Being one of the first new gacha games to release in 2024. Aetelier Resleriana takes the Aetelier series and turns it into a gacha game. Being developed by Koei Tecmo and Akatsuki Games they bring us a new experience using the Aetelier IP. This is my first impressions for this game so if youre a fan of the series this video will focus on overall first few hours playing this game and i do know this game is not even remotely close to what the actual games offer but i will be viewing this from a perspective of a gacha game amongst the sea of gachas out there and i did thoroughly enjoy this amongst the most that is out there and lets talk about the overall gameplay loops and mechanics to expect during your time playing this game.
Upon first moments of the game i feel like this gacha truly excels at how heavy the story is implied upon with the game having long cutscenes with fully fleshed out voice acting which can be rare in most gacha titles. The main gameplay loop is understanding this game is heavily animated cinematic turn based with some extra mechanics that can affect how the turns work. During battle, each character has 3 different forms of attacking and the main mechanic that can change things up during fights is the burst skill and burst panels. Burst skills is the characters ultimate which are heavily animated as well and looks great. The burst panels appear as either buffs or debuffs for the given character it appears on.
All enemies do have a stun gauge which can be broken when most character like the breakers can abuse like all characters have specific roles like the character Shallistera which makes her great at stunning enemies and once that enemy is stunned they lose there attack order and gets sent to the back of the line. To help further improve your time in battles the game offers the synthesis mechanic which lets players combine materials to help make items by using waifus you obtain that help make powerful recipes and craft them to equip to your team. In order for you to get the most benefits out of the recipes the game does a great job at explaining how the characters color and abilities can affect how the equipment works. To obtain more recipes, there's a progression board which completes as you continue to go through the story to allow you to craft more armor, weapons, and other accessories.
One of the bigger equipment's you can apply to your roster is the memoria which acts as a massive buff to help further improve your squads and you can use up to three pieces of equipment to truly maximize the benefits of your characters. With the game allowing multiple ways to improve yourself like using the growth board to help increase the stats of your individual team and once you unlock quest you can do training or material quests which acts as game way collecting materials to further improve everyone and awaken them to become stronger. Dungeons also help with gathering more items to synthesize and great for overall grinding. Lastly, The wishing system which is the integral part of any gacha this allows you to obtain more characters i do play as free to player and the animation to summon is heavily animated and i haven't felt the need to spend money since the game offers so much ways to get free summon crystals.
The visuals for the whole game, looks great it fits the art style of the previous Aetelier games having this vibrant and beautiful art style very pleasing to the eyes. The voice acting for the story content really helps bring the world and characters to life really bringing the characteristics of them to life. The cutscenes are pretty lengthy and its great to see the character models are very animated and helps the storytelling and understanding the personalities of each character. While grinding through everything the soundtrack has bangers with these upbeat and slice of life vibes for the music in game.
My final verdict with 4 hours of game time, i actually really enjoy the gacha version of the actual series and I know there's a huge difference between the gacha and real game but for a free mobile and pc counterpart its kind of hard to truly compare the two entities. The story really does carry the gacha game since the overall gameplay is pretty much like most gacha games out there. Which makes the game a lot more enjoyable than just grinding through like with most gacha games. I love how cinematic the camera work is during battle and how the ultimate's look very cinematic. I give this a good 7 out of 10 i do believe if you want to try out a new gacha game and be able to play on pc and mobile and a story heavy game with some good difficulty spikes. If youre a fan of the Aetelier games and want to try it out just know its not going to be the exact feeling as the real deal you must treat it as its own entity.