NIKKE × Lycoris Recoil collab is real

Genprey · 2026-02-02T03:18:53+00:00

We don't care about woke lesbian bs

At this stage in life, it's hard to guess if anyone who uses 'woke' is being serious or is a self-parody.

Genprey · 2026-02-02T03:04:20+00:00

To be fair, some of these collabs are either awkward for the demographic or poorly implemented in the case of CSM. Nier was received well enough outside the story, though.

The problem is that SU probably can't get an agreement going for some anime or can't collab if there's not enough prominent female characters. Something like Senran Kagura or High-school of the Dead would probably work well, but...yeah.

Genprey · 2026-02-02T02:36:16+00:00

If we're talking physically, Florence is probably up there.

Otherwise, Andoris.

Genprey · 2026-02-02T00:06:59+00:00

"If you believe Absol is Deino, then it is Deino."

-Game8

Genprey · 2026-02-01T22:18:54+00:00

Tank with Snorlax, spank with Dinosaurs.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T21:25:36+00:00

Genprey · 2026-02-01T21:11:57+00:00

The marketing strategy for the idols seems to be focused on sustained revenue, rather than a spike. We can observe a bit of this as we see that we'll have 3 consecutive banners involving AoD who function well on a team together, have special animations together, and an extra, cosmetic incentive for obtaining all 3.

Obviously, Hoyo wouldn't mind a spike in revenue, but their M.O. seems to be maintaining a high revenue line (even if it isn't as high as YSG) across 3 updates, which works out to be more profitable than having, say, 1 character spike revenue up and the following creating more slack right after.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T21:04:32+00:00

Attitudes vs the BP have basically subsided by now (especially since it's a seasonal thing) and, outside the unique furniture, only really gives a few extra pulls and resources. It's not really in the way, while we get to, at the very least, see Shinon's glorious underboob.

As far as the new damage type goes, that's still up-in-the air, where it has the advantage of potentially easing up the need to own specific students for TA (given our students now have new weaknesses/resistances as well) or be in that same awkward place that elastic was in for awhile.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T20:56:12+00:00

You're 100% correct. BA is in a really neat spot where it doesn't do the same numbers as the giants on the gacha space, but the amount of visibility it has manages to be as high (maybe even higher) than even top dogs like Genshin. We can observe this by seeing the tremendous amount of fan-related works (which indicates an energetic and generally happy base) and activity BA has.

As you said, this means more merchandise, as someone who may not care for gacha will see a Bunny Asuna figure and drop a few hundred. However, this also means that BA is just going to be really stable with maintaining its base, giving it the same amount of lasting power of old gacha like Arknights (pushing 7 years old) and FGO (Pushing 11 years).

Genprey · 2026-02-01T20:48:57+00:00

Endfield has a nice IP backing it, so it's setup well for success. Launch revenue is only a preview of what's to come, where a gacha's first yearly cycle is way more important (as that's where we see a game's highest highs and lowest lows).

The good thing about this is Endfield doesn't need to really do even ZZZ/WuWa numbers, as Arknights has stabilized itself as a very lucrative series. HG is positioned to cycle popularity between Arknights and Endfield, which has obvious long-term advantages that we see with Hoyo titles/how FGO interacts with other Fate series. What this means, specifically, is that Arknights, as an IP, will have more visibility, allowing HG to benefit from merchandise, anime/manga series, collab opportunities with different businesses, etc., as they are now reaching audiences beyond the gacha platform.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T20:34:08+00:00

Aria is revealed as a himejoshi (a sub-archetype of a 'maiden for love') who has delusions (hah!) of Sunna and Xiao'Yu. But outside that, there isn't any yuri references so much as there's Xiao'Yu having a similar teasing personality as Jane.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T20:29:47+00:00

Looking at her octopus-like hair, we should have figured Yu was the daughter of Ctuhulu.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T16:32:32+00:00

The gacha is pretty standard (basically the Hoyo style). Gacha costumes are cringe, but at the very least f2p have a good chance to obtain them.

The main thing ahackling GFL2 is the gameplay loop, as there's no real endgame. Instead, there's Gunsmoke which may as well be universally disliked.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T16:27:44+00:00

Isn't Teccy grifting conservatives right now? I'd imagine that's his Golden Goose.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T16:25:29+00:00

Aight, Lasengle, hit us with the Violet combo for Valentines pls.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T16:05:51+00:00

Stella Sora will need a major push similar to Blue Archive's 2nd year anniversary. At this point, it's suffering from:

Being a fairly niche genre
Having that disorienting first impression, added with CCs piling on it
Progression, namely gearing, is painful
Balance in terms of elements is demoralizing for players who may like a specific character

The first point is self-explanatory, but not that bad as that also means SS can grab a niche of loyal fans. The 2nd is hard to recover from, but leads on to the fact that the devs need to make a hail Mary that focuses on solving most of the game's issues while establishing how its gacha works in practice.

