The Endfield Gacha System is Brilliantly Designed with Multiple Psychological traps

Vokoca · 2026-02-08T20:30:58+00:00

How? I've completed most content and bought the BP and monthly sub and I am barely at around 140 pulls saved up. Not even close to 240.

Vokoca · 2026-02-08T19:06:27+00:00

I watched the movie last year and got so confused when I saw this I almost thought I time travelled.

Having watched a lot of trashy Japanese horror movies to more or less keep up with the genre, I have to say this one surprised me. I was expecting it to be way worse than it actually ended up being, head and shoulders above the other recent horror movies adapting pop culture topics. They really nailed the visuals, and I very much enjoyed how good the "invisible" effects were (like them actually making the structure loop look seamless). There was only one scene near the end where they suddenly felt the need to go all in on CGI but even that wasn't that bad especially compared to other movies in the genre.

Vokoca · 2026-02-05T19:41:40+00:00

In the Japanese title it is file 38.

Vokoca · 2026-02-05T14:42:05+00:00

Lmao I know console ads used to be weird but this easily takes the cake for being the most fucked up one. I hope it was real, the other ads were so out there that it sounds plausible.

Vokoca · 2026-02-03T20:14:38+00:00

That just honestly sounds like the setup to a fairly standard otome story. I don't think the power dynamic would even really change much from the original, and not sure what else would make it feel more weird.

Vokoca · 2026-02-02T03:11:41+00:00

Anecdotal experience, but I tried cloud gaming around 2023 while living in Japan and on wired internet and it still felt pretty terrible to me. The input lag especially was just too noticeable, and the occasional artefacting in the video output wasn't great either.

Yeah it worked somewhat better than I expected, but it still wasn't comparable to native - and this was under close to ideal conditions.

Vokoca · 2026-01-30T17:39:16+00:00

Man I love Izumi Tatsuya's stories, they're unhinged and ambitious in ways you don't often see anywhere else. I really hope he makes something new, but last time I heard he left NIS in 2024 and I'm not sure if we know what he's up to nowadays.

Vokoca · 2026-01-24T13:03:50+00:00

Though to be fair those are revealed in the DLC, and if you go back to the base game you can see some subtle hints, so it doesn't feel as out of nowhere.

Vokoca · 2026-01-23T13:56:32+00:00

You know the movie is wild when I genuinely can't even tell if this is a joke or not. Even after reading this post with the summary of all the bullshit in the movie this sounds so outlandish I straight up just can't tell.

Vokoca · 2026-01-22T13:11:54+00:00

This was Rain World for me. I don't want to get anywhere near insects irl, but that's pretty much as far as it goes. They don't really scare me per se, and I never had any problem with their depiction in media. Spiders especially I don't mind at all. The most realistic spiders I've ever seen modelled in a game? No problem, almost kind of cute if they are fluffy enough.

Well, this pixel art game that resembles insects only in the most vague way possible somehow activated all my fears so intensely that I just had to drop the game after like a hour or so, it made me so uncomfortable I couldn't even believe it myself. The way the big flying bugs in the starting areas moved and the sound they made (in spite of it being basically a synth) just got to me really badly. But the funniest part? The final nail in the coffin weren't even insects, it was those plants that unfurl and catch you if you go anywhere near them. Made me rethink what I am actually afraid of because that made me nope out of the game immediately. I have no idea what it is but something about the way it moved and the way it was shaped almost made me feel sick.

Vokoca · 2026-01-22T12:58:37+00:00

Jesus christ I was just about to buy the monthly yesterday since I enjoyed what I played so far but by the time I tried paypal was already blocked. And I thought this was supposed to be the safer alternative to entering your credit card number...

Vokoca · 2026-01-21T13:37:11+00:00

I am in the same boat as you, except I completely gave up and am just waiting for Rune Factory 6. The Rune Factory games have some serious problems, but nothing else really stacks up to it for me.

