As part of an on again off again ‘thing’ to do on my Twitch channel, I’ve played a handful of different mobile games to see which ones are actually fun as games and which ones are just kind of mindless clickers and Adventure Quest looking cash-ins. Girls’ Frontline remains my favorite overall, but Honkai Impact is mashy and engaging enough I’ve stuck with it even though it’s probably the worst time sink of the lot. But I’m not really here to talk about specific games right now, I thought I would take a bit to dump some thoughts I’ve had about mobile games (or ‘mobage’ if you’re… like that.)
When smartphones were propagating and the first mobile hits started spreading around, I wasn’t really impressed, and didn’t really mess with them until Fallout Shelter came out and my device could actually run it. My first droid was actually a burner I bought so I could test projects for an app development course so it had minimal onboard storage and stubbornly refused to use the memory card to install anything. Shelter was fun, but beyond that I got the impression everything was shallow puzzle games that occasionally liked to cozy up and ask for twenty dollars to go to the malt shop, daddy. Even the first one I actually enjoyed is basically a simple SRPG that happened to have a story and setting that jibed with me well. As time and technology waltz onward, though, and games look more and more like they’d be at home on a console, and stuff is coming out that *actually looks good.* I’m still kind of processing this as a thing that is happening, in the actual world. I routinely leave my Switch at home when I visit my dad less to travel lighter and more because that day, maybe I’m in more of an Arknights mood.
At some point I’ve kind of come to realize being a snob about mobile games was kind of a dumb thing for me to do given that I like simple, creative games more than cinematic AAA eXpErIeNcEs. Maybe some of the What Happened? binge watching and mentions of Konami and others switching focus to pachinko and mobage sparked the realization that “wait, they’re not just being stupid trend chasers, these games are making mad bank on smaller budgets.” I like indie games, they’re done on small budgets and are the closest thing creatively to what we saw in the olden days, so what’s the difference?
Weeeell… there are differences.
As alluded to before, there are a lot of ones I’ve tried that felt kind of like cookie cutter RPGs without a real hook, or even worse, like low effort asset recycling when they come from larger companies. There’s also no denying the array of psychological tricks and manipulative design elements they employ to try and loosen the wallet. When I find a game I really enjoy, I don’t mind sending a bit of money their way to keep things running, but in most of those cases, the key phrase there is ‘I don’t mind’ doing it vs basically needing to do it to progress. For example, one of the first games I got into was an Armored Core ripoff of sorts called Destroy Gunners that kept closing and reopening as new versions which always felt kind of suspicious. It was a pretty fun game and the touchscreen controls didn’t ruin it, but what did was the occasional boss appearances, Devil Mechs. They’re unreasonably tough and the only way to take them out at low levels is basically to bring out a limited use laser weapon given for free to new players and sold at a premium afterwards. A lot of games I’ve tried do a less drastic version of that where the early game is super generous with gacha pulls and other resources at first, then as you clear early game achievements and such, the rewards slow to a trickle and you’re still kind of riding the high of the initial shopping spree… It’s rough, buddy!
I think I’ve identified my personal weakness in these as that I really like playing from a “gotta catch em all” angle and just want as many shiny new units as possible. After all, who knows if there won’t be an event in like three months where the pigtailed can opener woman with heterochromia has just the right combination of skills to break the difficulty wide open even though she kind of sucks now and I already have a full party of max level, max promoted characters that clear everything just fine? I can resist cosmetic items and skins pretty easily, and equipment I usually can wave my hand and go “as long as my characters are good, I can make up for the gear, right?” but when an actual character is paywalled or worse, RNGwalled, boy that does a number on my resistance. Honkai 3rd especially has my number because I enjoy character action games and each suit has a pretty unique fighting style. Very early on, I spent an embarassing amount of (gift card) money to be sure I got Herrscher of Reason because she was a blast to play with in demo levels. Later I also splurged on Flamescion, but didn’t get her, only to actually pull her on a handful of free tickets that were given out the next morning, which made me go “wait, this is actually stupid.”
I’ve kind of scaled back the amount of gacha game streaming I do partly because they’re not especially popular most of the time, and also, as both hypocritical and cheesy as it feels, sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t encourage others to pick them up. Some are definitely more susceptible to blowing large sums on a game and almost all of them are designed specifically to waste your time. I never even really thought about *why* so many of them have daily task lists and/or shitty UI’s, until my friend Sophie pointed out that if you’re playing one game longer, it’s more or less physically preventing you from doing something else. Time is precious, and normal games can already help waste it just fine. I’ve dropped a couple regulars recently and frequently go into ‘bare minimum’ mode with the ones I do keep playing because I’ve been in more of a mood to create than absorb recently.
I realize this has been a largely unstructured ramble, because it’s a largely unstructured ramble patched together from thoughts rattling around in my head for several weeks. It probably comes off as half starry eyed “golly, the world of tomorrow is here, and if you’re lucky, you can put a maid costume on it” and half DARE program. I think the mobile format has a lot of advantages as well as things that I don’t see it doing better than PC/console. High action games on a touchscreen which means your big meaty thumbs are covering a portion of the action are horrible, and few things take me out of a moment faster than Messenger popups or YouTube notifications sliding into view. Not all designers seem to handle the problem of “what if someone playing on their phone actually gets a call?” equally either. Things that I do enjoy though, are the smaller scale and simplification that portable platforms call for. It’s actually probably why Peace Walker is my favorite Metal Gear. The gachas I play have also probably been the best application of episodic content I’ve seen since updates come regularly and automatically, instead of having to remember to go back to Steam or whatever and see if Episode 3 of Polygon People Sure Love To Talk has dropped. It’s more of a drip feed of new story and game content than having an expansion dropped on your lap to finish in one sitting. Personally, I like that, though I also don’t like that many such events are limited time and prey on people’s fear of missing out. Basically, if there’s a game I’m enjoying enough for free, I’ll show my support with a monthly gem pass or something like a tip jar every now and then.
Enjoy responsibly, like the beer commercials always say, I guess.
