Game mechanic overview:
It’s Monster Strike+Splatoon. Not sure how they did it but it works! Covering turf gives a boost to your fighters’ Link Combos, and allows items to be spawned on turf(including HP recovery, speed up, attack up, turf up, and quicker Extra Skill.), and if you cover a certain area you get to activate the titular Graffiti, which can obliterate bosses and minions if you do it right.
PVP is available and I’ll get to that later.
There’s a function that I’ll translate to Adventure a la Shironeko Project, where you send your fighters to other parts of the place on a map. It’s pretty extensive as of now, and every time you open a bit more of the map for even more adventuring.
(The exclamation points are extra long adventures with much more beneficial finds, so try to aim for these first.)
Unlike Shironeko, your fighters are still available for stages while adventuring, so feel free to send your strongest buddies. It’s recommended that you do that.
Characters/Gatcha:
The highest star rank you can roll for in this game is 4*, and you can raise it to a maximum of 5* by weapon catalyst. Each 4* character has their specific weapon stages, but you should have some gatcha crystals on hand when you challenge them early game. Skill can’t help you from getting wiped at least once because of the sheer power difference. Thankfully, your first successful stage clear awards you with the 5* weapon by default, so just grit your teeth and try not to die too many times.
(Example here: The 5* weapon is this guy’s specific weapon, which is retrieved from its specific stage. The 4* star weapons can be received from weekly weapon stages, although getting that specific axe/book and the ring is still a thing of luck. You can raise your character’s luck for more chests, if you want to.)
You can set your fighters as supporter, for other people to use, and/or partners, which is pretty much for aesthetic. For 4* characters, there’s a bond system(the heart thing), and when you raise it, you get to see a character blurb(and get rewarded with gatcha crystals), and setting as partners gives a small bond boost, which allows you to raise the bond level a bit quicker. It also sets the character in the main menu. 4* characters are voiced, so every now and then the character pipes up to remind you of an event you set as registered, presents, or just a bit of commentary.
(Like here. She’s commenting on lunch, I think.)
Not limited to 4*s are character profiles, which are purely aesthetic.
(He doesn’t like waking early or sleeping early. Relatable.)
PVP:
Oh boy here comes the hectic part
So far we only have ranked matches, but free matches will eventually be opened up. How do you play it?
It’s turf wars! Really! You have 20 rounds to cover more turf than your opponents(and your moves will be simultaneous, so you and your opponents are moving at the same time in the rounds). But here’s the catch: There are items that spawn every round, especially Extra Skill turn reducers(which if your opponent snatches a few, all of their fighters can release their Extras and easily wipe yours), and HP recovery(not only does that recover the damage you did to them, but revives downed fighers), and there’s a specific Graffiti point(only available once per battle; if you don’t keep a part of it colored, the opponent can use it on you) that you need to keep track of even if it isn’t as damaging as it would be in normal stages. So you need to turf, snatch items, and turf the Graffiti at the same time. If you don’t have 4 strong fighters, you can still seek help by making tag teams, but don’t screw it up for the other person or they will happily abandon you to a loss. Not recommended to join until you’ve at least trained your fighters.
Other points:
The music’s surprisingly good. The battle stages have some nice techno music going down(and one seperate piece for each element), and the main menu has a tune going on, especially at evening(They have three themes for day, evening and night. Gotta love that evening accordion.). Even the gatcha menu has a jolly theme to laugh at how you’re not getting a single 4* in your ten rolls.
Each boss in the main story has a small gimmick which is pretty fun. I’ll not go on for spoilers.
Conclusion:
It’s only available in Japanese, but if it ever gets a release outside of it, it’s definitely worth a try. As of now I’ll give it a 4/5, mainly due to the hell that is early game.
toradbos dump spot 