Elune is the newest gacha RPG to arrive on Google Play and the App Store, and it’s better described as an evolution rather than a revolution. The core idea is still the same: you summon lots and lots of heroes, pick the ones you like best and arrange them into a team, then put them in endless turn-based battles for loot.
That said, there are some notable differences – the most prominent of which being the summoning system. There are 4 different ways you can go about this: Premium Summon, which, you guessed it, requires you to spend some real money; Premium Ruby Summon, which cost Rubies that you can earn from playing or, again, spending real money; Friendship Summon, a kind of reward that you get for playing with friends; and Select Summon, which allows you to re-roll heroes that you don’t have any use for.
This re-rolling idea sounds great on paper. After all, who would not want to re-roll a useless hero in the hope of getting a better one? The only issue is, this particular mechanic costs a jaw-dropping $30. Yes, you did not read that wrong: $30, or over Rs. 2000 for a summon, which is absolutely ridiculous. That’s as much as many fully premium games cost on Steam! Also, if you take a quick look at the drop rates, you will see that heroes rarely have a drop chance higher than 1%, so there’s a very high chance that even after spending that much money, you’ll still end up with another character that you don’t need.
The Re-Rolling System Sounds Great On Paper, But It Makes Little Difference In Practice
When it comes to gameplay, Elune does feature a pretty interesting formation system. It’s not exactly what you’d call groundbreaking – this is something that is becoming more and common in this genre lately – but we do have to give the game credits for giving players a wide range of options. With this, you can arrange several frontline and backline Elunes in different formations to gain some stat boosts.
Aside from that, though, it’s just more of the same. You’ll just grab the most powerful Elunes that you can get your hands on and autoplay your way through the levels. Why shouldn’t you? It’s not like you’ll be able to make a real difference by actually playing. In these types of games, the result is all decided by statistics and by how much money you spend.
So all in all, our main problem with Elune is ultimately a problem with the entire genre. Your skills don’t play even the smallest part here, and everything simply revolves around spending cash to get a cool character that is also powerful enough to carry you to the next level.
The main issue with Elune is ultimately a problem with the entire genre
Elune makes some changes that sound nice on paper, at the end of the day, the result is still the same. You’re still sitting there watching the repetitive battles play out on their own across a series of identical levels, picking up loot here and there to increase your stats a little bit. And then when you inevitably reach the paywall, you either have to put in some money to get through it or drop the game altogether.
If you are a hardcore fan of gacha RPGs and don’t mind all that, Elune does deliver a higher level of polish than a lot of its brethren. The graphics are beautiful, the animations well made, and the formation system does make for something at least a little unique. On the other hand, though, if you don’t like the genre to begin with, then this one will do nothing to change your mind.
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