PtN is the first game where my favorite character is straight up the idiot MC/cheif. They always get the short end of the straw, gets beat up, kidnapped so often it even became a running gag. I love it so much
Lmao true, our Chief always serves on the frontline so being hurt so often is inevitable. Chief isn't an idiot though, we're certainly flawed (loves rushing headlong into danger) but far from being dumb. Also this may not be related but I love that we get different outfits - still waiting for swimsuit chief (the Cabernet event outfit) to someday be added...
For those who don't know, "Dis" is a reference to Dante's Inferno; Dis is the name of a ring-shaped city that encompasses the sixth through ninth circles of hell and is moated by the river Styx.
Only thing i have to point is the OST. The music in this game is just phenomenal. They music team know what they're doing. They range from chill to metal to jazz to eerie and creepy sounds, this guys are amazing.
Truly a hidden gem. I just wished that it gets the attention and love it deserves. But not to the point its popularity becomes overblown and has instances of conflict within their communities.
PTN gave me the same vibe as Punishing Gray Raven, they both started late in their own respecting genres, but managed to carve out their own little niche thanks to the refined game design and genuine dedication to the players.
Holy shit thank you for perfectly voicing my thoughts on why I love this game. Its so generous to its player base to the point I always make this and Punishing Gray the gold standard on how you cater to the player base without gouging their wallets whenever a new gacha releases.
Aisno games is actually a subsidiary studio from Papergames, a Chinese studio. Papergames' global releases has been under their subsidiary, or a re-name of their company all over. In fact, their other Gacha games have been targeted towards women, such as : Mr Love Queen's Choice Love Nikki Shining Nikki Love and Deepspace In fact, Love and Deepspace is also released under their subsidiary / rename 'Infold'. In contrast to Tencent, which required all subsidiary games to include Tencent in their launch up, Papergames doesn't require that unless the game is being published by a different publisher, for example Mr Love Queen's Choice and Love Nikki (published by Elex globally).
@@everyyxy8425 funnily enough they have old gacha ads but it was mostly appealed to male players with like the lewd direction of like free the character or some lewd ads. But the playerbase ended up being mostly dominated by female players who are lesbians and are attracted to the characters
"I know genshin was the first one to do this mechanic" What? Fate/grand order? Arknights? Epic seven? Heck even granblue had elemental material quests that would change depending on the day, this is not something brought by genshin. There's a reason why it's archaic, because it's an old practice
oh as far as I remember, it's way older. I remember I played a very old gacha game, call brave frontier, it is possibly 1 of the first popular gacha. It already had that mechanic
Even girls frontline does this. In fact between the oldest gacha's GFL's character like azur lane, grand blue, GFO, and that one ship gacha that was both the inspiration for azur lane and GFL, GFL is the most forgiving character gacha. In fact you don't even need money. Just wait and you get at most 5' and 4 stars. But holy crap the game is the hardest gacha I've played. Even if the story was good the campaign is puzzles are hard.
3:06 tbf with AK, their art style isnt the usual cute anime stuff and is actually the biggest reason why I started playing; the drip is just too good and the fact you can buy skins "for free" helps a lot. also, genshin's lore just seems lighthearted, thing is as dark as the old testament.
I wouldn't have played Arknights for years if it weren't for artists like NoriZC and how he can make a painting of an anime girl look like a technical drawing. Imo the painterly style of Arknights opens the opportunity to convey a lot of the operator's personalities.
The best feature is the one in audio settings where you can make each character speak a different language of choice. I have seen no other gacha with this but it adds a certain level of customization to the experience. YOu never get stuck with one VA option like other games. Some of my girls speak Korean, others japanese, others english. Superb!
Idk PTN could do this as well, I thought only Arknights do this. I even always asked this to other games whenever they held some questionnaire. It's easy and fun for us who likes certain charas using certain language.
