Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. I haven’t shared a video game review in quite a while. I started by covering a bunch of Gacha games and intended on including them all in this post, but I pared that down to one gacha Genshin Impact, which will post tomorrow. I found that most video game reviews aren’t effective when discussing free-to-play video games. So, let’s give video game reviews the enema it needs.

Video game reviews often cover things that are easy to spot. Visuals? You can see screenshots: unnecessary. Audio? I guess that’s helpful, but again there are video shorts, and one can get the feel of a game’s audio before purchasing. Gameplay might be the most useful and some sites will even include a video game’s replayability. But we’re living in a free-to-play video game world, and there are video game review categories that get overlooked.

Respecting a player’s time may be the biggest omission. Replayability is fine and all, but video gamers are getting older. So many of us are parents and grandparents and even the ones who don’t have kids have other real-world obligations.

Respecting a player’s time has become more important than replayability. I said it. Whenever I see a game boast that it has 100s of hours of replayability, I lose interest. I don’t need another part-time job playing a video game for certain unlockables or item upgrades. That’s good for someone whose job is video games or someone still in grade school. The rest of us have other things we could be doing or other things we need to do.

True cost. Free-to-play games need a true cost category. Can players effectively play a game without buying the battle pass every patch? Yes. Battle passes should also have their own category, because most free-to-play games include one. Heck! Several paid games include a battle pass in today’s climate.

But Gacha games, which have gained popularity in recent years because of their monetization system, find ways to price-gouge players with drop rates for characters and items. But Kyra, you could play 40 hours a week to—see respecting a player’s time. I guess this one could also be called respecting a player’s money.

I’d take it further with splitting gameplay into mechanisms and gameplay loop. Mechanisms are what you’re mechanically doing in a game, but what one does in a game only matters if the game mechanisms are unique. And gameplay loop is how satisfying and engaging the mechanisms work together as a whole.

Gameplay combines the two ideas. I guess the combo works, but separate categories may attract different gamers. Some like playing a unique game even if the combination of elements gets clunky. Other gamers look for a cohesive whole.

I’d do a similar thing with story or narrative. Storytelling and a story are not the same thing. John Updike’s A&P has a simple premise, but Updike’s storytelling elevates the story into a classic. On the flip side, Genshin Impact has a great story if you can follow it, but Hoyoverse has done a piss pour job at storytelling. Oops! That may have spoiled the Genshin Impact review.

With all of that said, let’s see if we can pin down a good set of video game review criteria before covering the first of a few larger gacha games. But before we do that, we’ll need to discuss what makes a gacha game for the folks who may not know. For those of you who know what a gacha game is, feel free to scroll past this next section. I’ll try and keep it short.

Gacha Games

Gacha games have been around for decades. One of the first, MapleStory released in 2003. Yikes! It has been decades. But the polish and larger budget and success of 2020’s Genshin Impact launched gacha games into mainstream popularity.

Gachas have always been popular, especially in eastern Asia, but Genshin’s blend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s gameplay and the gacha monetization system brought in new fans. Let’s be real. Genshin is a Breath of the Wild clone. So, the only new thing Genshin really introduced to that formula was the gacha system. So, let’s discuss what makes a Gacha game.

Gachas work like collectible card games or like the gacha machines the game type borrows the word. Gacha machines are the machines one can find at the front of a grocery store. Insert a coin (quarter) into the machine, turn the crank, and a plastic ball with a toy inside spits out from a spout. Gacha originates in Japan. The Japanese call it that because they believe that’s the sound a gacha machine makes as one turns the crank. Gacha. Gacha! Gacha!!!

In gacha games, players wish or warp or convene—each game has its own word for what you’re doing, so let’s come up with a universal term “turn”—or takes a turn on a banner. Each banner will feature a character.

Usually, but not always, players take a certain number of turns on the banner before they can receive the featured character (usually about 80-100 turns). I say “can receive” because gachas typically employ a percentage chance of gaining the featured character or item. Often, one needs to lose their percentage chance of gaining a featured item before receiving a guaranteed character/item.

As you can guess, this monetization system is how gacha games make most of their money. And they make a LOT of money. Despite most gacha games using a free-to-play model, one will often find gacha games at the top of the most money earned over any given month. This fact is also why gachas became popular. Video game companies like money.

With those new ways of earning—or syphoning—money from customers, we may need new video game review criteria. So, let’s pin down some free-to-play/gacha video game categories.

Mechanisms

This will be a category for the folks who like interesting mechanisms in their game. Games that push what can be done with video games from a technical gameplay standpoint will earn good scores.

Above image from GameDesigning.org

Gameplay Loop

This is how the mechanisms work together to make a cohesive product. A formulaic game can score a high Gameplay Loop score, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t anything unique.

Respecting Time

This applies more to free-to-play games, but I’ve seen plenty of other games waste a players time. Games that don’t waste a player’s time with busy work will score high in this category.

Battle Pass

If a game has a battle pass, it will receive a score in this category. Who are we kidding? Most, if not every, gacha game has a battle pass. Even some paid games boast battle passes. I’ll split this score between the necessity of buying the pass and what one gets for completing it, giving difference to the latter.

True Cost

How much does the game actually cost? Again, this is more a question for free-to-play games, but players can be asked to purchase add-ons. How much does everything cost?

Narrative

I mentioned this prior. This is the story, not the storytelling. Gachas have a nasty habit of chopping up their narratives and tossing them into the wind. I’ll be leaning on YouTubers and other people to help me piecemeal these stories together.

Storytelling

Again, this I mentioned this prior. How well does the game tell its story? These are two very different concepts, especially for gacha games.

User Interface

Gachas are also notorious for having difficult to manage menus. This wouldn’t be that big of an issue for most video games, but free-to-play games have a knack for hiding things within sub-sub-sub-sub menus so gamers can’t find them.

Presentation

Yes. It’s obvious but still a necessary category. I’ll use this as a catch all for graphics and audio, giving an internal score for both within the segment.

Final Thoughts

And with that, I think we have a good set of parameters. I’ll see you tomorrow. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a nice day.