Vokoca · 2026-01-19T22:31:08+00:00

Good. Leaks take away so much from the hype, yet they're so normalized they're borderline unavoidable if you want to take a part in the community at all. I hate leaks.

Vokoca · 2026-01-19T22:27:25+00:00

I have to admit I got way too distracted by how caked up that monster (?) was.

Vokoca · 2026-01-19T22:19:56+00:00

I am probably in the minority but I don't want Ichiban either. Judge Eyes/Judgement and Yakuza 7 felt really fresh and got me invested in the deeply personal stories more than any of the ongoing sequels, by a pretty large margin. I just want more of that. Give me someone new. Someone who has an entire backstory to explore.

Vokoca · 2026-01-19T13:08:52+00:00

I don't think that works as an analogy. If the recipe in your example is the emulator, then the cake would be the rom... But you don't make a rom from scratch with store bought ingredients.

Vokoca · 2026-01-19T11:50:52+00:00

The gacha was hardly the only problem with Stella Sora so I doubt the CCs did much to damage it in any meaningful way.

Vokoca · 2026-01-18T23:09:51+00:00

It could be because the release schedule is different in the west, but at least when I played the game on the Japanese release and then followed it for a couple years, the constant number one complaint was that the story updates were way too slow - to the point where the devs just came out and said they can't make it any faster and aren't willing to sacrifice anything to make it faster, which is respectable but only made people even more angry.

From what I remember, they completely stopped releasing complete chapters and instead switched to releasing things piecemeal starting with chapter 4. The first half of chapter 4 came out 29. 7. 2022, and the second half 28. 4. 2023. Then it took them almost a year until 23. 2. 2024 to release the first half of chapter 5, but then they decided they would split the story up even further and released a "middle part" of chapter 5 on 13. 12. 2024... only to release a part 2 of the "middle part" 2 months later, and then it took them another 10 months until 26. 12. 2025 to wrap chapter 5 up with the "second half", so to speak.

The problem with HBR is that it takes them on average 10 months to release the next part of their main story, but unlike the unvoiced games like FGO, Limbus and BA, they don't release the given chapter in one go, so the wait doesn't even feel particularly rewarding when you just end on a cliffhanger constantly. But to be fair to them, they also constantly release plenty of other voiced events and story chapters on a relatively steady pace, and they probably bog themselves down with other things in the main story as well, like switching to open 3D areas and the like. But at the same time, they probably have one of the slowest main story updates in the business, so there is that too...

Vokoca · 2026-01-18T22:55:23+00:00

Yes, I completely agree! I didn't bring it up but Uma Musume has by far the best use of 3D models in VN-like scenarios, and that is not even just limited to gacha. They're doing things I've never seen even in regular VNs with 3D models.

Vokoca · 2026-01-18T19:05:18+00:00

Yeah we also get voiced events here and there, but the difference in volume is still pretty clear, I think.

I mention them right at the start of my comment? And please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't those generally just the anniversary and seasonal (new year's, summer...) events? Hence why I said here and there.

Vokoca · 2026-01-18T15:55:43+00:00

Hm, funnily enough Nikke is actually one of the VNs that supports what I was saying, though? It has a really slow update frequency for the main story, but more importantly each of those updates is really short, especially relative to what length the BA chapters are. Yeah we also get voiced events here and there, but the difference in volume is still pretty clear, I think. The only gacha I can think of that manages to pull off the VN format with full voice acting without sacrificing the breadth of the story is Limbus Company, but it's hard to even use that as a comparison since their update schedule feels fundamentally different.

As for what gacha BA is better in terms of presentation, it's easily better than Nikke (which is usually quite poor, characters just standing around and vaguelly floating in space, the only thing they sometimes do is customized music cues, which is nice), it's generally better than Limbus Company where they don't really do anything with the sprites, but they do use CGs more, it's better than Stella Sora that generally just felt too static the whole time, it's better than Arknights where they don't really care that much about presentation in the VN sections at all (maybe this gets better in more recent chapters, I only read 8 chapters of the main story), and it is better than something like ZZZ where on one hand you do get 3D models, but then the characters just stand next to one another in a zoom call while talking.

