As I’d thought, there’s always a catch in these supposedly stamina-free mobile RPGs. Another Eden: The Cat beyond Time and Space bills itself as a JRPG that just happens to be on mobile platforms. But you’d be crazy to think you can just zoom from story point to story point freely. I mean you can, but you’ll get your heiney handed to you. You’re supposed to fight and grind levels and ability points. Plus also collect enemy drops to make new weapons Etrian Odyssey-style. If you run out of materials, you have to go back and fight some more.
Speaking of Etrian Odyssey, this game also has high-level F.O.E.-like enemies littering the maps that you have to dodge until you’re strong enough to take them on. Some of them are also gatekeeping more powerful weapons in either chests or drops because hey, why not?
All that is normal grindy RPG stuff, I don’t mind it too much. What I draw the line at is grinding to rank up characters. Specifically story-important characters like the main character Aldo and his sidekick Riica. After a very early point, their ability board is locked because they’re stuck as 3-stars. You have to go through some very tedious stages known as “Another Dungeon” to farm enough items to rank them up to 4-star.
For Aldo, I need one Swordsman tome, 30 Murmur Scripts and 10 Prayer Scripts. If you’re very lucky, one run through Another Dungeon will drop two (2) measly Murmur Scripts. Usually just one. Veeery occasionally you will get a Prayer Script. I still haven’t seen a Swordsman tome in all the days I’ve been playing.
30 Murmur Scripts = 30 dungeon runs, another 10 for prayer scripts if the RNG smiles on you… ugh, I’m annoyed just typing it, but it’s doable. It’s just tedious as hell, why is why I haven’t actually unlocked Aldo and Riica’s ranks yet. Instead I’ve benched them in favor of gacha characters. Right now I have three 5-stars: Tsukiha, Mighty and Isuka. A whole bunch of 4-stars as well. Elemental and weapon weaknesses are very much a thing in Another Eden, so you need to build a couple of teams for various situations. But that’s still going to be a 4-5 star affair, so who needs measly 3-stars?
All that said, I’m still making some progress here and there with the main story. I just finished chapter 16 and learned of Aldo and Feinne’s true origins. I appreciate not being made to wait all the way to the end of the game for some clarity like many RPGs would do. There are several sidequests and side stories available that I’m tempted to dive into, but I’m largely restraining myself until I’ve gotten a little further in the story. I know I won’t be able to avoid Another Dungeon forever so I’m trying to unlock the “Very Hard” option with better drops to reduce the tediousness somewhat.
Last note for today – I mentioned last time that Another Eden ran very well on my phone. Past tense: ran. For the past few days, it has been shutting down unexpectedly after about 10 minutes of play. It’s very annoying and a real buzzkill. It doesn’t even get hot or laggy, just goes off. I tried to free up space on the phone, I tried to close all other apps while it is running. No such luck with the problem, so I’m going to see if there are updates available that hopefully fix the problem. I’ll also check if I’ve enabled some settings on my phone that shut down apps that consume too much memory or something crazy like that.
If all fails, I might have to move to playing on an emulator, but I really don’t want to do that. It worked for Atelier Online because I really wanted to play it, but Another Eden isn’t that great. I’d rather quit than spend another 5GB+ downloading it again. Will keep you guys posted if anything interesting happens, but don’t expect much.
You’re going to be rolling in murmur and prayer scripts soon enough. The real glass ceiling is with chant scripts which are for unlocking 5* boards and ridiculously rare. I think you’re at a good place to start the first persona collab so you can get 2 5*s in Joker and Morgana, who is a healer that can carry you through the first part of the game. There’s better info on a roadmap in reddit but idk if you care enough for that.
If your phone isn’t working out there’s also a steam version but I don’t think it has any of the video ads. Also idk if you know this but you can also get an extra 10 stones from the buy screen.
Oh boy if you think the prayer and murmur scripts are bad you’re in for a treat when you need chant scripts (to upgrade to 5* boards). Luckily the story characters either don’t need those or need a reduced amount. I think you’re in a good place to start the first persona collab for 2 5*s in Joker and Morgana, who will be extremely useful for you since he’s a healer that can replace Riica. If you want more/better info there’s a roadmap guide on Reddit that generally tells you what you should/can tackle.
Another Eden also has a steam version so that might be a better alternative than an emulator (though the download is still ridiculous). It doesn’t have the video ads for stones though.
On the fence about the updating Prayer/Murmur/Chant Scripts thing… My understanding is that 4-stars updated to 5-star aren’t as good as pulling already broken 5-stars and AS characters. So I’m treating the Another Dungeons as a place to farm weapon and armor mats with the scripts as a bonus.
Thanks for the tip about the free healer. I rolled 30 times for Necoco on her banner but didn’t get her, so maybe Morgana will help assuage the pain haha. It will also save me the effort of figuring out which 4-star healer to raise out of Prai, Pom and Erina. I’ll probably raise one of them as a backup just in case tho.