Game Review: Mirage Memorial

You want a husbando
You are looking for a deep story or active gameplay mechanics.
You are pure f2p and want to be able to collect the high rarity units or be able to compete in the pvp on an even field.
Getting farmable items in the premium gacha sends you into a rage.

Gameplay

Mirage Memorial is a waifu collector and autobattler.

Combat is an autobattle between opposing waifu characters (called Servants in the game) and a couple of their unique “soldiers” that accompany them. Each servant has an HP and MP gauge. When the HP gauge reaches 0, the servant is knocked out of the melee. When the MP gauge reaches max, the servants can launch their specials. If set to manual play, the player can choose when to launch the special by tapping. Everything else is automated. Game speed can be run at normal or 2x speed, and under manual or auto options. There are several different modes of play:

Adventure/story Mode: Battles predicated by short story sections.
Arena Qualifiers: See PvP section below
Team Boss Battle: See Co-op section Below
Borderlands Defense Battle: Your servant roster takes on waves of enemies.
There are a few other game modes that I have not unlocked yet.

Opinion: Tier C

Dust off those pom poms, as you will be cheering on your waifus as they auto-battle in a confused cacophonous melee (or maybe more likely doing something slightly more productive while your waifus take care of business). The different modes add some variety in the tactical planning stages.

The Team Boss Battle seemed a pretty pointless mode. Teammates are chosen at random, you can’t play with specific people, and the battle starts as soon as 5 people are in the room, which doesn’t leave much time for planning a strategically balanced team.

The Gacha

The gacha has typical 1 and 10 draw options and contains characters (rarities SS, S, A, and B), gear, and enhancement items . The are two persistent banners: Normal and Crystal. The Normal gacha is rolled using “Star Gem Vouchers” (tickets) that are gained through quests/gameplay. The normal gacha has lower rates and no SSRs. The Crystal gacha is the premium gacha and can be rolled with either Advanced Summoning scrolls (tickets) that are gained through quests/gameplay/login rewards or crystals (150 for single, 1500 for 10) that are gained through quests/logins/etc or can be purchased. There are also limited time event banners that may have character rate ups.

The gacha rates are as follows (game photos below):

Normal Gacha
- S character: 1.5%
- A character: 7.5%
- B character: 30%
- Item: 61%
Premium/event gacha:
- SS character: 1.5%
- S character: 9.5%
- A character: 20%
- B character: 30%,
- Item: 38%

It seems like the gacha rules claim there is some sort of bonus for rolling 10 instead of individuals, and also like there is some sort of pity system, but in all honestly I wasn’t able to decipher it from the rules listed, so I’ll include a photo below in case you are a more talented translator than I.

You get one free 10 draw when you start the game.

Opinion: Tier C

The Not So Good:

Rates for the highest rarity servants (SS) are pretty low at 1.5%.
The rules seem to describe some sort of a pity system, but it is so poorly worded it is hard to understand what exactly it is, if it exists at all. I’m not sure if this is a translation issue, incomplete understanding of those that wrote it, or a complicated system, but regardless, it doesn’t exactly motivate rolling as it is written (who reads that stuff anyway, though, right???).
There are enhancement items and gear shards in the premium gacha. Getting items that can be grinded for in a premium gacha is infuriating. And gear shards. Not even full gear that can be used immediately, but shards of them that may or may not be useful “someday”. Not particularly satisfying.
The game has a pop up text display area in the top center of the screen that continuously reports other player’s achievements, for example, successive arena victories or someone pulling an SS servant . This continued during the gacha pull animations and results display. I have 2 issues with this: 1. Who wants to be distracted by that crap when they are holding their breath and doing their gacha rituals in hope for that SS pull? And 2. NOBODY wants to hear about someone ELSE pulling that sexy SS servant servant while they are staring at their 10 roll result full of nothing but enhancement stones and gear shards. Seriously, how does telling you other people are getting SS servants improve your experience? Answer: It doesn’t. It’s there to make you feel like everyone else is getting SS servants, and if you do: just one more pull you will probably get one too. And there is no way to turn off this scrolling marquee of salt. At least I couldn’t find it.

