Touhou LostWord is dead
[Well, the game is still going, but I stopped played about a couple weeks ago]
I have stopped playing the game about a couple weeks ago. The process of parting ways started three weeks ago, with the receival of a new phone, on which I have decided not to install LostWord. I did continue not playing a little bit on emulator, but then I stopped for good. And one of the reasons for doing so, outside sheer boredom and repetitive nature of the game, was due to the fact I have been playing it in parallel with another game - Azur Lane.
In the following bit, I will answer a number of questions/criteria based on my experience playing that game until now:
1) "15 minutes maximum on dailies. If you take more than this, I will drop you so fast"
Daily missions are very fast. Once you 3-star clean a stage, you can auto-play skip it next time, getting the rewards directly.
2) "at least decent writing. Bad writing puts me off a lot"
I am not very familiar with the game writing, as I have skipped every cutscene until now. Therefore, I have no idea how good it is. However, I know a few things:
- the main campaign is just a retelling of the Pacific War from American perspective, except with ship-girs instead of the actual warships
- Operation Siren is the second campaign, which I guess is supposed to be the war against the alien invasion
- events - I have skipped the lore for pretty much all of them, but apparently some tend to be more serious, while others are silly
- miscellaneous (Secretary quests, campaign missions, etc) - still, I do not know how well they are written, although some of the Quests end up with the involved character getting some personality development
- character personalities - kind of bland, usually characters represent a type of personality, to which the writers are trying to add some references to the history of that warship to make it more appealing to the history nerds playing (such as myself...)
3) "challenge content must be optional or not intensely grindy. I’m no pro"
There is not too much challenge content in the game, as far as I am aware. Meta Showdown exists, but it is completely optional, and it still offers you the same amount of points whether you won or lost. Events may have special stages once you finish the main story, but those are optional as well (the only thing you may play them for is to get some shiny decoration)
4) "gacha system with good rates. I shouldn’t feel like a max rare character is unobtainable without whaling"
I would call the gacha here generous enough. To be fair, given the huge number of characters and the fact I am unfamiliar with most of them or how good they are on some supposed Tier List, I am just happy to get whatever. Especially during event banners, it is actually very easy to get different kinds of interesting units (after all, in full honesty, I am playing Azur Lane more as a waifu collection game rather than something very serious; whatever comes, very well). Plus, it is interesting that you can get units from outside the gacha as well - such as from cleaning levels/"dungeons". They may not be good units, but even weak units have their use as enhancement fodder or method to get exchange currency.
5) "no overtly sexualized designs that I constantly have to see. A couple is okay, but I don’t wanna shoulder check every time I open it"
Yeah, this is where Azur Lane utterly fails. Personally, I am ok with a number of designs in this game, but I can perfectly see why some people are completely put off. I do have my own limit, don't get me wrong. And definitely prefer when characters are not having exaggerated proportions, barely wear any clothes, or are nothing but fapping-bait. Probably one of the weaker aspects of the game if that's not your cup of tea. Combined with shallow personalities/personalities made to be more fanservice rather than acting like a realistic person... yeah
Quick-fire round of notes:
- I see that the animal theme seems to be mostly, if not exclusively applied on the design of Japanese warships
- as for other "assets", that is rather universal; increased assets usually go to the bigger displacement warships (the bigger/heavier the warship class, the larger the proportions), despite there being some exceptions both ways
- big booba/hips/thighs usually go to sometimes heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers (of course, with exceptions - looking at you, Nagato...)
- smaller/loli proportions are usually allocated to small warships - submarines, torpedo boats, destroyers and light cruisers (of course, with exceptions here as well - looking at you, whole Dido-class light cruisers and others...)
- some ships do stay in medium proportions/lack of exaggerations, but those tend to be more rare
I still like Ise though. Ise is fine as she is, at
medium premium (image from the anime adaptations)
6) "good gameplay. I like team building and strategy mainly"
I am not very familiar with what means "good gameplay" in such games, but from experience until now, I really did not have any issue right now with team building. I can still win any stage until now with whatever combination of units, and I like that the game actually encourages you to build a full 6 characters party (compared to LW, where you an still nuke with just 1 unit in the pasty). As for harder content, the game usually gives you a "Recommended" function, in which it auto-assigns the strongest units you have. Which is pretty useful, to be honest.