DMM on your computer and play on there too.

Comment below with any questions you might have about getting started! Or just let us know what you think about the game.

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