I wrote about Ananta yesterday, and while I'm all for its slurry of genres and inspirations, I'm eating humble pie as I write this one. I have thoroughly and completely judged a book by its cover.
Despite having all the hallmarks of a Zenless Zone Zero, or a Genshin Impact—that is to say, being a free-to-play RPG with cute anime girls in it—Ananta won't actually be a character-based Gacha game.
That's per a news story by Famitsu (thanks, Automaton) discussing its upcoming October issue. Relieving me of a bit of my embarrassment is the fact that the magazine itself also seems surprised, here's a quote (via machine translation):
"Surprisingly, this game does not have what is known as a 'character gacha,' and basically, you can get all of the playable characters just by playing the game. Seriously?! … So, what are the in-game elements that require payment? Mainly the parts that allow players to customize their clothes, vehicles, homes, and more to their liking."
In other words, this isn't a Genshin Impact—it's just shaping up to be a solid open-world, free-to-play RPG with cute outfits and furniture you can buy with money. Which has quite frankly made me a thousand more times likely to play it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a little grumpy at games with cosmetics-only cash shops, but that cynicism is greatly reduced when the base-game is free, and I certainly still prefer that over having all the cool characters locked behind a digital slot machine.
It helps that Ananta is looking like a pretty good time, so far—a mish-mash of Insomniac's Spider-Man games, GTA, Watch Dogs, Sifu, a little dash of the Batman: Arkham series, a little Yakuza… the gamer stew is simply overflowing with chunks.
Alright, Naked Rain. At first you had my interest, and now you've got my attention. Ananta doesn't have a release date just yet, but you can pre-register to play it on the game's official site.
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