A Week at the Factory, or a Review of Arknights: Endfield
I wasn't very familiar with the Arknights universe, but I knew that the game of the same name was very, very popular, so much so that there's a ton of various figurines and merch with its characters. Even I have a Sideroca figure from BeBox in my collection. Naturally, I tried the game itself 3 or 4 times, but for some reason, I could only last a couple of hours at most before abandoning the project. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to the release of Arknights: Endfield and thought it was a great way to get into the world of Arknights. And, in fact, I wasn't wrong. But let's figure out what kind of beast this Arknights: Endfield is.
Wow, you're a sleepyhead. Even yesterday's storm didn't wake you up
In terms of the story, the player is to take on the role of the so-called Endministrator – an incredibly powerful being who commands the forces of Originium, allowing them to erect incredible technological structures and thereby help humanity settle in a new place. I don't know exactly what happened to Terra, but its inhabitants had to leave their homeland and settle on the planet Talos II. To be more precise, Talos II is a satellite, but who cares, right? And so our Endmin, being a very intelligent being with considerable abilities, managed to found the Endfield corporation, whose task is to make the planet habitable and generally stand guard over life.
Our protagonist wakes up on a busted orbital space station after a decade of stasis and, thanks to amnesia (oh, how convenient), finds themselves on the same page as the player, who knows nothing about the game's world. But the local director, Replica (sorry, Perlica), quickly brings the Endmin up to speed. Well, that is, she tries, but suddenly a distress signal comes from Talos II and we urgently need to grab a chainsword, a couple of boltguns, and drop from orbit onto the heads of those who dared to terrorize the local population.
And the spirit for this was found in the Agellows – these elemental creatures that arise from special beacons that suck resources from the planet. But, of course, they don't appear by themselves, and someone clearly stands behind the attack on the local scientific center. And even the local barbarian population suddenly switched from chaotic raids to very well-thought-out attacks. This is s-s-suspicious. And that's exactly what we have to figure out, while simultaneously dealing with the aftermath of the attacks and raids.
And let's end the story here. I'd rather share my general impressions of the narrative. To be honest, I didn't experience any wild delight from going through the main storyline. I can't give it any rating other than "It's okay." Yes, sometimes it was quite interesting, and sometimes it was so stuffy and uninteresting that my hand itself reached for the dialogue skip button. This, by the way, applies to both the main story and the side quests. Although I really liked the Surtur arc, but I'm a fanboy, so don't judge by me.
But what Arknights: Endfield cannot be denied is its diverse characters, each of whom can boast a unique level of cliché. Want a genki-idiot? Here's Chenka for you. Not enough stupidity on the screen? Take the local oyabun Tantan as an addition. Want something more romantic and not so stupid? There's the Chinese dragon-wife Zhuang Fangyi. Love fashionable gyaru? Take the dragon with a great butt, Yvonne. Just be careful with the loli-wolf Rossy. She might bite your throat out. But my personal favorite is the cold snake-woman Fluorite. And most Arknights: Endfield players share my opinion. Although if you think about it, in a gacha game, you can't do without a huge palette of characters of all kinds. You have to earn money somehow.
The main thing is to stop in time
And here we move on to earnings. Or rather, to the gacha system. I admit honestly, without special guides and a stiff drink, figuring out the local character banners will be quite problematic. It's worth noting right away that we can guarantee getting the event character for 120 pulls on their banner. This is cheaper than some competitors and is undoubtedly a plus.
In gacha projects, there's always a chance to get a standard character instead of a limited one. It's a shame, of course, but everyone has been through it. Many players are used to the fact that after losing on a banner once, the next legendary will definitely be the limited one. But in Arknights: Endfield, things are a bit different. You can lose on the event banner as many times as you want; you only have one guarantee for the event character – 120 pulls. And this guarantee does not carry over to the next banner, so if you don't have the currency for 120 pulls, it's better not to even start.
There is also a guarantee for a six-star operator, and it's equal to 80 attempts. But as I said earlier, you can lose non-stop and get your fem-boy dragons. I, by the way, am one of those people.
But that's only half the trouble. You can get used to such a system, especially considering that Epic Seven trained me to the 120-pull guarantee in its time. But my biggest dissatisfaction was caused by the fact that you can't spin the weapon banner for the same currency as the character banner. We're not counting premium currency, there are no whales among us, so you'll be spinning for weapons using so-called cashback, obtained from the character gacha.
Imagine this situation: you threw a couple of dozen spare pulls into the event banner, pulled Surtur (Lævateinn), but you don't have enough cashback for her signature sword. What to do? Spend money? Keep spinning the banner for that currency? What if you want not only Surtur but also Tantan, who has already been announced and will appear who knows when? Then dumping your hard-earned currency into current banners for cashback is definitely not an option. Then you're left sitting without a signature weapon for your waifu and waiting for a rerun.
It seems like you're spinning the weapon banner for free, but the very lack of the ability to directly spin for the needed signature weapon using the currency farmed in-game is a bit disappointing. Yes, in the long run, you'll always have some amount of currency for weapons if you don't spin for every signature. I won't talk about the greed or generosity of the local gacha, because we'll need to see how much currency they'll give us with each content update. It's obvious to a hedgehog that at release, they poured so much of this currency on you that you'll definitely get Lævateinn. It could only be worse when you win your 50/50s in a couple of 120-pull guarantees. That's when it will be incredibly frustrating.