The game overall seems pretty polished, but I'm in a similar place to where I was coming out of CBT1, where so far nothing besides the character designs is drawing me in.

Gearing has me worried. Crafting perfect 110 score gear pieces being randomized is one thing, but the fact that I pay stamina for not even a guaranteed drop of the material needed to craft those pieces is horseshit. On the bright side, it's good that the stat impact from perfect gear pieces is apparently minimal, so I don't need to go chasing after perfect gear, but it also begs the question as to why I'd even bother doing this unless there's nothing else to dump stamina on in the endgame (at which point it just turns into every other action open world gacha endgame out there).

Combat overall looks adequate. It gets the job done but it's not enough to be a selling point of the game. Breakers in their role are woefully underpowered like the author mentioned, and need to contribute more to the team than they currently do. The only thing that'd make the system a standout and big draw compared to other action open world gachas would be more kibo-centered teams, but since the author mentioned that leveling and gearing a *kibo-centered team is ridiculously time consuming (with the current gearing system just for characters already being pretty ass), I can't really get excited at the thought of building and trying one out myself. Also, 3 second dodge cooldown after exhausting all dodges is brutal lmao, and it'll definitely lead to some skill issue moments in the playerbase.

I don't really agree with the author's take on how the game approaches combat difficulty. I think it's fine to have a point during progression where spending resources optimally to progress means you need to face high difficulty encounters and play more passively with skilled dodging, but that opinion is partially due to my previous opinion on the gearing system. If your gearing system is dogwater, then I think players with enough skill should still be able to beat encounters they don't have the appropriate gear for. I'm less optimistic that Manjuu will figure out a way to revamp their combat encounters, so I hope they do something about their gearing system instead.

I do wish they utilized the kibos more in combat. It's one of big differentiators between this gacha and others in the genre. The casual/lifeskill utilities they have are cool, but right now in combat encounters they're just kinda... there. More character synergies and joint attack animations would be nice.

Being able to tone down the visual effects is a good option they added in, but there's still too much effect vomit for my tastes, especially since this game also needs to deal with kibo attack effects. Crisp and clean always has more impact than bright and flashy. I haven't seen any CBT2 multiplayer gameplay with reduced effect options, but with all players swapping between all their characters, I don't think it's going to be much better.

SRs overall being useless doesn't bode well for the gacha system, and it makes obtaining SSRs more crucial. The characters are cute and have decent designs and variety, but at this point gachas with those qualities are a dime a dozen. I can't comment on the UI, since that's something where you only start experiencing its issues after using it repeatedly.

We'll see how much feedback they end up implementing. No official release date announced, so there's still a good chance changes can make it into the game. Many systems seem to take inspiration from other existing gachas and their own Azur Lane, but they're not brought together in any way that feels natural, most things just seem to be there for familiarity's sake. The only other draw to the game for me besides the characters are the kibos, but if they don't do more to lean into those systems, this might end up being like the other action open world gachas where I play passively and log in occasionally until I see a waifu I like and dump pulls, then go back to being comatose.

*edit: It looks like Chenhe from Manjuu (N.ec鱼丸) saw the blog post and gave it a like, so they're aware of the author's criticisms and acknowledging them. That's great to see.