The market for gacha games is getting more and more saturated over the recent years. Therefore, the games need to differentiate themselves from each other and bring something to the table that’s a little bit substantial.
Although gacha players are always looking for where their next pulls might come from, if the game isn’t compelling enough to stay – they’ll get their quick fix and move onto something that might give them a longer high.
Alchemy Stars is a game that’s developed by Tourdog Studio and Published by Tencent Games. It boasts tactical gameplay and a story from Tadashi Satomi, who was a writer from the first two ever-popular Persona games. Therefore, the game has some fairly big names behind it when compared to other gacha-games.
So it begs the question, is Alchemy Stars a good game? Alchemy Stars gets a lot of things right in the art direction, atmosphere, and novel gameplay. However, it also gets the same amount wrong in the presentation, amount of polish, and user-friendliness of the content. Therefore, the game might be good for some players who want a more tactical and active approach to their gameplay but not great for others because lack of certain features and quality of life things that gacha gamers expect from a mobile game.
Is Alchemy Stars a Good Fit For You?
As a brief explanation of Alchemy Stars, the gameplay is essentially a color-matching puzzle game depending on your team composition. The more colors you can match/chain together (that’s the same color as the element of your team), the more attacks and the stronger the skills that those characters can pull off. Combat positioning is also crucial, depending on the map and enemies. The combination of these two factors makes combat quite engaging.
Enter Alchemy Stars – a game that hopes to rope gacha gamers in with its art and new gameplay style. Even backed by the Chinese giant Tencent, does it have what it takes to stay on gacha gamer’s phone long term? Time will tell, but first, let’s look at some of the points that prospective players might want to consider.
Alchemy Stars share many design cues and contain a lot of Arknight’s inspired elements (one of the best gachas out on the market. Why? Click to read the full article). Therefore, expect a lot of Arknights comparisons in this article.
| What Players Might Like About Alchemy Stars | What Might Put Players Off About Alchemy Stars |
|---|---|
| – Great 2d art direction as the 2D art in the game is top-notch, along with art from the world and other parts. The art is unique and recognizable. – The music in the game is quite atmospheric and does offer some good tracks in the game. For the most part, voice-overs are well done, but no character jumps out as striking or memorable. – The game introduces its different mechanics well. The game can be a lot more complex with a larger roster of characters. – Character art and model changes after Ascension level 3. – Base building mechanics require very little attention and micromanagement. – As Alchemy Stars is a PvE-focused game, players aren’t forced to compete or rush towards the endgame. | – The 3D models are a bit more chibi style, and they’re quite hard to recognize/differentiate from character to character. The 3D sections of the game are not of the same quality as the original 2D art. – The gameplay can be a little bit too RNG because the tiles are randomized at the start of every round. This can make players restart stages to get the same tile color as their characters. – After you 3 star a stage, you’re allowed to auto that stage for materials. However, the auto feature AI is incredibly dumb and can lose a lot. Therefore, some babysitting of the game might be needed. Players can offset this by over-leveling characters. – The presentation of the story and characters in the game is largely forgettable. Alchemy Stars employ only text-based and moving pictures (not animation) to tell the story. – The user interface feels cramped and clunky. Possibly due to the 30 fps limit. As players progress in the game, each stage starts feeling more like a stat and level check rather than focusing on strategy. Therefore, requiring more grind to collect Ascension materials and gain character levels. – Resources are hard to obtain to ascend character (to allow further increases in character levels). – Base building mechanic feels tacked on when compared to Arknight’s version of base building. |
Is Alchemy Stars Free-to-Play Friendly?
Any game that is made for the whales dies by the whales. Alchemy Stars is no different. A free-to-play game must cater to all audiences that download the game, or else its longevity suffers.
So is Alchemy Stars Free-to-Play friendly? For now, Alchemy Stars is free-to-play friendly. It’s too early in the game’s service to say exactly, but it is free-to-play friendly so far as all of the content can be completed and farmed without pulling for any special characters. Also, the game provides the player with 4-5 star characters just by going through the game. However, some things are a cause for some concern for the game’s potential as a free-to-play-friendly game.
While the game does provide a guaranteed 6-star from the beginner banner, which is fairly easy to obtain, afterward, it becomes substantially harder to get a 6-star or dupes for 6-star characters. Here are some reasons why:
- The rate of collecting the currency used to pull takes a long time to collect. This is in part, due to each stage taking quite a bit of time in comparison to other gachas. Also, there is only one source of premium currency income in the form of Secret Territory (weekly resetting labyrinth type for resources and pulls).
- Players can get dupes from either pulling or buying them from the shop. However, players can only buy up to 5-star characters in the shop. Therefore, leaving the 6-star character dupes to be obtained exclusively from the banner.
- Difficult to “snipe” or save up for a certain character that you want or need to complete your roster. The game has no guaranteed banner character pity (yet – this could change with later updates). Therefore, it’s possible to keep getting off banner characters.
- Quite a high pity counter (guaranteed 6-star unit) for such low premium currency rewards and no source of income. The game has a 2% chance to get a 6-star unit as a base. After 50 pulls, the chance to get a 6-star unit goes up by 4.5% every summon afterward until it hits 100%.
Again, the game is very Arknights inspired, even down to the banner rates, but it excludes all the things that Arknights does well. For more information about these systems, see my article (Is Arknights Free-to-Play Friendly?) on Arknights rates and see the similarities but, most importantly, the differences.
What is the Endgame in Alchemy Stars?
As with most PvE gachas and mobile games, the endgame will consist of different challenges and climbing some tower (called the Spire in this case).
The game forces players to create multiple mono-colored teams to tackle bosses of differing elements and mechanics.
The game also has a roguelike game mode called Secret Territory, where you go through a path and fight a boss on each floor which resets weekly for players to collect additional resources and currency.
Therefore, at the endgame in Alchemy Stars, players will max out all of their teams to prepare for harder challenges that await them on the tower or gather resources more easily in Secret Territory.
Alchemy Stars Verdict
The general feeling of Alchemy Stars is that it’s a bit rushed. It’s trying to chase the same notes and feelings that Arknights hit but failed to hit the mark. The systems, themes, and even the 2D/3D art feel like all separate parts of different gacha games rather than one whole.
Despite its flaws, however, the game is still quite fun to play for players that like a more tactical approach and active gameplay. It does try some new things that the gacha market hasn’t seen before. Therefore, it’s worth a shot for anyone looking for this type of experience.