Games worth discovering

Echocalypse: Scarlet Covenant is a great example of a terrible gacha game

7K View2023-12-19

Echocalypse: Scarlet Covenant

7.7

StrategyTurn-basedRPGAnime

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SHOULD I PLAY ECHOCALYPSE: SCARLET COVENANT?

Don’t play this. Echocalypse: Scarlet Covenant doesn’t present anything unique that could differentiate it from the hundreds of other boring gacha games out there. The gameplay has no depth, the characters have no personality, and the storyline isn’t exciting at all. There’s just no reason to give this game any time.

TIME PLAYED

I played Echocalypse: Scarlet Covenant for four hours. I’ve reached level 23, and I’ve acquired twenty-two of the sixty characters in the game. In terms of story progress, I’ve made it through the tutorial and prologue and am currently deep into the game’s second chapter

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT ECHOCALYPSE: SCARLET COVENANT?

• Gacha pulling. Echocalypse was quite generous in its rewards it gave me and I was able to pull four five-star characters within the first three hours plus some additional resources to upgrade them. I’m not sure if there’s any sort of progression wall or pay-to-win character combination later in the game, but so far, the early steps into Echocalypse have been pleasant.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT ECHOCALYPSE: SCARLET COVENANT?

• Scantily-clad characters. While Echocalypse’s roster of many voluptuous, scantily-clad characters might appeal to certain people, I’m not a part of that demographic. It’s obvious that the entire point of this game is to appeal to players with a bunch of nearly naked anime characters, so if that’s your thing, enjoy. Personally, I hated it.

• Combat lacks depth. Most of the game revolves around collecting characters, upgrading stats to make them stronger, and placing them on a battlefield to fight by themselves. The only input I had during combat was choosing when to use items, but even that could be taken care of with the auto-play option. This boring gameplay design made it hard for me to get pulled into the game.

• Generic storyline. The narrative in this game dives into a very standard gacha RPG formula. I played as an anime character—you can play as a male or female, but I chose female—who had to go on a journey to uncover a powerful relic in order to rescue her sister. While the voice-backed dialogue eased me in, the story lacked depth and thrill.

• That awful name. The amount of times I had to uncomfortably say Echocalypse while writing this review was one too many. Echocalypse? I mean, how do I even say that without my tongue twisting in several different weird ways? Even just looking at the name is uncomfortable.

PLATFORM TESTED

Android via Samsung Galaxy Ultra S22 5G.