Best and my favorite thing in the game, basically I can have my characters talk with very different languages in battle maps and enjoy and snicker a little cause this thing specifically reminds me of tekken interactions hahaha
Arknights also do this tho, they even has specific regional area for Chinese and some character get Russian, Italian, and German, other than that I can't name any other gacha that let you do this
Path to Nowhere has one of the best writing I ever witnessed. Main story, and the events around it, are honestly Chef's kiss. Sinners interrogation, majority wise, are Top tier stories. Not only I would recommend the game for the tower defense game style and above good gacha experience(F2P), but I would also recommend it to people who love a good well written story. (Only bad part is waiting for past events to rerun. Would've liked it if they just offered the events stories for free, for those who did not play it.)
According to information from China, in the near future all events will become available in the archive. But it’s not yet known whether it’s free or for some kind of in-game currency.
In terms of mobile game story it is 100% S tier, I can literally count on 1 hand how many mobile game stories I've paid attention to and Path to Nowhere is definitely one of them.
The "Atrocious" in the title of the video gave me expectations that the game or the developer was up to unsavory shenanigans. I was surprised to see that your actual overall reception of the game is quite positive. I've tried playing Path to Nowhere a couple times but the combat didn't really grip me since I'm already playing Arknights. Your video made me think about giving PtN another chance.
It is atrocious Its bias and there are misinformations here and there, this is what happen when review only for the sake review A typical r/gachagaming behaviour
As someone who has played for over a year I feel like there is another point you didn't mention about the gacha. The game feels very generous compared to other gacha games I've played with it's distribution of Hypercubes. As a mostly F2P player (look, the skins are pretty), I've never once converted Ultracubes to Hypercubes, but I do have almost every sinner, with some S-ranks at multiple shackles and most A-Ranks at full or near full shackles. It is also worth mentioning that the power creep is low, and some new Sinners will make old Sinners viable (such as Dreya enabling the Life Loss team). This is partially because the game is only PvE, and means you can skip banners much more easily than some other games.
Much higher gacha rate so currency is never issue for collectors which is pretty rare. But also good thing because otherwise a lot of story content would get locked out.
I got into Path to Nowhere during it's Western release launch because of just how AWFUL the advertising was. I expected a game I could dunk on and delete, but 🤡 now it's my favorite mobile game... The story, voice acting, music, and art are all amazing, and the monthly bonus pack is pretty cheap so... Scratches my head. They got me good. As a side note! Like you said, most Sinners do go into the general pool as soon as their banner is done. "Limited" Sinner arrests are very rare; theyre definitely not the norm. As of right now, we only have 3 limited S-ranks out of 86 total units (so 3 out of 31 S-ranks if I'm counting correctly) bc AISNO only puts 1 Limited sinner out every half-year (1 for chinese new year, and 1 for the anniversary event). Gives lots of time to grind up currency for them 👌 I hope more people play it! It's genuinely enjoyable Edit: I forgot to say, but concerning FOMO, according to the official Chinese updates, they're going to start leaving old event stories playable in the game permanently, starting with the dreamy bubble event and the raging sands event 🥳 hopefully this extends to other events in the future too 👍
There are quite a few inaccuries, but overall, quite a solid video! l'll just list the most important parts that I think are worth noting (that I haven't seen other comments mention) - Broken Frontline is arguably the main game mode of the game, pushing Path to Nowhere further as not just a tower defense game but a tower defense game where you have a boss rush. It also does not allow you to lower the difficulty, which is a pain. It is highly recommended for beginners to deliberately avoid hitting 720k points (and reaching the next difficulty) until they find the current difficulty easy (or at least not hard, if you're willing to spend a lot of time to clear the hard stages). And speaking of being pushed further into the tower defense niche, due to the ability to move Sinners, there's a lot of micromanagement as you've already mentioned. It is highly beneficial in Broken Frontline