Review - Haze Reverb

This is my review of Haze Reverb after about three hours of gameplay.

Story- 6/10. Back at it again with the amnesia trope, we all know how it goes. However, there were a few twists that were a bit intriguing. Unfortunately, the localization is so bad that it was hard to follow.

Graphics- 5/10. The chibi models are clean, but I think they sort of conflict with the whole... vibe of the game, if you know what I mean. I also think games that only have 2d models are a bit lazy and outdated. If it was like Nikke's 2d models I would understand, but they're kind of just lifeless in this game.

UI/Optimizations- 3/10. The UI is outdated. Looks like the game was made in 2017 rather than 2024. The game isn't even optimized to fit my phone screen (iPhone 15), and the localization has issues to the point where the story becomes hard to follow.

World Design/Music- 3/10. The soundtrack isn't very prominent, and didn't really play at all even as background music during the story most of the time, which made the story a little off putting to read through. There are too many terms thrown out there in the beginning to easily comprehend, and physically the instance design does not give much to work with.

Character Design & Voice Acting (JP)- 5/10. Well, depending on what you're playing this game for, the character design may be up your alley. However, there are too many questionable looking child characters for me to comfortably continue playing. I also found the voice acting to be subpar compared to other japanese dubs, but it may just be the voice directing.

Character Stories- 3/10. Each character appears to have a little story/profile that unlocks as you gain affinity with them, but I don't think it's anything extraordinary or special.

Gameplay- 3/10. It's just a turn-based auto battler. I don't see anything interesting or unique about it. It's pretty boring, and very slow (though I suspect you probably gain at least a 3x speed if you progress far enough, I've only gotten the 2x speed and it's torturous).

Progression- 5/10. Doesn't make or break the game for me. Nothing extraordinary or interesting, just your standard progression system.

Gacha- 5/10. The rates are pretty middle of the pack in my opinion at 2.5%. However, the gacha feels laggy and unsatisfying for me. There is a banner where you can pick your own rate up characters, which is nice.

In-Game Purchases/F2P-Friendly- 5/10. Very middle of the pack. There are annoying pack pop-ups pretty frequently. I feel like it would be very difficult to get all the units you like considering the amount of units already in the game and the fact that your chosen banner can only be changed after x amount of time has passed, which I don't feel is beneficial to the setup of this game.

Overall Rating- 4.3/10. It's going to be a pass from me. The story has some interesting quirks in the beginning, but it's too hard to follow with the localization issues. The character design is questionable at best in some cases, and those questionable cases are too prominent in the story for comfort. Felt like I was playing an old game rather than a new one.

Thanks for reading! If you've tried the game already, let me know what you think. Also curious if it fits anyone else's device properly. The borders were so infuriating to me.