Tokyo Debunker

This game is wonderful! I truly love the art, ALMOST all the writing, the community aspects of the game, the minigames, and the amazing soundtrack (seriously the music gives me chills sometimes). However, I have one major complaint about this game: our playable character. Though many other well-written characters in the game undergo serious character development, our MC never changes. We are always forced to play a passive role despite our character’s great potential to help others with her powerful special ability, a little critical thinking, and some drive to overcome her insecurities (which she herself names after every negative situation yet still no sign of her attempting to change). After being subjected to unfair situations, her life being literally uprooted, needless disrespect (I would slap Leo if I could 😐), facing dangerous monsters, and being backed into a corner many times, our MC somehow manages to still be a perfect doormat for anyone to wipe their dirty shoes on. The complete lack of decisions we as players can make to see some growth is incredibly frustrating. I don’t understand how a game so good at writing characters makes its heroine so one dimensional and static. To sum up, if you are looking for a game with a main character who grows with the story, a main character who is smart/witty and actively tries to better her situation, or a main character who stands up against unfairness, you’re looking at the wrong game. If you don’t mind playing a depth-less, potential-wasting character, then this game is honestly great! That’s why I’m still rating this game 5 stars: it’s such a beautiful story but suffers greatly from this one horrible aspect.

The overall story is decent with nice artwork and makes up for a lot of things disliked about the game. Battles aren’t that fun and there isn’t really any gameplay besides leveling up characters, doing investigations and the rhythm game aspect. It would be cool if there were special events and more interactive aspects about it. Leveling up characters and obtaining characters is difficult enough. A lot of games are pay to win or even pay to play and this game seems like that. When it comes to investigations, there should be like a recommended level or power. It’s hard to determine if your power is enough to get you through an investigation. I can see many elements this game may or may not be inspired by. One ick of mine is how the mc is written. At first I was alright with her not having a main role because there were other characters they wanted you to focus on. She became consistently written in a bad way. Timid, not a lot of growth, and just not really utilized well. She has an enhancing power and she’s cursed. Those were interesting until it was just forgotten. Honestly you can tell some character designs and personalities are reminiscent of some already existing characters or just your typical tropes and it’s a bit irritating but not too unbearable. I just wish there was more care put into the characters and their meaning and purpose in the storyline without being written as common tropes or brushed off to the side. It’s a decent story but a not so good game itself.

As much as I enjoy playing this game every day, I find myself disappointed with the amount of ads I get of this game with fake gameplay. The story is interesting, I do find that you’re pretty much forced to play every day to progress since at a certain point it becomes painstakingly slow to beat levels and grow your characters unless you are whaling money into the game (or consistently logging in to do all the daily check in activities across the span of multiple days to gain a singular level) . Even when you do put money into the game for pulls you still face really rough drop rates with little reward. There isn’t a clear distinction on how far off you are from beating levels either. Granted gameplay in that aspect is nonexistent. Aside from the music levels which are fun, albeit few and far between. Those levels offer no reason to replay after receiving the initial rewards. Unless you just want to replay it for the sake of replaying it. I still find myself engaged because I’m curious to see the characters stories. I think this game has potential, but currently it’s standing in its own way by falsely advertising interesting gameplay only to result in minimal actual gameplay that is completely different than the ads. I recommend if you like idle games and gatcha pulls. At this point I keep seeing cool ads then get disappointed when I see this games title attached to it. EDIT: even the photos on the store are of fake game play.