to learn how to properly animation cancel. Ideally, you'd end your Broken Frontline run with exactly 0 moves remaining. Interrogations are not "just" bonding with the characters. I mean... well it kinda is. But that's downplaying it. One problem I have with Path to Nowhere is actually how much stuff is locked behind these Interrogations. For example, Ariel's Interrogation shows how her father is so disgusted by Sinners that he is glad when his Sinner daughter is reported to be dead. This mirrors most Eastsiders' views on the matter. Or NOX, which shows Chief how it feels to enter DisSea, as her consciousness erodes. (Edit: Just finished Summer's Interrogation. She explains how Mania crystals work and talks about stuff relating to how the gangsters got access to Mania weapons) Or Cabernet. In Cabernet's event, she only really was evil towards Chief, who she decided to let go. Other than that, she's more so allowong awful things to happen around her and knowing that she indirectly causes it (someone is doing these things to win her approval) and not stepping in... but not actually doing anything evil. Then you go to her Interrogation and you see how she tortured these two lovers to the point where both lovers are willing to do anything to please Cabernet to maybe get his/her lover free, and also wanting to die so that his/her lover will stop being willing to do anything to please Cabernet to maybe get his/her lover free. And Cabernet is completely unfazed when Chief finds out and confronts her and keeps talking about how delicious their souls have become. It is also revealed that Cabernet is willingly shackled by Chief because Chief's aroma is too nice. She also makes a vague threat that she will one day feast when Chief's soul is properly cultivated (even though the Shackles stop her from harming Chief). The Interrogation fleshes out her character imo. Also keep in mind that some characters have no stories except for their Interrogations. A Rank and B Rank Sinners are cheaper to build, but they really aren't as good as S Ranks. B Ranks have Che (always good) and Laby (always decent, sometimes OP), and Pepper (optional for Life Loss team but falls off as you get more S Ranks). A Ranks are typically specific to a specific team, like Levy and Sumire being made for Life Loss team or Thistle being best when supporting Yao, or Priscilla being good only with Coquelic team. Or they're healers. Who are indeed good at healing. There's only 1 or 2 non-healer A Ranks who are good in general. Speaking of Coquelic... we do not talk about what happened to Coquelic on CN. Speaking of which, Limited Sinners come every half a year. Deren (arguably the strongest character in the game) came in the first half-anniversary and is now rerunning in the second half-anniversary. For the Shop, please don't rush to buy the Sinner Mark. In almost all cases, using Soul Marks to unlock the ECB is much more important than an extra Shackle. You won't have enough to buy them if you save for the Sinner Mark. Also I'm pretty sure it's 2 Sinner Marks per account For skins, I don't think that Battle Pass skins have ever rerun. For events, they get added to the archive if you've played it. The community also really likes the game's music. I'm not really a music guy (rather, I'm most interested in the lyrics lol) but I think it's up to standard with all the other bigger gacha games
Battle pass skins started rerunning on CN this month. You can also lower the difficulty of DZ, you can't go back to high risk if you're in dark zone or anything like that but you can use the drop down menu on the difficulty selector to always be fighting the boss at difficulty 2 instead of 3.
@@joannespluym6109 Damn, they actually rerun BP skins? That's pretty cool. As for your second point, you're right, though players should be confident that they can achieve at least 160k per BFL DZ boss.
Cheers, thanks for explaining some details about PTN. I already had a bad impression of Cabernet from what she was doing, but I really dislike her now after reading what you said. She's one of the few sinners who is a genuinely horrible person. As for Coq, my condolences to CN players who will never be able to get her if they don't have her already, and best of luck to global players who can only hope to get her from 50/50s. Perhaps they could add her permanently in the arrest exchange for global? Regarding BFL, ani cancel is important for some sinners like Luvia, Serpent and Nox (typically normal atk focused sinners with slower atk spd) but not for everyone. For example, Deren doesn't benefit that much since she attacks quite fast anyway. Fair point about A ranks, most work best in certain teams with a few exceptions like Luvia, who is a pretty versatile magic dps that works well with Lamia.