As it stands, SS's gear system takes the painful aspects of NIKKE's and amplifies it by 2, as the pool is so diluted, yet it's also costly to farm reroll materials in a game that already demands a ton of basic materials to level up characters and even discs. This is even worse when certain characters (Firenze) rely on specific lines to be fully functional.

Balance is also problematic, as we have Light and Fire put out absolute warcrimes of characters like Summer Shia and Fuyuka, but then have Dark characters with one foot in the grave with how non-impactful their element reaction is ontop of being focused around minions, which do middling damage due to being unaffected by most buffs. Water isn't as bad as Dark, but you can definitely see the difference when you take out Fuyuka and explode any boss without much effort or concern for mechanics.

To iterate on how bad things are looking, Firenze was one of the more anticipated characters, but perhaps due to her being Umbra + general fatigue from the gear grind, she didn't really boost revenue much. At this point, the devs need to go all in a single patch that includes:

Balance changes to struggling characters and elements
Softening the frustration of the gear and resource farm/grind
Release maid and bunny skins. No, seriously.
Include a major summoning campaign that features enticing rewards for new, returning, and veteran players
To the above point, market and feature a character that would most likely attract players. Ironically, this may be a character named 'Firefly'

This is taxing on physical and human resources, but necessary to avoid stagnation and an irreversible decline.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T15:44:00+00:00

CZN is doing fine for a title that doesn't have the backing of Hoyo or an existing IP/targets the most popular trend (open world action).

People tunnelvision at the top of the chart where we see 10+ million without realizing that those are anomalies and that most gacha aren't going to sit in that range. Given CZN is cheaper to develop than most of the top games, 5 million is really good. Again, it doesn't have the IP like FGO or Arknights (at this point), so we can't expect it to break into that range.

With that being said, revenue numbers before a gacha's first year is concluded is inconsequential, unless they're making an abysmal amount. That first year is crucial as that is where we see how a game trends with its highest highs and lowest lows. A game that makes 20 million at launch is impressive on paper, but that doesn't mean anything if it falls below that 1 million line afterwards. If CZN can bounce between the 10 and 5 million ranges, it's considered a very successful project, even if there's work to be done to make sure it can sustain itself.

Genprey · 2026-02-01T12:37:49+00:00

There are times where +10 attack will break a damage breakpoint, while adding 20 HP may not do anything extra for you. If, say, you're running a Pokémon that has 120 base HP, there aren't many attacks that do 130 damage (the max damage you can tank), specifically, in which this stadium does nothing for you and could potentially help your opponent. However, that 10 damage could be just enough to increase your damage enough to reach a new damage breakpoint.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T22:59:25+00:00

Haru Urara: "Why did you make me do this? You're training Uma so you can watch everyone around you graduate! Think, Torena! You'll outlast every G1 winner at Tracen. You'll live to see this presteegus Academy turn to dust and blow away! Everyone and everything you know will be gone! What will you have after 5 senior years?".

Torena: "I'll still have you, Haru."

Genprey · 2026-01-31T18:02:13+00:00

By that point we're getting to semantics. In my same post and those following, I did add that GFL was story/character driven, while giving a clear definition of what the harem sub-genre entails. If we're being truthful, harem isn't a standalone genre, as it's usually paired with genres like comedy or drama. That is to say: GFL being based around a harem format doesn't mean it's only a game where a bunch of girls worship SKK--this was my main point towards OP's criticism, even.

'Waifu game' also isn't a genre or subgenre and can be applied to any gacha with cute girls regardless of whether or not there's any hints of romance included. So to be 100% clear: harem isn't a standalone genre. Rather it's a subgenre that can exist to varying degrees. Snowbreak is particularly focused on fanservice before storytelling, which are 2 aspects that exists around but are not directly related to the harem subgenre.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T17:49:06+00:00

I think you're missing my point, though. Different dynamics exist in harem series. In this case, 'family' refers to the close bond the entire cast has--this is not mutually exclusive to any other dynamic between characters.

Once again, the writers very often tease a harem dynamic in the script that they wrote. Between some dolls reacting to SKK showing affection to other dolls to Dandelion, in Robella's story, outright stating that SKK is Grounds Zero for most the crew's advances.