The Good:

There are worse rates out there.

Generosity

There are daily log-in rewards that award crystals and tickets for the premium gacha, S servants, and servant draws.

Some of the events also offer free premium rewards.

Opinion: Tier B

The Good:

The freebies are decent. From the login rewards alone, in 30 days a player will receive: 2 S servants, 2 A servants, 4 servant draws, and 2090 crystals (on average: 70 crystals per day, which is a 10 pull every 21 days). Along with crystals from other events/quests, that means a free 10 pull every 2-3 weeks.
If you are willing to spend a little on the game, there are some pretty reasonable paid options. At the time of this writing, there is a free SS servant being given with the first crystal purchase, the lowest amount being $1. There are also monthly crystal packages (needing to be collected daily) that give you a value equivalent to 10 pulls for $2.50. There are $5 and $10 per month options. (see photo below)

The Not So Good:

As mentioned in the Gacha section, the rates for the highest rarity servants are rather low.

Art/Graphics

2D character, map, and battle graphics. Anime style art. Characters have chibi sprite, static, and motion art (see video below). For example of map and battle graphics see video under gameplay section. Fan service art is plentiful throughout the game.

Opinion: Tier B

The servant art looks good, the chibi sprites are bouncy and cute, and the battles look sufficiently battle-y. Special attacks indicated by a servant splash screen, but don’t particularly stand out on the battlefield.

Music/Sound

Opinion: Tier C

Generic, forgettable background music. Battle sounds like someone is randomly mashing a soundboard of battle noises with their face. Though it does in some ways support the feel of a chaotic battle, it will likely get annoying pretty quickly for many players.

Story

After being transported to an alternate universe, Gabriel recruits gender-bent historical figures on her adventure to defeat Lucifer’s gender-bent historical figure army.

Opinion: Tier C

Vapid, uninteresting, uninspired. Seems like it is only there to introduce the art of different servants. Skip it and you won’t miss anything. There is no auto-play option.

Unit Enhancement

There are several ways to enhance a servant’s combat abilities.

Star Level Up: increased by acquiring duplicate copies.
Level Up: Experience is gained through battles or the use of experience card items
Gem Inlay
Refinement
Skill Upgrade: Each servant has 4 skills that are unlocked as they are developed.
Soldier upgrade: Each servant has 2 support units that aid in battles
Equipment: Four gear items can be worn by each servant. Each piece of gear can be enhanced individually.

Opinion: Tier B

Star up, Level up, Gem Inlay, refinement, and gear are all different ways of doing pretty much the same thing, just using different materials. This doesn’t really add any depth or anything interesting to the enhancement process, but it does add more different kinds of materials to grind. The Star Up enhancements have heavy duplicate costs, making it very difficult if not impossible for f2p or dolphin players to max their characters.

Strategic Elements

Each servant has an elemental attribute, and there is an elemental strength/weakness triangle similar to that found in many games. Stats and Skills enable servants to fill different roles (eg. physical tank, magic AOE damage, support, healer, etc). Since combat is autobattle, the strategic decisions are which servants to put in the party, which of the 5 battle formations to use, and where to put each of the servants within the formation. Then you hit “Go” and do your good luck dance while heads fly. The manual mode allows you to decide when to use the special attack of each servant after it has charged, where auto will just use it as soon as it is ready.

Opinion: Tier B

Not incredibly complex, but with enough variability to keep things interesting.

PvP

Waifu Vs Waifu in a no holds barred melee! Your team auto-battles an opposing players team. You can select between several different opponents, each displaying their ranking, power, team members, and levels.

Opinion

Because of the heavy duplicates requirement for starring up servants, f2p players may find it difficult to compete at higher levels. There also doesn’t seem to be a lot of variability in the top teams, as you see a lot of the same servants used repeatedly (e.g. Hades right now). Seems likely pvp will be/stay heavily p2w with new servant releases occasionally shifting the meta.

Co-op

You can directly battle the teams of people in your friends list. In the Team Boss Battle mode, you pick a single character and auto-battle a boss with 4 other randomly assigned players. (see video)

Opinion

Not really a game for people looking for co-op. The Team Boss Battle Mode seemed rather pointless as you couldn’t join with friends, people show up randomly, and there doesn’t seem to be a good way to coordinate servants/servant roles.

