Alchemia Story

I decided to check out Alchemia Story because of the graphics. They are very nice and are an upgrade from most of Asobimo’s other games. The customization is also nice. You can change eye, hair, and even skin color to a color of your choice. Although, I do wish there were a few more hair options, since all of them look similar. Unfortunately, the game itself is rather boring. There are a lot of gacha game mechanics. The gacha isn’t entirely cruel, however, and it is quite easy to get powerful armor or weapons. It’s just that I’d personally prefer it if I could choose what armor/weapons to get. There are also way too many cutscenes. As soon as I started the game, I was shoved into several long tutorial cutscenes. I didn’t even get to play the game. I tried skipping all of them, but it still took me a few minutes to finish them! Not to mention, there were a lot of translation errors. I know that it is hard to translate everything; but, there are very obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. It is hard to understand what the characters are saying. It doesn’t help that the community is also rather quiet. There aren’t a lot of game mechanics that involve characters to interact. I tried talking to some people in chat and I was mostly ignored. The only other good thing I can think of is the housing system. It looks great; but, I got too bored to make it to the point where I could get one myself. All and all, I would not recommend this game to many people.

As expected from the makers of Avabel online and Toram online, this one is even better. The graphics and the maps or gorgeous, with detail in every little corner, and it’s fun seeing the little animations here and there (which are also very, very detailed). The combat system is fun for me, whereas instead of tapping and spamming skills and avoiding red circles (sometimes), this takes a bit more strategy here and there, with the critical and elemental system to take in mind as well as the skills casting various buffs & debuffs. There’s an enormous amount of jobs (classes), each one granting bonus stats and having unique skills. Players aren’t limited to specific skills due to a class restriction (but please, consider having the NPC display ALL classes at once, not just 4). Walking around takes some time and spending coins on teleporting can be pricey, so I suggest mounts (Not the kinds the give bonus stats, just some that give movement speed). Getting gear and weapons is easy since earning gems is also easy making it “non-p2w”. I’d also suggest more guides, even official ones to explain the game’s mechanics more (ex, damage limit). Also a way to skip storyline quicker since some of us players simply want to jump in and start hacking at creatures.

First off, yes this game is now in English. If any of you remember Asobimo’s old Celes Arc and have been missing it, this will be up your alley. First off, the visuals are phenomenal and massively beyond what this dev has done in the past. Controls are smooth and responsive. Like Celes Arca, for an MMO, this is heavy on the story which is nice. Also like Celes, battle is chrono trigger turned based where you can engage enemies by walking to them to start an event...or freely walk into an event started by another player. The VR was a really good touch where you go into first person and can view the world as if you were there...with good depth perception. The only issues I have are that sometimes the text isn’t properly formatted and sticks out of the dialogue boxes. The other is that this game definitely still feels like it’s in the early phase as there aren’t many town buildings one can explore yet. The third is a hope for the expansion of the VR feature. It would be nice if we could use controllers so that we can have full exploration capacity in this mode rather than relying on locked run or auto quest run to feel like we’re exploring in first person. It would also be nice to be able to use the walk speed in first person and not only when in 3rd person.