@WadeWontson For Cabernet, yeah, she's like most serial killers, not having any moral compass and genuinely not feeling that what they're doing is wrong (or at least it seems that way for Cabernet) Also animation cancelling is significant for probably more than two-thirds of all Sinners. Deren does have animation cancelling and is a decent candidate because though she only saves a bit of time, her attacks are really strong (and also you need to move her once every 10 seconds so learning attack cancelling for Deren is always useful)
Although you just spoiled Cabernet interrogation, im glad i read it because i was not willing to do her interrogation. There's only two sinners in this game that i really don't like, she and oliver. No matter how good she can be, if a character is a piece of crap i just dont play it. lmao Funny enough, playing Epic Seven back in the day i also unequiped everything i had farmed for Lilias because some events that happen later in the story, proving her as also being a piece of crap.
I loved this game The story immediately hooked just by the prologue alone because it's such an interesting premise. And the story gets better in later chapters and events I mean the half and 1st anniversary event story is amazing. Heck their second event which was with serpent had amazing writing
Apart from the lack of content at late game and the lack of diversity in stages (something like letting players rotate characters in arknights), i would say i love Path to Nowhere and i think it deserves attention just like arknights. Badass character design, wonderful waifus, stories of conspiracies above conspiracies, you named it.
It has more endgame content than most gachas though. And it's not really less diverse than Arknights. Being able to move Sinners around makes up for not being able to deploy new operators, especially when you factor in animation cancelling. My main critique would be that the events only have 1 difficult stage, the boss fight, and you get most rewards with just decent gameplay... then to get the last reward you need a really good team plus play really well so it's usually not worth the effort (or your team isnt good enough)
@@byeguyssryTo be fair, the fact that the rewards decrease as you transition from the "intended performance" zone into the "over performing" zone just means that they don't encourage pay to win the way some games do.
@@byeguyssryi agree about the gameplay, but tbh i felt like the game is easy and stuffs at late game is kinda boring to do. I remember doing many very hard stages and still passes with a lower level team lol
Welcome back fellow Chief! I am a returning player too (day 1 player but took two breaks, missed about maybe 5 months total?) and it's good to be back, though I came back of my own volition before watching this review.
Is it worth? Cause I remember I left because the levels are getting impossible to beat, and I'm only a 'after-shift' kinda player that can't focus much. Got frustrating though I love the story so much.
This part in 11:07 that you commented on content locked in by day of the week is not from Genshin, it's quite old in fact summoners wars has had this for years of having material by day of the week
How can anybody dislike the art style of ptn? This has one of (if not the best character art ive ever seen in gacha games. Waaaaaaay better than games that just focus on oonga boongas fan service cause have you seen the new nikke characters? i feel like the new designs are pushing the limit
listen, that's was your taste, i do like ptn artstyle but i also like the simple looks like BA or Nikke so i kind of get them. Can't really blame the fanserive if it was what get people hooked because in the end of the day that just mean the majority of player like it
@@nanotsuki don't get me wrong im one of those peole who also got pulled in by nikkes fanservice but the new character designs i think are a bit too much. Not gonna stop me tho
A game's art style is entirely subjective, therefore always will be subject to the opinions of players. You may not like Nikke's art style but a lot of other people do - to bash what one likes is discriminatory and inflammatory.
A fantastic review for a game just as fantastic. For me, PTN was an accidental discovery, but a pleasant one nonetheless. And I could say the same about your review; comprehensive and eloquently narrated. Subscribed. I'm sure the devs would be thankful for your contribution to their game's marketing by thoroughly reviewing it and bringing it into focus of many more potential players.
The ads are sometimes...questionable. That being said, today I got a fairly decent ad with Raven in it (the green haired lady dressed in white and black with, well, a raven) that thankfully didn't give me second hand embarrassment
Very good and fair review man. concise, brief, and with less or no rambling. funny you said tower defense is not your thing while i also feel the same when i quitted arknight. i tried PTN when it released and it doesnt click also. then retried it january this year and been enjoying it since. PTN made me realize what a gacha dev with common sense could make. they have strong fanbase in CN (even in global too altho the number is smaller) so i guess that what could keep them going.
