Era of Sepia

I first noticed the ads for this game thinking it was gonna be something along the lines of Genshin or Wuthering Waves (that’s how the ads portrayed it) and was SUPER EXCITED because I’m a girl who loves those games AND I love anime, and sure, gender bending all the male protagonists into females? Not too bad of an idea! Keeping the lore and the looks but changing up their style and personalities (and names on top of that) kept it peeking my interest! However, you go into the game and it’s not open world at all. It’s one of those AFK, battles by itself games, and all you do is just the character leveling. That’s ALL of your gameplay. At the very least I thought maybe it would have Person 5 gameplay, turn based, but no. Character leveling. So, all of that aside, I can applaud the game for putting good work into some things (character art, SOME animations) but that means I also criticize this game for making it seem like those are the only things they put hard work into. The voice acting is eh, no story to follow, no background, and super P2W. So I’d like to keep it straight with you and just say that if you just don’t take this game seriously, if you just understand that this game is nothing but a gooner waifu collector (at the bare minimum) then I think you’ll enjoy this game. I am currently still playing it (at this time it is a few days after launching) only for the simple fact that I do love anime and women ARE hot. (I also can’t help but enjoy gacha games) Otherwise, this game has nothing for you.✌️

Edited So after hearing about the crashing being fixed, I wanted to come back and try the game again. The crashing was fixed and the game feels a lot more polished than it did at release. The tutorial felt a lot better this time, and things felt a lot more optimized. The gacha system feels a lot nicer too, I was pretty happy getting good rarity characters at a decent pace. The game still has some stuff you can spend money on, but it feels so much more f2p friendly now. The gameplay is pretty slow even at 2x speed, maybe a 3x speed might help a little bit here. Progression is quite slow as well, but that ties into the gameplay speed and these issues are not deal breakers at all. Overall, props to the team behind this for fixing the major optimization issues the game had, this game was a lot better the second time around

Interesting character designs—some truly creative, others more familiar. I do wish the character actually named after the game had more viability in the meta; it’s disappointing when the titular figure doesn’t hold their own competitively. Still, the boldness in many of the designs is commendable. I’d genuinely love to see behind-the-scenes content—how the concept made it to the App Store, and how the artist chose to bring these characters to life. The voice acting is serviceable, though I personally play with the audio off. This is definitely a pay-to-win title. PvP feels shamelessly skewed toward whales, and the ranking system constantly reminds you of other players making impossible progress unless you spend. Getting “rewarded” for other players’ achievements—usually just 200 blue scales—feels like salt in the wound. Honestly, I’d rather receive nothing and be left in peace. The music loops quickly and gets repetitive. Challenge scaling is bizarre—something beatable at 150K power suddenly demands 333K without warning. The difficulty curve isn’t a curve—it’s a wall. Onboarding is overwhelming. You’re bombarded with handouts, pop-ups, and too many guides, but none of it explains the world or who the characters even are. That intro screen with your avatar transforming into a girl? No context. There’s a lot I don’t like—especially the monetization—but I genuinely appreciate the talent and creativity the artists brought to this project. It’s just a shame the game around it doesn’t support that artistry better