Twisted Wonderland

[alaterdate]

I pre-registered for the English release of Disney's Twisted Wonderland phone game mostly to add my +1 and help peeps unlock the rewards for hitting pre-reg milestones. I knew basic stuff about the game like: it has Disney villains(?) but they're all ikemen now, and it takes place at a school with different dorms. But I had no idea what the gameplay was like. Ever since it released in JPN the game has been plagued with bad summaries such as it being an otome game (it is not).

I—in no way—expected it to be as fun of a game as it is. There's the reading the story parts of course, but then there's two gameplay types: battles and rhythm.
The rhythm game parts are my favorite. The best part is after you complete a rhythm game section in the main story you can then play the rhythm game part as much as you want! No timer, no spending in-game currency to have a go. It's the best!! There's different styles to the rhythm games too adding so much flavor. I enjoy the version where you have to click right on the shrinking note (the purple note games)

Video spoilers for Episode 1-28's rhythm section.

Watch on YouTube

I've also been enjoying the humor of the writing and the translation choices. The battle parts are ok. The thing you need the timed items for is leveling up your characters and I can see how eventually I'm going to be ground to a halt in the story (which you can also read as much as you like per day. No tickets needed.) because of my characters and oof we'll see if I can get past that hump. I didn't expect to actually like the game and I feel like I totally bungled the infinite re-rolling free roll they so generously give you because I didn't care at the time. Now I've got no cards that mesh for the "buddy magic" thing—oops.

There's some stuff I still do not understand though. I have no idea what the waffles and stuff do for leveling up characters. Oh, I just found out right now by searching it. I don't remember the game explaining what half of the collected items do. What are the thaumarks for?? I couldn't find a good basic guide to the game, but I'll keep looking I guess.

I can feel my old Love Live days creeping in the back of my mind though. I don't spend money on gacha games, but that doesn't mean they don't drive me to some unhealthy habits.