A great anime adaptation inside a subpar gacha game - DanMachi Battle Chronicle Quick Review

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SHOULD I PLAY DANMACHI BATTLE CHRONICLE?

Only play it if you really like DanMachi. DanMachi Battle Chronicle is a visually stunning gacha game based on the popular light novel/manga/anime series DanMachi or Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? in its full English title. The game features a well-made story backed by great voice acting and cutscenes, but it falls short with everything else: repetitive gameplay, slow progression, limited content, and a poorly designed shop.

TIME PLAYED

I played DanMachi Battle Chronicle for four hours. I completed over forty missions, and I’m currently trying to reach the fourth chapter in the first season. I’ve also completed seven training sessions and leveled most of my characters to level twenty.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT DANMACHI BATTLE CHRONICLE?

• From anime to gacha game. As someone who’s seen every single episode of DanMachi, I’m definitely the ideal demographic for a gacha game adaptation. Despite the shift to a new medium, long-time fans should be happy with how the story is presented here. Battle Chronicle follows the story of the anime series without making any big or unnecessary changes. Getting to rewatch DanMachi again in all of its glory and detail through cutscenes and voiced dialogue felt really worthwhile.

• No prior knowledge needed. While it’s a great experience for hardcore fans like myself, even newcomers will have an easy time understanding the storyline and gameplay of DanMachi Battle Chronicle. If you’ve ever touched a gacha RPG, you shouldn’t have much trouble comprehending the basics of the gameplay here, and the narrative is pretty straightforward too.

• Slicing up monsters into little pieces. DanMachi Battle Chronicle features an action combat system where I moved around and faced various monsters using a party of up to three characters. Slashing up monsters with the tap of a button and playing around with all the unique abilities and characters kept me entertained, even if the slow progression and limited content hurt matters.

• An anime-style look. DanMachi Battle Chronicle mostly borrows scenes from the anime to build its storyline in the game, resulting in a series of beautifully-drawn cutscenes and background shots. There’s nothing in this game that looks remotely bad or unpolished.

• Gacha rolling is alright. It’s possible that I just got extremely lucky, but I managed to pull two of the rarest characters in DanMachi Battle Chronicle with only twenty rolls. The game wasn’t overly generous with the number of gacha rolls it provided, but I was able to pull roughly forty times in the four hours I played, which seemed fine.

WHAT SUCKS IN DANMACHI BATTLE CHRONICLE?

• Limited activities. Although I enjoyed slashing monsters and playing with all the cool characters, I found myself getting bored of DanMachi Battle Chronicle pretty quickly. There’s not a lot of content outside of the main storyline and daily missions. And since the progression wall is pretty high, the game started to feel increasingly repetitive and dull after two hours

• Progression walls. After around an hour into DanMachi Battle Chronicle, the game became a lot harder to keep moving through—mainly because I wasn’t provided many avenues for upgrading my characters. The main story missions and side activities don’t provide a lot of resources, despite being the only consistent way to get materials. This ill-conceived setup resulted in a slow, punishing, tedious grind.

• The shop needs a lot of work. An in-game, real-money shop is standard for any gacha game, so it was no surprise to find one in DanMachi Battle Chronicle. However, the shop here is particularly useless compared to other games in the genre. Battle Chronicle’s shop only has a few things to purchase—characters, upgrade resources, and in-game currency—and they all cost real money. Unlike some of the better competitors in this space, there’s no option to trade resources you can earn in-game for necessary materials or rewards. It’s a money-grubbing design that makes the game feel tremendously pay-to-win.

💬 Are you going to play DanMachi Battle Chronicle or will you pass on it? Tell me down in the comments!

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Comments

Grumpypanda

I've been happily playing this for a few days now and can agree on some of these points. I absolutely love that no prior knowledge of the series is needed as my only other foray into the series was DanMachi Memoria Freeze. I agree that there isn't much to do for upgrade resources, but having played the publisher's other game, Another Eden, I wasn't too surprised; along with how the Cash Shop is set up. I'm glad that they are fairly generous in getting the free version of the paid currency, but I really dislike the distinction between Free and Paid versions as it makes me feel like I -have- to spend real money to get better rates, which is also something I feel in other games at times. Other than those things, it's a nice time killer when I'm not doing things in Mihoyo games or Final Fantasy.

08/28/2023

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