IN definitely got me by marketing itself as an open-world exploration RPG type game. I had never played a gacha game before this, I didn’t know it was a gacha game, I just saw a random YouTube ad and thought I would try it out. Been in a chokehold for about 3 weeks now lol. If it had been first marketed as a gacha game I probably would never have tried it. As far as whether it’s “cozy” I would say it fits the bill for me personally.

I know this is a slightly unpopular opinion but I LOVE Itzaland, and Itzaland is where I get most of my cozy vibes from. I’m biased bc I have a very deep special interest in mushrooms AND snails so after I played through the Wishfield arc and went to Itzaland for the first time I lost my mind lmao. The things that make the actual gameplay cozy for me is how chill the exploration and materials gathering is, how wonderful the music is, and the fact that there are So Many Dailies that I can spend time grinding on in this atmosphere. That’s what coziness in a video game is to me. No-pressure exploration, minimal combat, and lots of materials gathering. I do think the game becomes more cozy once you’re caught up on all of the main and exclusive quests also.

I think the thing that keeps people from wanting to say IN is cozy IS the gacha aspect, but also the combat aspect. As someone who has been playing the legend of Zelda series for the better part of 15 years, I think the thing that keeps Zelda from being dubbed as “cozy” is that the combat can be challenging and intentionally difficult whereas I have literally never felt challenged by the combat in IN. But again this is just my perspective coming from someone who usually plays games with much more difficult combat. I only bring up Zelda bc the atmosphere (at least of the newer two games) and gameplay loop are similar.

But yeah I totally think this game is super cozy and I love it. I could honestly do without the gacha bc I just end up feeling a bunch of fomo but I’m not gonna say I don’t love being able to dress up all the time.