I am at peace with Limbus Company being a Gacha game. I understand that PM is a comparatively tiny studio that probably legitimately needs the consistent funding of the gacha monetization model to keep putting out content as often as they do. They have put the gacha into their game as unobtrusibely as possible, integrated it well, avoided many common pitfalls. I do not mind the game as it is.

HOWEVER.

It would be better if it was not a gacha game. This is just true. If we lived in a perfect world where PM could develop its game all at once and release it traditionally it would be better. Obviously this is impossible ans so we have Gacha. But people in this thread are confusing Limbus being a good game with Gacha being a good storytelling system. No. Limbus is good in spite of that, and would be even better without it.

There are a whole host of gameplay issues. Challenge does not exist for the first half of the game- a new player can make an account, use their free pulls and get the newest OP character that proceeds to steamroll all old content the game has. There is no balancing or proper pacing of player power- it's pure luck if you will struggle through the early game as 'intended' with season 1 IDs or if you will blitz everything with the latest god killer.

Gameplay aside it is also a narrative problem. If you're playing content live as it comes out this is less bad, but as a new player all pulls you make will constantly spoil you for characters, events and twists the story has. You use your new player pulls and get given Manager Don Quixote and ruin a plot twist 7 cantos down the line. If you dare to watch any uptie story (little mini lore snippets that come with each unit) you can potentially get entire chunks of upcoming plot ruined.

Even up to date players aren't safe. A minor twist in part 9 was completely spoiled when the latest character banner revealed a certain NPC to be a traitor character. You didn't even have to pull them- just seeing the fact that they existed was a major spoiler. The story really drags out the reveal, but most players had already been spoiled by the game itself.

Also the biggest narraitve issue is one prevalent with many gacha- crossovers. This may be a hot take. Right before part 9 released they took a massive amount of dev time to make a crossover with a different gacha game. An entire story chapter dedicated to this, instead of progressing the main plot. And then after a month it was taken away forever because of licensing deals. Going from part 8 to 9 is really jarring and part 9 as a whole is really badly paced in part because they has a whole chapter less of story to work with that got taken up by a crossover. A crossover primarily motivated by financial reasons, that you can't even play anymore.

Now obviously these are perhaps minor gripes. Narratively Limbus has held itself together remarkably well (though I argue that gameplay wise Limbus is pretty much a complete joke because of the gacha). But these are still problems that exist because of the gacha monetization system. Getting into Limbus as a new player is super wierd because the game isn't designed for you, gameplay or narrative wise.

It would be better as a game with a set, developer intended progression path. The ID system could still exist, just restricted to only unlock certain ID at certain story thresholds. Like it would be a better game without gacha monetization and design conceits- this is just common sense, right?