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「Mobage」Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan Mousou Bousou! Psychic Battle!

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 / 2 Comments
As the name would suggest, this is yet another mobile game review! This game is based on the world of Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, otherwise known as "The Disastrous Life of Saiki K" and is developed by Dream Link Entertainment (DLE).
When it comes to mobage with a gacha system, we players have several requirements. First, the art and how authentic the art-style and story is to the show (because we are all fans of the show!), how fun the actual gameplay is (it's a game after all), and of course, how rigged the gacha system could be. But before we move on to shoving financial sacrifices to our lord and savior, RNGesus, let's first take a step back to look at several aspects of the game itself.

1. Login bonus


Most, if not all, mobage nowadays has its own login bonus as a way to entice players into logging in daily so they don't "miss out". This is even more important for a new game like this, so let's take a look at what the two different login bonuses now.

The first is a special one "START DASH LOGIN BONUS" where they thank new users for picking up the game, entice them with a SR Kaidou (Day 7) and make a DASH for their banks. Jokes aside, the second image is the normal login bonus where you get these pink "power-ups", coffee-jelly (for exchanging items in the store) and of course, diamonds (for the sacrificial gacha). Not too... shabby, I suppose.
Starting the game now also gives 450 free diamonds (for a free 10-roll). This is awesome and very convenient for rerollers so if you like to do that, or just want to have a free gacha to try your hand at, here's your solution!

2. Story

I firmly believe that mobage and stories come hand in hand, and this game is lacking slightly in this aspect. First, there doesn't seem to be an "auto" or "skip" function, and the story isn't voiced. At all. All these seem to scream about the game being possibly low(er) budget, but considering the gag-style source material, I'm not too surprised.

The humorous side of the anime is still present in the game (if you bother reading). The visuals are easy on the eyenot bad but certainly not fabulous either. In fact, it's reminiscent of the anime and I do feel that it ties in well enough to be an extension of the anime.

3. Gameplay
This game uses a node-style stage where you have 10 stages per page. After clearing them all at least once, you can then move on to the next page. After clearing each stage, you will get a rankGold (Stages 11-12), Silver (Stage 13) and henceforth.

The first play of a node takes 1 stamina (top right heart-shaped icon at 17/50) and a re-play of a stage takes 10 stamina up until stage 12. Stages marked with "Event!!" comes with a short story before the battle so if you are a big fan of the series, make sure to keep an eye out for those!
Gameplay isn't difficult at all and there are basically only 5 main things you have to take note of.

1. You have a base which you'll have to protect and it comes with a health bar. The enemy will have a base that's directly opposite yours and they will be sending out minions to destroy your base.

2. These are you tiny little minions. Send them out to protect your base as well as destroy the enemy's base. They will engage the opponent's minions in a heated battle if they meet along the way! Each minion also comes with their own skill, such as increase in attack or health recovery, etc. Sending each minion out costs Ψ points, for instance 35ΨP for 1 Saiki Kusuo.

3. This is your wallet. Leveling up your wallet would allow you to gain more ΨP per second as well as increase the maximum amount of ΨP you can hoard.

4. This is the amount of ΨP you currently have. The limit is 100ΨP and I currently have 47. As mentioned in (3), leveling up the wallet will increase the limit above 100ΨP.

5. This is the map. The left end (in blue) is your base while the right end (in purple) is the enemy's base. In this game, there are two tracks, a "ground" and a "flying" track, hence the two rows on the map between the bases. Your progress to the enemy's base will remain as blue whereas the enemy's progress to your base will be marked in purple. The site of battle will be marked with a yellow collision. This map function is incredibly handy as you are unable to zoom out.

 Here's an actual battle so you can decipher the five points which I've just mentioned!

In addition, at the top left corner, there's a pause button as well as Auto and 2x Speed.


4. Extras
This game comes with a "souvenir" system where you find random items in Saiki's room. Such items seem be the trigger to a backstory but sadly, I haven't had the luck to find any yet...

Something I like about this game is how they put all the cards you don't currently own as silhouettes in the member's list, with the backgrounds of the cards being the deciding factor for the different rarities. The list is then further divided by character for easy sorting. This definitely makes life much easier if you are collecting every card of a character and you want to find what you're missing.
Furthermore, there is also a seal-exchange shop going on in this game, where you use coffee jellies to exchange (brown thing at top-center) for items. You can get cards from 2* to 4* (highest rarity) for a ridiculous number of jellies. As it is also mentioned that these cards are limited to April, there might be a rotation for other cards as well.
You can also change other things such as these pink "skills" for use in battle, or "titles" for your profile page!

5. Gacha
Gacha is the reprieve of our tainted souls and RNG-less bodies. And of course, this mobage comes with a gacha system as well! All cards in the pool are at least 2* (rares, duh) and doing a 10-roll guarantees at least one 3* (SR). A soloyolo is 50 diamonds and doing 10-roll at 450 diamonds is technically a 9+1 and definitely much more worth it.
A discounted daily scout is also available on the second tab, going at 10 diamonds for a soloyolo instead of 50.

But... what's the rates?!
Well, the rates are as stated in the image above. For the first nine cards, 3% for a 4* and 27% for a 3%. The last card is always 3*+ guaranteed at 97% chance for a 3*.
There are three different types of cards currentlypurple, orange and blue. Purple cards are land-based but have attacks that can affect both orange (land) and blue (sky/flying) types by whacking the blues back onto land. Orange cards are land-based and their attacks only work on land as well. 

