Anime Games - Is "anime GTA" real?

Judge Dredd

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Help this old middle aged man understand anime games.

Bit of a powerlevel for context. It used to be I could tell most games just from a screenshot or two. I used to have an interest in the weird and obscure. Like the weird Japanese version of Counter Strike that had power ranger looking guys, or the Half-Life 2 arcade game. After the Xbox 360, entire segments of gaming were a mystery to me. Mobile games? Might as well be a black hole in terms of knowledge to me.

Enter anime games.

I largely ignored them due to be gatcha/gambling games designed to waste time. I only really heard of them when they went viral for one reason or another. Like that one furry butler character that women went crazy for, or the one that made culture war people mad when you could unlock "girlfriend animations" with the example being an animation you watch a movie and she cuddles you with no shoes on (leading to the phrase "tactical feet placement"). But even then, I couldn't tell you a Zenless Zone Zero from a Wuthering Waves.


Now I've heard of "NTE", which is supposedly "anime gta". It feels like I've been hearing "GTA 6 but anime" as a selling point for a few different games now. Are they the same game with a name change? Are they gatcha mmos or single player open worlds? Do they ever come out? Are they any good?

I specifically remember this trailer going viral, then have heard fuck all about it since.
 
there are plenty of anime games that have no intersection with gatcha/gambling. it's more that gatcha/gambling games use cute anime characters as a hook to draw people in, much like real gambling machines use pretty graphics and flashing lights to brainhack boomers and turn them into dopamine slaves. in my experience, gacha games are all shallow, retarded, overrated slop and should be avoided completely.

here are some anime games that have no gacha elements which I have enjoyed:
 
It sounds like specifically you are talking about the Genshin Impact style of gacha games. As far as I'm aware they are essentially a popular game + anime artstyle + gacha mechanics. You'll get plenty of new properties and failed ones, since Genshin is such a money printer. Pretty much a different brand of Games as a service. As far as I'm aware, they are servicable - much closer to games than most dedicated mobile gachas, but if you care only about gameplay I imagine just playing the inspiration would be fine (such as just playing GTA rather than NtE).
 
I don't really know what this thread's about and I don't really like anime but I played a bunch of dungeon crawler games that seemed like they were basically a bunch of anime characters. Demon Gaze 1 & 2, Operation Babel and Operation Abyss, Undernauts and Stranger in Sword City. The Demon Gaze games were probably the most anime. You collect weird anime girls to make up your party. Stranger in Sword City was my favourite but had the least anime feel to it. The Etrian Odyssey games were pretty anime heavy as well. Actually, dungeon crawlers in general seem like they've pretty much been become mostly anime themed now.
 
I played God Eater 1, 2, and 3.
CODE VEIN
I played one of the god eaters (I think it was 3? The one where everyone has electricians tape on them) and Code Vein.

I didn't really get on with Code Vein. It was fun, and better than Dark Souls, but it was just so bland in terms of gameplay. The character creator carried that game, and I wondered why they never made a sequel or use that character creator for a different game. Just googled, and it turns out there is a Code Vein 2. Never heard of it despite the hype around the original.

I played Dragon Quest 9 I think it was. It was for the DS and you made a custom guy and flew around on a train looking for magic fruit. I liked that. Supposedly it was the black sheep of the Dragon Quest family though. I had a friend who obsessed over DQ8. Especially the weird villain who was a jester? And some woman you could dress as a playboy bunny? I meant to play it, but I don't care for JRPGs and never got around to it.

I can go into more retro games too, like the weird Ghost in the Shell third person shooter on PS2. Or a bunch of mid tier licenced SNES games that never left japan.


there are plenty of anime games that have no intersection with gatcha/gambling.
As far as I'm aware they are essentially a popular game + anime artstyle + gacha mechanics.
This is what I don't get about gatcha. There is clearly a huge market for, say, GTA that is more whimsical. Saints Row 2 and 3 were proof of that. And others have mentioned games like Code Vien. Yet, as far as I can tell, they keep crippling themselves by being gatcha. It could have a broader audience, and the conversation would be about the game, not about "pulls" are or whatever.

This is especially true when the inspiration is either non-existent or keeps dropping the ball. GTA 6 has been in development for years, and there's been no viable alternative. And then there's the random mish mash of things. Like GTA doesn't have monster cars with chainsaws.
 