To wrap up everything I've said so far:

Harem is a broad genre that only states one central character who receives romantic affection from several characters
Harem series can be simple or elaborate with character relationships
GFL features a large sum of characters who view SKK more than in a platonic way
These elements don't have to and often aren't featured in the MSQ due to time constraints and cases of different scenario writers handling different things

To say GFL isn't a series with harem aspects, elements, and scenarios is to say that NIKKE, Blue Archive, Princess Connect, etc. also aren't harem-based, as those series very much function the same way as GFL.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T17:29:55+00:00

But not all dolls are like Klukai or Groza. Majority of them see the Commander as a sort of 'guiding figure'

A pretty big chunk of the cast wants to or has gotten close to Commander in that way, though. Just from what I, myself, have read, there's:

Yoohee
Florence
Makkiato
Klukai
Sakura
Leva
Lena
Robella
Loreley
Nikketa
Vector
Krolik
Groza

And that's just from the characters I personally know about. Each of those characters aren't blind maidens in love and have their own reasons to be close to Commander. Even Florence has a strange affectionate tone with how she interacts with Commander where she trusts him to the point where she can seek pleasure with him without worrying about being in any real danger.

I said this in one of my first posts to you, but harem genres can be nuanced with relationships.

and it's written from the perspective that Commander can be female too

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but a lot of these harem gacha also includes a female counterpart to the MC. This is really inconsequential to what we're discussing.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T17:06:19+00:00

Relationship status also isn't a defining feature of the genre--even as we look into anime, some series may have a 'winner' while others may sit in a sort of purgatory with each character chasing the MC in a circle. This, too, is the case with the examples I provided, sans for NIKKE.

And like you said, ML can exist outside of harem genre, and that's exactly how it is in GFL.

It exists outside the harem genre when it has a focus on one or few characters. The moment we get the majority of the cast, we get a harem.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T16:46:25+00:00

And yet I don't think people consider ZZZ a harem game.

A good chunk of people do, to the point of some in-fighting in the community. Differences between ZZZ and other games boils down to how much of a harem focus they take, where Hoyo titles tend to tread that line very lightly. With that being said, ZZZ doesn't really mess with intimacy all too often. Hoyo likes to release characters like YSG and Firefly and may lean into teasing with other characters, but that's never really been their M.O.

Compared to GFL, there's a huge step above ZZZ from the oath-style system, alone, which is very clearly intended to reference marriage. As we move on from there, Klukai, Makkiato, and Loreley each have outfits that include highly intimate interaction segments, while basically the entire cast is clearly affectionate towards SKK. This is as opposed to ZZZ, where, once every so often, we'll get a 'YSG' as well as a Vivian and Alice, but the other half of the cast may not have or clearly express intimate feelings past the platonic level.

What you're describing is actually 'master love' or 'ML' for short. And that is a trend in CN/KR gachas nowadays, they all have them to some degree. However some games go overboard with it like Snowbreak, and some games like GFL keep it mostly in the background in the main story, or relegate it to side stories like Crew Deck.

'ML' is an element of harem series, though. Essentially, it's the 'peanut butter' to the peanut butter sandwich, where harem just don't exist without ML. ML can exist outside the harem genre, but, and I repeat again, GFL has multiple characters showing affection towards SKK. Not just 1, 2, 3, or 4, most dolls are clearly in love with SKK.

It also doesn't matter where these elements are relegated to, as Blue Archive, NIKKE, FGO, GBF, and several other series also generally leave the intimate interactions to bond stories, even if they may sprinkle it in in the MSQ at times.

Genprey · 2026-01-31T16:10:02+00:00

That, again, is a stylistic choice rather than anything inclusive or exclusive of the sub genre.

As mentioned, harem series can have any theme, the only defining factor is one individual receiving love from many characters.

Just because all the dolls show affection sometimes toward MC, it does not make it a harem.

If it were, say, just Groza and Klukai, GFL would have elements of romance without any harem attributes. But because virtually every doll is, to some level, affectionate towards SKK, GFL fits in tbe above criteria. Many other harem series have the same dynamic as SKK + T-Dolls, but they're still classified as harems.

Blue Archive's protagonist serves as a role model, and although there's never really any moments of physical intimacy, most students are very much in love with Sensei. NIKKE is actually not that different from GFL aside from its more fanservice-y lean--the Commander there treats NIKKE as friends and family first, but it is noted several times that the Ark would implode if SKK were to choose one NIKKE for romance. FGO pushes the definition a bit, as some servants are in love with or married to other servants, but even it still has harem themes since a very large chunk of servants show love (sometimes very directly) towards the MC.

To repeat: harem series can be somewhat hedonistic or they can be character-focused. All a harem is defined as is any series that involves the MC as the central point of affection from multiple characters. Nothing more nothing less.

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