Blue cards are those that can fly and hence if there are no "flying" opponents as well, you can just fly straight to the enemy's base and destroy it. Of course, the opposite is also true.
As with most games, you can tell if you will be getting a 4* card before the cards themselves appear. The fire around Saiki's hand is green, hence, there is no 4*. I'm still unsure if flips happen in this game.
If there is a 4* in the pool, you will see a short animation of Saiki removing one of the limiter devices on his head (hence he is missing his left one in the image above), and the flame around the diamond will be rainbow-colored.
Furthermore, 3* cards are lined in this orange light while 2* cards are lined in blue. Rainbow lights are obviously 4* cards. It's so easy to tell!
 Dupes are marked as +1 and added to the card's stats.


4* cards come with a better illustration though still nothing fantastic. That being said, they are ridiculously strong in battle so if you don't mind rerolling, starting with a 4* should be optimal!

6. Prices

This is a legit topic for whales or people who might be enticed to spend a little in the future. I generally go by the expensive pack being potentially the best (unless it's Bandori...) but you can always divide the price by the number of diamonds to get the cost per diamond. This would give you the most worth-it set to purchase.

For easier comparison, a 10-roll will cost about 2000 yen (450 gems) so this is definitely a comparatively cheap game to whale on. That being said, I'm currently too jaded by idol-games to judge these prices well anymore, so take it with a pinch of salt.
And last but not the least, shout-out for the special packs that are definitely a lot more worth it than the normal sets. These packs are in for a limited time only so if you feel that this game is good enough to support it financially, do keep a lookout for these!

~ Reina-rin

「Ani-summary」Introduction to Mahou Shoujo Site - Episode 1

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 / No Comments
Mahou Shoujo Site, otherwise known as Magical Girl Site follows a female protagonist, Asagiri Aya who faces bullying problems in school. The episode starts with an introduction to poor Aya's problematic daily life where she gets endlessly tormented by her three classmates while the teachers and other students turn a blind eye to the situation.

Aya thinks of dying everyday but pushes through still. She always stops moments before actually doing the act as she worries about leaving her only friend behind.

This friend is a stray kitten who she constantly brings food and toys for.
At home, she has what seems to be a normal family--with a caring mother, strict father and a prodigy brother.
However, in reality Aya gets constant physical abuse by her brother as a form of 'stress relief'. There is literally nowhere where Aya can relax and be herself.
After a long day of abuse both in school and at home, Aya was nearly passed out when her PC flickers on and goes to a page called "Magical Girl Site".
Upon pressing "enter", the grotesque image of a girl in braids appear and announces that she has granted Aya magical powers, and her wand will be sent to her soon.
On the next day to school, there was a train accident involving a cat but Aya pays no mind to it as she was still deep in thought about the creepy site from yesterday.

As if on cue, she finds a gun with a heart-shaped barrel in her shoe locker. Unsure of what to do with it, Aya places it into her school bag and goes off to class.
And of course, the bullies strike again! Moreover, this time they roped an upperclassman that's probably rated last in the entire school for looks, into the bullying act... and well, we all know where this is going to go.
Thankfully, Aya ceased being a wimp and actually sincerely attempted to fight her way out of this. She managed to run away from this dark and stinky gym equipment room and get to a safer area, probably to stay until break time is over.

Sadly, as fate would have it, the good people in such anime series tend to lose out and Aya is no exception. She was found by the gross-looking senpai and overpowered easily.
Thank god for stupid characters because one of the bullies actually revealed that the cat at the accident in the morning was the stray cat that Aya was looking after. Her apt description of how the kitten's guts splattered in an instant was enough to harden Aya's resolve.
Out comes the funny looking gun and it takes one second for the two bullies to laugh at how ridiculous it looks before Aya, now equipped with unusual pupils, fires the gun.





The two bullies were transported together with the bullet to a nearby area where they were ran over by a train and killed just like the kitten was.

No one actually witnessed what had transpired withing those few minutes and rumors about it being a lovers-suicide was circulating instead. However, this does not reduce the guilt Aya burdens as she suspects that she had something to do with their deaths.

Attempts to locate the Magical Girl Site does not work (error 404!) and Aya has no choice but to return to her daily life while trying to make sense of the gun and the sudden deaths of her classmate and upperclassman.

But as luck would have it, the two remaining bullies are still unwilling to let Aya go as they firmly believe that Aya has something to do with their friend's death. 



One of the bullies takes this further up a notch by brandishing a penknife and spewing out threats about disfiguring our cute little Aya.
This might have been much more hilarious if it were concerning a stapler, and with Senjougahara and Araragi but it isn't. Fortunately, our other aloof Mahou Shoujo appears on cue and saves Aya by stopping time.
If you are thinking of Akemi Homura due to my mention of stopping time, halt that thought right there because Yatsumura Tsuyuno is nothing like Homura. In fact, she doesn't think twice before killing a fellow classmate.


It's pretty obvious to us viewers that Yatsumura is a fellow Mahou Shoujo, but she takes the step to acknowledge herself as such to Aya and subtly reveals that she was also introduced into this by a Magical Girl Site.
The episode then ends off with Yatsumura mentioning that she'll explain about the Site, and that might be exactly what we will be getting the next episode.

For those of you who plan on sitting through my summary of the first three episodes of this anime with me, or plan to watch it as well, sit tight and let's wait for Episode 2 together!

~ Reina-rin