I largely ignored them due to be gatcha/gambling games designed to waste time. I only really heard of them when they went viral for one reason or another. Like that one furry butler character that women went crazy for, or the one that made culture war people mad when you could unlock "girlfriend animations" with the example being an animation you watch a movie and she cuddles you with no shoes on (leading to the phrase "tactical feet placement"). But even then, I couldn't tell you a Zenless Zone Zero from a Wuthering Waves.
There's a whole bizarre thing going on in the world of anime gacha games where the entire theme is like:
And I guess they're popular because nerds will spend a shitload of money collecting effectively virtual trading cards of anime girls. With a rudimentary game and an attachment to a real-world theme to not just have a pile of sluts existing in a void. You can play them for free on your phone and then whoops you've spent $1200 because you wanna randomly pull the trading card of the girl with the biggest titties. They're barely games, they're more like collection platforms.

As for games that are actually games, uh, I dunno. The most anime game I've ever played was Disgaea, but that's a fun strategy JRPG with anime characters and an anime-style plot about a demon boy wanting to become king of Hell. You play it because you can build out a large roster and mess around with the leveling & reincarnation systems to produce crazy powerful characters that take hundreds of hours to build. It also has a lot of jokes that don't translate all that well.
disgaeacornyjoke.jpg

I dunno, man. Anime is more popular than ever these days, and we've got entire generations that've grown up with it. It is a whole style that puts being cute first. It's popular because it tends to look nice and somehow gets away with being horny, in a world where horny entertainment gives "the ick" to Bluesky addicts with noserings.
 
ZZZ and wuthering waves, as far as I know are both action games where you roll a slot machine to unlock new characters with new combat abilities. Beyond that I don't know anything about them. 'Anime games' though, its like asking someone to explain western games. For games, anime is pretty much an art style, which you can apply to any type of gameplay. Even that's not quite accurate, because anime could mean a look anywhere from Steins;Gate, where the 'gameplay' is 99% clicking Next to move to the next text box because the whole point of the game is reading a story, to something like Racing Lagoon which is also story heavy but heavily features a hybrid street racing/rpg gameplay loop, to something like Danganronpa which is also heavily story/ text box based, but features both sections where you explore a hub area in 1st person with no combat, and sections where you do minigames to puzzle out murders a la Columbo. That's just three of the most different looking games I could think of, but that's probably not even the best spread someone could come up with. I guess the explanation is that the art styles 'anime games' have are pretty neat.
 
I plan to, but I don't know what one to start with because they did the Yakuza thing with remaking the first games and having spin-offs and prequels and shit.
I'd say pick whatever's available on steam. One thing to know about the games is that each game's plot is fairly self contained, they try to do more references in the later games but who cares it's still the same generic plot of Adol saving the world every time.

Unless you're specific about the more 'classic' anime artstyle of the 90s vs the gayer newer modern style, chronicles(1+2) and oath in felghana are in my opinion the best way to play 1-3(OiF is a gameplay style difference from Chronicles since it's a lot newer, but so were the original games, it switched to a fairly shitty Zelda 2 2d hack n slash on the SNES/PC Engine). I'd say give the PC Engine soundtracks a listen because they were nice.
Also bewarned that Chronicles 1 has a fairly harsh dicking in a couple of bosses(the final boss is fairly notorious) and you'll most likely want to lower the FPS for those two bosses(The final boss Dark Fact, and there's a bat boss that you'll know when you get to because it's quite a difficulty spike and you'll never knew what you did right when you do beat it).

4 I honestly really disliked Memories in Celceta so either skip that or if you are willing to emulate PC Engine and are a big fan of the bump combat style of Chronciles, Dawn of Ys is arguably the best of that gameplay style but it's also a fairly challenging game.

5 you have no real options, just wait until they remake it at some point because no version of the game is worth playing in my opinion and none of them are translated well last time I checked.

6-X I believe the steam versions contain all the new content and updates they've made all over the years. I'd say play Origins after 6 because it's the last of that gameplay style, and if Seven/Lacrimosa of Dana(8) don't appeal to you should probably quit the series by then.
 
There's a whole bizarre thing going on in the world of anime gacha games where the entire theme is like:
I did notice that when I heard of Star Rail. Trains + anime girls? Autists didn't stand a chance with that one.

With a rudimentary game and an attachment to a real-world theme to not just have a pile of sluts existing in a void.
That's what I thought, but recent games have had me questioning that. NTE supposedly has all the GTA stuff. Driving, shooting, racing, open world city, and then some. You can run a business, play arcade games, hunt anomalies, at a certain point it sounds like every game in one, and so far, I've not heard anything bad about it except "the story is merely okay".

The most anime game I've ever played was Disgaea, but that's a fun strategy JRPG with anime characters and an anime-style plot about a demon boy wanting to become king of Hell.
I could never get into Desgea. Too grinautistic for me

Play Pokemon dude.
I'm a Palworld guy myself. Just waiting for the lawsuit shit to be over so they can turn all the cut features back on without needing mods.
 
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