Friends/Guilds

Friend system allows players to give and receive stamina. Friend assets are not used to aid in normal combat.

An alliance guild system opens up at player level 20. Being in an alliance offers a few bonuses, extra quests, and a game mode where every alliance member can contribute.

Opinion

There is no way to search for friends in-game unless you have their exact ID, and since you don’t use other people’s assets in combat, there is no way to request friends that way. The only way I could find to do it was to ask or request people in the in-game chat, which I try to avoid, since in-game chats are usually toxic sludge pools of annoying immaturity.

Waifu/Husbando

The breasts bounce, the thighs are thicc, the panties show, and the lolis beg for head pats. Every servant is designed to be a waifu, and most of the preferences are covered. There is plenty of fan service art from servants to splash screens. There are currently over 50 female servants, 0 male, so those seeking less bouncy, harder ab-d husbandos should look elsewhere. Each servant has 2 bond stories that are unlocked at higher star levels.

In the Cafe, waifus can be chatted up, presented gifts, given snacks, and eventually bonded. Higher favorability with servants and high star levels on bonded servants offers various rewards and bonuses.

Opinion: Tier A

If you are playing this game, the waifu-focus is most likely one of the main reasons. The ability to interact with and bond servants on a more detailed level in the cafe is a plus in that regard.

That being said, I feel that one of the things most, if not all, of the servants lack is a unique, interesting, or compelling personality or story. The main story isn’t deep enough for any of the servants to leave any real impression. If you are someone that likes your waifu to have a personality as well as attractive art, these waifus may not be the right ones for you. If you have a hankering for husbandos, steer clear.

F2P

Opinion: Tier C

The general content should be clearable for f2p. However, gacha rates for the high rarity servants is low, there is no clear pity system, and servants require many dupes to fully upgrade their star levels. Collecting will be a slow process for f2p, and it will be difficult if not impossible to compete at higher levels of pvp.

The Grind

Story progression and enhancement item grinding is limited by a stamina system. PvP is limited by a “number of times per day” mechanic. There are a set of daily quests.

Monetization

Real money purchases can be made for various gift packs that give crystals, draw tickets and in game items. Crystals can also be purchased directly.

Events/Limited

The game has mini-games and other limited time banner events that involve things like logging in, making purchases, or total amount of crystals spent on gacha rolls, etc. There are currently no limited-time story events or limited servants.

Reroll

Considering the low SS rates and the current state of PvP, if you plan on playing the game long term and/or trying to be competitive, it would be worth considering rerolling.

Community/Developer/Publisher

Developer: EFUN Company Limited

Publisher: EFUN Company Limited

Release Date: 10/17/2019

The game has active groups on facebook, discord and reddit.

There was as an average amount of hype leading up to launch, including a fair amount of pre-registration awards and promo codes. A lot of people that pre-registered did not receive all of the rewards, which is a bit frustrating/unfortunate.

Random Thoughts

Didn’t like: They offered rewards to people that rated the app 5 stars in the app store. Does it say much about your confidence in your game if you feel like you need to bribe people to rate it well? This feels like putting a glamour photo as your profile on a dating website. Don’t false advertise, people will like you for who you are, or don’t waste their time.
Didn’t like: There was an Event mission for “time spent in the app”. You have to incentivize people directly for them to want to stay logged into your game? Maybe instead make it fun so they want to play that much?

Conclusion

Probably not a game that will satisfy most gacha players, at least not for long. For those that are looking specifically for what this game has to offer, it is worth a try. For everyone else, it is safe to pass and not worry that you are missing anything.

You might want to try this game if:

You love collecting waifus
You like autobattle/idle games
You are into gender bent historical figures

You might want to avoid this game if:

- You are looking for deep story or gameplay mechanics
- You are pure f2p and want to be able to collect the high rarity units or be able to compete in the pvp on an even field.
- You want a husbando
- Getting farmable items in the premium gacha sends you into a rage.

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