Barely one month in, there’s enough about the Gakuen IDOLM@STER game beyond the pre-release hype cycle to talk about the first new brand for the IDOLM@STER series in 6 years. It’s fun! Also I need some place to flaunt my gacha rolls?
On that note, I was able to pull every P SSR thus far, except for Kotone’s current banner (Big Bang) and the base Kotone SSR. (I farmed the base Kotone P SSR since.) I guess the game and I are just not into her? It was not immediately clear to me why you would roll for P SSRs, but they do have stronger items, higher starting stats, and generally stronger special skill cards. Maybe the “end” goal in this game is also just PVP where you assemble groups of 3 teams going head to head with other idol teams. I don’t know.
A key thing about the game is that much of the game is locked behind the P level progression. This includes many powerful SR and SSR skill cards, not to mention the “pro” produce mode. What you can do in this game is different than many prior IM@S games, so it’s worth spelling it out a bit before going forward.
Most IM@S games you gacha for characters and outfits, but in Gakumas you gacha for outfit, music, and SSR skills. It’s more like IDOLY PRIDE in that the cast of characters are limited and they are outright available to play with, or close to it. Having the SR and SSR P cards do help make getting a good produce run easier, and you can make stronger memories.
Memories are the output of each produce run. Each memory carries with it a skill card that can be used in a subsequent run, a set of skills to boost your run when you use that memory, and a deck+items for PVP. Oh, you can also take a photo from the final performance of each run to use as the icon for that memory. So yes, the game surrounds memories.
The gameplay, being a roguelike battle card game, the skill cards are important as a tool to carry over on each run. There are some strats here where you play normal mode to get a B or B+ memory with just 1 SSR+ so you have a 50/50 rate to obtain the same SSR+ (or SR+) in your deck in the output memory. Rather than whatever a higher scoring run requires, if you aim low, you can get by with just 1 SSR. It’s something worth trying once you get a special card that you think you really want to keep, because you also have to thin your deck with various tricks yet still get as much stat as possible.
Playing it more normally, you’d want to just play a lot and hope the inherited (lack of a better term) skill card is the one you want, and upgraded if possible. At higher score levels you can get more boosts for your subsequent runs, so ultimately you want memories that have both skills you want and as many highest tier of boosts you want (and of the right types).
The split between (P)roduce SSR and (S)upport SSR was introduced through Shiny Colors, so it’s nice to see they basically carry that idea into Gakumas. In Gakumas both P and S SSRs are the same banner too, so it’s already quite a bit less exploitative than either Shinymas game. There is so far the base banner and the new banner, which has a rate up on the new cards, and seems like the new cards are not in the base banner. The free roll tickets also seems to only work on the base banner so I wonder how often they would update it…or reset the rolls on that.
Support SSRs are basically like memories, except they only carry either an item or a skill card, and have much stronger boosts that maps to the support card’s level. You need to earn blue support tokens to spend to level them up, which you get from achievements and runs, and the plethora of stores/kuji pools in the game.
From a gameplay perspective, this is Slay the Spire, IDOLM@STER version. Stats play a big role on your midterm and final scores, but winning the training games efficiently is also how you can get big stats. Having to carry less slots for gameplay means you can carry more slots for stats, also. But that’s pretty much it for that–we are gatekept by level 60 SSRs being so hard to obtain right now (as you need up to 5+1 borrowed).
From the usual content delivery machine point of view, Gakumas is unlike previous entries in that it’s a lot more anime-like. Maybe that’s just QualiArt for you, but the main commu is basically shuraba-kei writing from the OreImo anime scriptwriter, played out as a video that you can stepwise skip line by line. Some would say this is “Iori-core” especially with Saki being the lead Red character. Temari is a big dork and Kotone is more the audience perspective. The drama ensues. The game postures the character-specific commu based on affection levels which are unlocked by specific achievements. During a produce run you can unlock them in the middle of the run and it presents a continuous story to you. It’s got this “anime as you play” vibe especially when you get the “ending” commu at affection level 10, complete with a ED sequence.
Part of what makes it more anime-like is that there is a lot of interaction between idol from the get go. We have the head-turning move of introducing us to the True Red character, Ume, who is more of the archetypical main IM@S red character, then to show us that Saki is actually the main Red. After reading the SSR+level 10 commu for both Saki and Ume it became really clear that until late in the production process, Ume was really the main character and Saki was the ultimate rival. They switched it partly because Ume herself is a bit countercultural in the way she is like Saki, and ultimately Saki would make more sense as the main character if things played out that way. So yes, things are playing out that way. This is not to mention the wide spectrum of cast members. China, Hiro and Temari are all quite eccentric and their interactions with everyone are amusing. Well, I guess so are Saki and Ume.
It’s hard to not praise Gakumas for sticking to being an IM@S game yet going against the grain in all the right ways. Maybe it’s not perfect, but overall it is doing everything right. I guess the gameplay itself is a bit of mixed bag because it is Slay the Spire, which is a popular genre-specific game. I guess it is part of the 2020 zeitgeist with board games being more popular in Japan as well as with indie games, but I suppose it works.
And in a similar vein, while I put in about 40 hours in Slay the Spire before taking a hiatus, you can also hit the content cap by getting to level 10 affection for every character in Gakumas. It probably will also take roughly 30-40 hours! Not bad for a free to play gacha game where none of this is gated per se, it just takes longer without stronger cards. The time-limited events thus far are kind of not in a set pattern, and it all seems to be the trivial “get stronger by playing the game more” kind of thing. I guess we will see what the future brings and if this franchise has the sauce for longevity.
For what it is worth, I’m still not 100% decided who to oshi–still leaning towards Rinami because it’s what I like, but the Ume is the riceball rolling straight into my heart. It is definitely a good problem to have.
