Main Street Mobile Arcade: Crystal Chronicles
Hey all, it’s that time again, time for yet another Disney mobile gacha rpg to hit the market with the recent release of Disney Mirrorverse. If you are keeping count, that makes three, count em, three of these types of games just starring Disney characters and that’s not counting multiple others starring Star Wars or Marvel characters.
So, what does Disney Mirrorverse try to make itself stand out from the likes of games like Disney Heroes: Battle Mode & Disney Sorceror’s Arena? Well, it certainly plays differently, you have a party of 3 (you start solo but can quickly unlock additional slots) that basically plays like a Diablo-lite. Also, some of the characters have drastically different designs than you are used to seeing because this is a dark mirror reality version I guess (though more than a handful basically still look the same).
There’s a certain amount of considerable depth here considering you have four very different classes of characters and can mix and match for varying strategies and it really does matter who you bring into battle with you. So it’s unfortunate that Disney Mirrorverse feels like arguably the most predatory and confusingly monetized gacha RPG yet baring the Disney name.
Firstly, let’s talk about crystals because that’s what Disney Mirrorverse ultimately boils down to. Crystals are what get you new characters, which is of course the driving force of any game like this. You can of course buy them or earn them through various activities. Some crystals are of course easy to get and your rewards tend to be low-end because of that (one-star characters, duplicate characters, low-end items, etc.) and that’s fair. Some crystals are incredibly difficult or at least take a long time to get and honestly your odds of getting something substantial seem minimally better at best. I’ve gotten 4-star characters from letting a crystal “bake” for 12 hours, I’ve also gotten one measly energy potion from doing the same thing, and more often than not, I get the energy potion or something like it.
Otherwise, Disney Mirrorverse boils down to your pretty standard modes where there’s a “story” mode where there’s a plot going on but it’s pretty threadbare, and let’s face it the idea of Disney characters you’ve never seen interact before talking to each other hasn’t been since the first Kingdom Hearts game and in the mobile space as I mentioned previously there are literally two other games that gave this same basic idea.
The gameplay is as I described where it’s a Diablo-style in real-time action but managing multiple characters aside from unleashing their specials is almost impossible so if say you need multiple characters to dodge a powerful AoE attack, that just isn’t happening. Most of the time though, it’s just like most other mobile games of this type, you can very mindless tap away as long as you have a decently powered-up party and you’ll be fine.
Aside from the crystals, I haven’t yet talked about currencies and monetization and boy does Disney Mirrorverse have those and want you to know it. You start up the app and instantly get bombarded with several offers to spend real money, and this continues pretty much every time you enter a mode. There are “motes” which level up your characters (and different levels of motes) there are diamonds to let them “rank up” (but those won’t raise their star level, that’s a different thing entirely), books to learn and level new techniques and shards, so many goddamn shards that I can’t even tell you what they do.
Like don’t get me wrong, it’s ridiculous to not expect a free-to-play mobile game to not have monetization and currencies, and even yes, ask you to maybe throw a few bucks at the game if you are enjoying it. People need to get paid, but can we make it a little, well a lot simpler? A couple of different currencies max should do the trick. Disney Mirrorverse just seems to up the ante from previous mobile games I’ve played and not in a good way.
Ultimately, Disney Mirrorverse is a mildly interesting twist on the well-established gacha RPG formula, but bogged down enough by some of the worst tendencies of such games and ultimately doesn’t really take advantage of its most compelling aspects (unique character designs and action-RPG playstyle) to really stand out in an incredibly crowded field. I guess if you just need some new mobile game to keep you busy long enough til the next one comes along, Disney Mirrorverse might be entertaining enough to be a gap filler but it’s certainly nothing that would be your new obsession either.
That’s all for today, I don’t really have anything specific atm that I am working on for this blog so barring any big news there might not be another post til next week and that’ll most likely be something retro-focused so see ya real soon!
