A Casual & Unique Gaccha Hack and Slash (Aether Gazer Review)
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Aether Gazer has been the casual and fun hack & slash gaccha game I have been looking for and there are a few things I want to highlight about this game compared to it's contemporaries.
Combat Flow
The combat manages to nail a very satisfying balance of offense and defense. Most elite or boss enemies have a bar called "modified bar" above their HP and it's something your absolutely encouraged to take advantage of. When the modified bar is full, you enter into the "modified mode" state where the battle arena changes and the boss is stunned for a few seconds. During this moment you get to whale on the boss while taking full advantage of any team faction buff or team synergy you have.
While this is the main argument for why this game is more casual than other gaccha ARPG, it's not gonna be a complete cake walk to be mindful of the Boss attacks and mechanics while positioning, dodging and managing your skill rotations in difficult content.
The sound bug was fixed long ago...
If you checked out other reviews of the game near launch, chances are you seen at least one of them mention a "game breaking SFX/Music bug". I never experienced this bug and it was reportedly fixed within the launch week of the game according to the publishers. I don't think this is a issue at all ever since...
Team Building Variety
One thing I really like about this game is the different ways in which you can compose a team. You can either go for faction buff bonus, ultimate skill chain or elemental damage type. Oh and I should probably mention that your not swapping in and out between your three Modifiers between combat but instead you can choose to control one Modifier while the other two are in combat with you as AI.
Faction buff bonus
In aether gazer the faction buff is classified as "Modifier's Gen-zone", Modifiers being the characters and Gen-zone being the faction they belong to. Currently there are five Gen-zones in the game as you can see in the image below:
Modifier Gen-zone increases the Modifier's DMG and combat performance as well as give extra perks and buffs when the team triggers Modified mode (as well as dictate the aesthetic of the battlefield in the mode). The requirement to gain this is to have a minimum of two Modifiers from the same Gen-zone.
Ultimate Skill Chain
As far as I know, this is a unique feature in Aether Gazer. When the ultimate bar of two Modifiers that have the "ultimate skill chain" is full, you can unleashed a Ultimate skill with special animations and skill effects.
Elemental damage type
As the name suggests, this is the good ol' way of matching elemental types to build teams which you have probably seen in other gaccha games. So far the game has physical, thunder, fire, water, ice, wind, shadow and light for the different elements (iirc).
Character Design
As you might have guessed, the character designs in this game leans more towards the waifu/husbando variety as compared to games like Arknights or PGR that has a more functional design and aesthetic. Not necessarily a bad thing and what you like depends on your tastes.
THE GACCHA
The S rank probability is 1.60% with hard pity at 70 pulls. There is a 50/50 for Modifiers when you first pull a S rank. If the S rank is not the one featured on banner, the next S rank is guaranteed to be the featured Modifier and pity does carry over from one banner to the next. The gaccha system is fairly decent but ultimately as a F2P, you might not be able to get each and every S rank Modifier depending on your luck. The game has been generous with the amount of free premium gaccha currency they give out. In one patch cycle, you can earn around 15k shifted stars (gaccha currency) and each 10 pull costs 2k shifted stars.
THIS WEAPON GACCHA IS GOOOD!!!
Now hear me out, I don't like weapon gaccha in these games as well BUT the weapon gaccha banner in aether gazer is honestly really good.
The weapon banner also has a 70 pulls hard pity BUT the weapon banner does not have a 50/50. Remember earlier I mentioned how Modifiers are classified into different Gen-zones?
Before you start pulling, you can choose a specific Gen-zone through which you get weapons that can be equipped by modifiers in that Gen-zone. When you get S rank Gen-zone weapon, this weapon comes in the form of "un-awakened". You can turn this "un-awakened" S rank Gen-zone weapon into a signature weapon that belongs to a specific character in that Gen-zone. This transformation is free and doesn't cost any premium currency or items and there is no RNG involved in which character's signature weapon it is. You can just directly choose the signature weapon you WANT!
If there is gonna be a weapon banner, I hope more games implement a system like this in the future.
Conclusion
I really like the combat flow and team building diversity in the game. The story is definitely a lot more anime and light compared to something like PGR but it's not completely one dimensional. There are moments of character development and underlying themes in the story. While there are things I haven't covered here like character building and gearing, I can assure you it's not a painful grind by gaccha standards.
If you want a casual waifu hack & slash gaccha game, this is it!
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