Summary

• Sword of Convallaria hides unique gameplay mechanics behind rare summons and emphasizes strong characters over interesting ones.
• Gacha games like SoC often require constant grinding for meta characters, resulting in repetitive gameplay and frustrating pulls.
• The pay-to-win model of gacha games can discourage investment and instead push players toward games that respect their time.

The core concept of Sword of Convallaria captivated me immediately. I have always loved Final Fantasy Tacticsand always wanted to be able to play a similar game on the go. The involvement of FF Tactics Composer Hitoshi Sakamito has done this work too well to miss. When I heard it, I knew Sword of Convallaria was a free Gacha game. As a hobbyist in things like Fortnite And Watch2I knew the FTP playbook all too well: seasonal content, Battle Passes, “premium” Currencies, etc. But I had never played a gacha game before and was determined not to spend a single red cent.

In the back of my mind, I always thought I knew how gacha games worked. If you didn’t pay, you got a limited number of “pullsthat allowed you to summon new characters. The stronger a character was, the less likely they were to appear. That was fine with me: I love a challenge and was willing to play with a less than ideal lineup. Plus, I figured if I liked the game enough to keep playing, I would eventually earn enough points. SoC Characters worth investing in, if only because of the sheer probability. But the reality of the character list was far more frustratingIf other gacha games work similarly, then I’m more than willing to write off the entire genre.

Sword Of Convallaria hides new game mechanics behind incredibly rare summons

Not the most powerful characters, but the most unique

The problem is that It’s not the strongest characters, but those with cool, unique mechanics that make the tactical gameplay interesting that are hidden behind a paywall. In fact, it’s not difficult at all to get really powerful characters: the game’s story quests hand them out like candy, and I pulled two legendary-tier characters on my first try. They carried me through the first few mission sets with ease. But they were boring to play, and I kept waiting for the tactical side of it all to get more interesting. That never happened. Even after I unlocked a handful of skills, my characters could really only attack, defend, or heal.

So I started looking at the other characters available and was shocked by what I saw. Rogues who could turn invisible; snipers who could attack enemies halfway across the map; druids who could turn into wolves; mages who could stack poison damage on enemies until they dropped dead. I wanted access to all of that; even one of those would be the kick in the butt the gameplay needed. But of course, you had to go along with each and every one of these unique, unforgettable charactersUnless you get incredibly lucky (or spend a lot of money) to summon them all, you’re stuck with a roster full of characters with incredibly repetitive abilities.

And the consumables I needed for each move, bell-shaped flowers called Secret Fates, came incredibly slowly. I expected to get at least one every few days as a daily login bonus, but that was not the case. Apart from the handful I got through tutorials and SoC Promo Codes required me to spend premium currency (Hope Luxites) on each one. You can earn a small amount of this currency just by completing missions, but it took far too long to save up enough to buy a single pull, let alone the ten you needed for certain banners. And there was always the chance that I’d waste all that time saving up only to summon anything but the characters I actually wanted.

The alternative, of course, was to spend money. But I had already prepared myself for that prospect and the hurdles I would have to overcome to spend even a dollar on Sword of Convallaria just put me off it even more. You can’t buy Secret Fates directly; you must first buy another premium currencyAstral Gems, then convert them into Hope Luxites and only then will you get the privilege of spending them on additional turns.

Gacha games seem to emphasize strong characters over interesting ones

A meta-problem

This is only made worse by a system that encourages you to choose the strongest possible characters, not the most interesting. When I searched social media for tips on grinding and counting my pulls, I found countless comments with the same advice: Pull for Beryl! Pull for Gloria! But I already had those two characters and they were some of the most boring in my list. Further research revealed that success in gacha games requires constant grinding, which brings two major problems.

Many players have accepted this as a necessary part of the genre, and so The metagame is all about collecting powerful characters that make your grinding sessions as painless as possible. But outside of those grinding sessions, a party full of overpowered meta characters is no fun. You do the same three things every round and the fights are over in seconds. It’s no fun to win a game like that. I’d rather have a roster full of mid-level characters that pose a real challenge, force me to use multiple game mechanics, and ultimately give me a nice little ego boost with each victory.

The other problem is that all the gacha game grinding often only makes up a fraction of the chance of drawing the characters you actually want. I am no stranger to grinding (I am a FF Tactics Fan, for Ajora’s sake), but it only feels worthwhile to me if there is a guaranteed outcome, like extra levels, items, job points, whatever. With Sword of Convallaria and other gacha games, however, there’s a chance you’ll never get what you’re after. If you’re actually after a legendary character, statistically speaking, this is the most likely outcome.

Naturally, You could just keep buying premium currency until you have enough characters to do both comfortably. But that means either more incessant grinding or exorbitant amounts of money. While other gacha games may not hide unique mechanics behind paywalls like Sword of Convallariathese problems seem to be pretty pervasive at least, and I want nothing to do with them. I want a game that respects my time, where the content isn’t hidden behind paywalls – or, if it is, at least guarantees that I’m getting what I’m paying for.

So I gave up and paid seven dollars to download the mobile port of Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, I had broken my rule of not spending anything, but the price was a one-time purchase and I could access everything about the game without paying another cent. After playing it for an hour, I deleted Sword of Convallaria from my phone and have completely sworn off the gacha genre.