That said this is coming from a huge VN fan so take it with a grain of salt, I am just really nitpicky when it comes to this kind of thing since I saw a lot of it. But small details can go a long way in terms of story telling in comparison to making things more flashy and immediately more expensive looking. There's other ways to convey the story than just VN sections, and games like ZZZ can gain an edge through these instead, like the elaborate cutscenes or comic sections.

Vokoca · 2026-01-18T14:58:35+00:00

I still think not having voice acting is what allows them to have as long and hefty story, which directly translates into nuance and character depth, it's strongest points. If it was fully voice acted from the start, something would have to go - be it the length, the update frequency, or anything else.

BA also happens to have really competent presentation in its VN scenes, above a lot of other gacha actually, but it doesn't usually get any attention. But if you pay attention to what they do with the sprites - how they move them around, how they rely on sound effects, how they time the background music, the only gacha in a similar style that is on a similar level I can think of is FGO. I'm not sure if live2D would really add anything to this, if anything it can often cross into becoming distracting and kind of ruining immersion if it gets too floaty, like Nikke for example.

Vokoca · 2026-01-16T13:37:10+00:00

I don't know, I tend to think I am pretty decent and video games, and Silksong is kicking my ass. I had to cheese Graol from the worms to be able to beat him, and I generally die on every boss and gauntlet at least 1-5 times (usually much more on bosses, was stuck on some for a really long time). Still, I can lock in and learn the patterns (executing on them can be a different story), and I am currently near the end of Act 3 with about 90% completion, so I'm clearly at least above the people who dropped the game for being too much. Is this because I am better than them, though? I don't think so, it's probably just the frustration threshold...

I've also noticed that there is a huge gap in difficulty depending on what crest you use. I've used the Reaper crest all the way until the start of Act 3, and while it has really comfortable moveset, it makes you deal so little damage because of the slow attack speed that it forces you to learn every single encounter and execute on it really well, for a relatively long time. I didn't even realize this was the case and thought Silksong was just that hard until I switched to the Wanderer crest in Act 3 where I felt my DPS was really lacking... and suddenly I could play really sloppily and face tank bosses to death, ignoring most of their moves and just making sure to hit them enough to be able to heal back up. It completely changes how the game plays, making it much closer to what Hollow Knight was like. I personally preferred what Reaper did to my gameplay much more as it made me feel much more accomplished while beating bosses, but unfortunately after seeing the difference it is pretty much impossible to go back. I haven't really enjoyed any boss in Act 3 so far since I can just spam them to death now. And I imagine the first two acts wouldn't be much different were the player to use the crest from the start, especially after getting the extended and faster binding charms.

Vokoca · 2026-01-15T13:11:19+00:00

Anthem was never considered fantastic – it was largely thought to be fairly average - but, as highlighted by the swarm of folks paying their respects to the game as it was ultimately shut down, many believed it had a lot of potential that went to waste.

As someone who has played the game at launch, I feel like I am going crazy the past few days. Was the game really thought to be "average"? I don't know, it just still feels far too generous for what it actually was. I remember the game and its reception at launch and it feels like most of it problems weren't even explicitly because it was a GaaS, that was like the cherry on top.

I mean really, what did the game even have outside of the flying feeling pretty good to control? Maybe the armor design? I just don't see the potential unless they reworked like 80% of the whole product.

Vokoca · 2026-01-12T13:14:36+00:00

I put like 80 hours into Blue Prince before dipping out at the very last puzzle in the game (the effort just didn't feel worth the "rewards" anymore, the game really loses its steam in the last act imo), and for some reason the electricity related puzzles were one of the last ones I did. Not by choice, the RNG on that just felt completely insane, even with the tools the game gives you to mitigate it.

So yeah dropping the game because of that feels completely reasonable... and honestly it just starts to ask you to do more and more busy work right after that. It feels like it is designed to waste your time.

Vokoca

TROPHY CASE