Hello everyone, Welcome to my first blog post, and thanks for sparing your time to visit my blog. The reason I created this blog is to share some gaming news. I also plan to post and keep updating like a journal on certain games I played. However, it’s merely gameplay, not to serve as a walkthrough. Hopefully, this blog will keep updated consistently with some helpful information for whoever needs it.
I’ll share my personal opinion about this awesome mobile game after spending fairly enough time called, Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space. It was released in 2019 globally and has made a lot of players, including me, feel the nostalgia of playing RPG games back in the PlayStation 1 Era. This JRPG with Gacha element was developed and published by Wright Flyer Studios as a free-to-play JRPG released on android, iOS, and Microsoft Windows (Steam). This game doesn’t need you to empty your wallet to summon out the best character for you to proceed with the game. However, if you happen to roll out a 5-star character on the Gacha, it will help make your journey easier. I will talk about the Gacha-system later on.
The game graphic is in 2D side-view, pretty nice looking. 2D side views might not attract some audiences. But in my opinion, this is such a masterpiece in terms of visuals. Developers make sure players enjoy the surrounding environment and the story cut-scene, just like how we flip the storybook and enjoy the artwork during childhood. I can see developers giving their best effort and showing us the stunning battle skills FX and colorful world, not to mention those cute chibi designs characters.
The music was great. I’m a person that loves music. Whenever I play new video games, I always pay attention to the in-game music. Another Eden has a great soundtrack. Your first journey will start in a village called Baruoki town. When the tunes start playing, it somehow takes us to somewhere peaceful, simple, and yet lively. It feels like I’ve been back in my hometown. The music composers involved Shunsuke Tsuchiya, Mariam Abounnasr, and this guy best known for his work in the Chrono series, Yasunori Mitsuda.
“Wait ! DId I just say the Chrono series ?”
The main selling point of this game is the well-written story. Another Eden is a typical JRPG focusing on story-telling and can be quite different compared to other Gacha’s games. It doesn’t have raids, PvP, or even Clan war. And once again, It just focuses on the story.
You start with the game’s protagonist name Aldo with her little sister, Feinne. They were found and raised by Baruoki Mayor. One day, the Beast King comes to the village and takes Feinne away. Aldo fights his way to rescue his little sister. However, in the middle of chaos, distortion in space-time appears and pulls Aldo away 800 years into the future.
Does that ring any bell in your head? Well, you’re right! The person behind this time travel game who works as a Scenario Writer and Director is Masato Kato, the story writer of the Chrono Trigger & Chrono Cross. Both men who were involved in the previous Chrono Series and now come back collaborated once again to create such a nostalgic Traditional JRPG. Most people consider this game as the spiritual successor of the Chrono Series.
Now let’s talk about the gameplay. This game is an online-single player JRPG game where you can craft weapons & armor, strengthen your character from the skill board and collect cats(?). There are still many other features that are currently not introduced. It will be available as the story progresses. I will share it in my next post once I have made some progress. For the battle system, You can form a group of 6 characters with four characters in the front line and two characters in reserves. During the battle, players are allowed the freedom to switch their characters between frontline and reserves vice-versa, with at least one character on the front line. The front line will fight with the enemy while the reserved units will stand by behind and heal their own HP & MP 10% of their MAX HP/MP every turn.
I’m not going to dive deep into the combat system, but there’s one unique ability called Valor Chant that I would like to introduce. Every character has their own unique Valor Chant that will only be triggered whenever the characters switch from reserves to the front line and won’t cost any MP. The valor chants are typically used as buffs and debuffs. With this ability, players can plan their best strategy when combating, especially during the boss fight.
Next, I will explain the Gacha-system. There are tons of characters for the player to pull from the Gacha. Although I know there are some of you who feel awful about Gacha-games. But please keep reading. It is not necessary to use Gacha here because, along with the story, you can get free characters as the story progresses, including the collaborative episode called Symphony. We will talk about this later. Players can freely choose to use either free gems or paid gems to have a smooth and easy journey. You can earn the free gems every time you complete a quest, either from the main quests or sub-quests. As a Free-to-play player, I have obtained quite a few 4-stars and 5-stars characters since I began playing. Every character has a unique skill set that can be utilized according to the situation.
In other Gacha-games, most of the collaboration characters need to pull from the Gacha. Some even need to spend a lot of money to get their favorite collaboration character. BUT, Another Eden will give it to you totally for free. And these collaboration units will not appear on Gacha banners. Again, they will offer it to players for F-R-E-E.
However, you can’t just obtain these collaboration characters anytime you want. Players can acquire these characters by completing a special episode called Symphony. Those characters are a crossover between Another Eden and other games, such as Persona 5, Tales series, etc. And lately, they have released a collaboration story with Square Enix company, Chrono Cross. Once you complete a whole story, you will obtain the collaborative characters. Those units are indeed powerful. Moreover, they can carry you to the end game. It may take you completing chapter 13 from the main story to open up all the episodes from Symphony.
There is another side story called Episode. Also will reward players every time they complete a chapter, and they will reward players by giving a character unit from that side story. You can unlock most of these side stories after completing the main storyline, chapter 13. Here is something unique from this game compared with other Gacha-games. All the side stories and collaboration stories are permanent, which means a new player misses nothing except for Gacha banners, and other players can stop, take a break, come back and miss nothing. But some fans reported that the Chrono cross might expire in 4 years+, which I’m not verified yet.
How do I feel about this game ?
It does bring back the Traditional RPG element with some improv and additional features. Even though I did lose some fights during a boss battle, forcing me to go back and grind 1 or 2 levels to defeat the boss. But I still love it. Don’t we also do the same thing when playing the old-school RPG games?
And one more thing. I pretty much enjoy the rich content, especially the story. I can feel the writer putting a lot of effort. If you like playing old-school RPG games like final fantasy, tales series, or Suikoden, then this could be for you. I personally find this game quite generous and very f2p friendly, so go check it out.
That’s all for today. It’s my first post. I do not know how my writing skills are, certainly hope you enjoy reading this. Please leave some comments below.
Awesome work buddy!
Thanks buddy!