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AETHER GAZER - What an interesting game! Full Review

2K View2023-09-06

Aether Gazer

8.8

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Aether Gazer (Reviewed)

Developer: Yostar Games

Publisher: Yostar Games

Released: May 23rd, 2023

Price: Free To Play

Aether gazer is a fast paced exciting action-RPG and Gacha. It's surprising good while also being quite generous with their new players and the amount of playtime that you get. Just like your other Gatchas that appears every now and then. It contains many familiar features, as well as a story, characters and pulls.

Story

Humanity has been uploaded to an AI
The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity is forced to flee Earth by uploading their consciousnesses to Gaea an AI paradise. You play as an Administrator in Aether Gazer leading a group of humans against the threat.

With a range of powerful characters, weapons, and talents at your disposal, you will order them into battle in whichever squads you so choose to take them out on.

I didn't find the story appealing. However, I really like how they are voice acted by some very good voice actors of varying diversities, making the female characters sound normal and not unpleasant as in high pitch moan noises and the like.

Skipping Cutscenes rewards a shorter version
Very excellent touch for the plot portion of the game to provide a quick recap of the previous cutscene and dialogue that was skipped, providing some basic knowledge on what is going on in the game if you prefer to skip dialogue scenes all together.

Presentation

Fantastic but could be a little bit better
The user interface and HUD are designed well. Unlike others where several things are layered on top of one another making it difficult to navigate, this one does it well.

I can see where I need to go without having to click on multiple different locations to get there. If I want to level up, I use modifiers, do I want to battle? You get the idea.

I can enjoy its simplicity without having to worry about learning how to navigate.

Character Interaction is adequate
Whether you're finishing up a fight or logging back in for the day. You can select a favourite member of your team to meet you and chat to you on a regular basis about their feelings toward you and other things. While the majority of the language is recycled, it nonetheless provides some personality to each character.

When the game turns to some high quality images and cutscenes that do a nice job of keeping you involved, you can really appreciate the game's visual aesthetics.

The music is wonderfully done, and the combat sound effects blend well together to provide visually and auditorily interesting and fun gameplay to keep you playing.

One issue
When your squad leader continues to repeat their catchphrase after each conflict after a stage is done, it can become tedious. A small annoyance, unless you come to like the particular character in question, in which case it doesn't bother you too much.

Gameplay

Really well done
This game's action-RPG is fast-paced and offers a variety of distinct playstyles based on the current character you have equipped as your leader. You have a variety of combo techniques as well as chain ultimate's based on who you have in your squad and whether or not they have a combo connection equipped before the battle.

If your team does not have any ultimate loaded, you can still perform some visually amazing ultimate moves depending on which element you have equipped to that character. That is, if you have them unlocked, which needs them to reach level 30.

Features

The new banner HADES
While I am conflicted and satisfied with my feelings towards Jin-Ei, the new banner for the new character HADES is now available through official pulls following the patch that was issued today. She is a puppeteer who leads two dolls into battle, each with their own personality. While she does not appeal to my tastes in characters. She does appear to be really fascinating with how she is designed and operates.

While I didn't get lucky with these pulls, I did receive Radiant, so it's comforting to know that I didn't simply pull useless characters. Even if I was hoping for Neiroi.

Growth
Relationships, upgrades, limit breaks, and other options allow you to customize your team based on power or you can get a bit more customizable appearance wise.

I happened to snag an S rank Jin-Ei and love how she has so many dashes and a lot of AoE while other characters have a lot more supportive skills or single target skills that make easy work of bosses or simply the regular trash mobs.

Diverse builds
There are numerous potent upgrades and chips that you can install to assist each and every one of your characters in things that they are better suited for. Making it really exciting when you finally can upgrade your favorite one closer to max level.

Story & Challenges
While the story was a little boring to me. It does reward you well, and it is the entire reason the game exists. So whether you prefer it for the story or skipping it all for the combat. You're going to love it in your own personal ways and that's perfectly fine!

The game does generously offer you a lot of energy to play for hours at the start, but after you run out. It becomes slower and more of a daily thing to play, but that is how these games are designed so you don't burn out and always want to play more.

Plenty of incentive
You have your regular daily logins, achievements, daily, weekly, and story missions, as well as other things to do. So, regardless of what you accomplish, you'll undoubtedly be unlocking more rewards every so often to empower your characters and if you run out you can always farm for more by doing stories and challenges.

Pulls seem alright
I mention a lot how games frequently give you a false sense when it comes to the potential rates you can acquire through pulls. When I start any Gacha, I always acquire a lot of high tiers. So I wasn't surprised to see one after my first ten pulls.

Jin-Ei remains potent, with the appropriate supports. She manages to clear away a lot of garbage mobs, but she doesn't fare as well as an A rank character designed for single target. So you can keep these in mind when strategizing difficult stages.

After these first pulls, I hadn't gotten much more than a few Rank A characters and a ton of duplicates. The more duplicates you acquire, the more money you'll have to pay to raise their ranks to A tier to S tier. So you can absolutely make some characters Rank S. However, it is not the same as possessing a legitimate Rank S.

Conclusion

What is being offered appeals to me
I accept the voice acting because it is actually good and not of poor quality, and the images and overall presentation of the game are nice enough to keep me focused on what I need to do and where I need to go to make those changes to my loadouts.

The combat is exciting and fast-paced. It's not turned-based, there's skippable dialogue, and you jump right into the action with no waiting or boredom. While I didn't believe the story was particularly fantastic, the gameplay through battle was enough sufficient to keep the game at a relatively high rating. I would have preferred to see more male characters, but I understand that these games are mainly about displaying females in dubious attire. If you appreciate games like Honkai: Star rail and the occasional Genshin Impact. You'll feel right at home with this game.

This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them.

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- Pawkt