The only gacha where I have had an almost entirely positive experience so far is PTN (except in the first month when farming crimebrands was a pain). You can feel the thought, love and care the devs put into both the game and the players. What got me started on PTN were the pretty designs and dark atmosphere, but I stayed because the devs respect my time. As mentioned in this video, AISNO have thought of almost every QoL feature. You can focus on the gameplay and your actual life rather than waste time idle farming, micromanaging non-gameplay aspects or minmaxing farming efficiency. WHY DO SO FEW DEVELOPERS UNDERSTAND SOMETHING SO SIMPLE? People have a life outside of your game, make it easier for them and they'll play your game for longer.
im nearing level 70 on global servers and ive played since launch on cn, the game has received a lot of criticism since then (primarily from cn), but the devs have been very receptive to the community's opinions. this is genuinely one of the best games ive played in recent times, the story is by far my favorite and the writing quality seems to be consistently ramping up, with a notable spike at chapter 9. every event is worth playing, and with them rerunning them theres always a chance for new players to experience them (heavy bias towards flora unfurl & the next main event after ode to sun). even with the game's large amount of characters, everyone has an interrogation (story quest) available, so even if you have a character you really like that isn't heavily featured in an event or the main story, there is always a chance to get to know them better. another notable thing about PTN is it's sound design, the music in this game is nothing less than outstanding. i would highly recommend checking it out even if the game isn't that appealing to you.
I usually don't like gacha games, but PtN is a game that I've been wanting to try due to its gorgeous art style. I think you just sold me on this and convinced me to give it a go lol
I think now is a great time to start. You're 1.5 years behind a day 1 player so you won't have many of the top sinners but don't be discouraged, once things stabilize you should be able to get most if not all new sinners, and not every one is a must-pull. In the early game, it's a good idea to build Labyrinth, Che, Hecate, and EMP as you get them for free and they're very good (though EMP falls off in the lategame). Make sure you complete your 14 day missions to get Nox, she will carry you especially for waveclearing. For a healer, Hamel, Ariel or Macchiato are good options (and we have Du Ruo now too, though Hamel is the best out of them all for story imo). You'll get Luvia Ray for free eventually, she's a good magic dps. If you somehow get Lamia from the gacha, she and Luvia pair well together and can be effective even in endgame. For a tank, Demolia is sufficient and you won't need them for earlier stages anyway so don't level her too much. If you can, try and get Deren from the current banner and if possible, Yao too. Deren is the best single target physical dps and Yao is the best magic dps in short battles (mainly for the weekly boss mode called Broken Frontline) In the early game, build only one or two S ranks max as they're more expensive and will slow your progress through the campaign. Good luck new Chief! If you need any more advice, feel free to check out the subreddit and discord.
@@WadeWontson Woah thank you for the detailed advice! It's really encouraging and I really appreciate it. I'll keep this in mind as I start this later tonight!
I adore the use of a 3 point rating system in these reviews (below, meeting or above expectations) it's such a clean and clear idea with no ambiguity. Beats the shit out of 7/10 somehow being a low rating.
some small corrections: - About end game contents, there are actually 2 more modes. + First is in Oblivion Pit, but you click the down button and switch to Remnants of the depth. This mode changes maps every 2 weeks and is true end game content. Original Oblivion pit doesn't change and can be raided/skipped once you clear. + Second is a mode called Mania Training. You have to access this mode in Event tab. Weird, I know. But this mode is presented at any times, like other game modes. This mode is another true end game mode. Its updated every 2 months or so. + There is another end game mode, called Tide of Ashes, which is raid boss for guild. But it is treated as recurrent events so you wouldn't know if you don't play regularly. - I wouldn't say Eternal Nightmare is a late game mode. In this mode you don't use your own sinners, the mode gives all sinners to you at max level. I consider it a fun game mode to fool around and try out new stuff instead. - About gacha, I would say it is better than Arknights. In Arknights the hard pity only starts at 150+ pull, while this game is 80 pulls, and guaranteed banner is at most at 120 rolls. And you may not know, but you can get gacha currency from base, and you can speed up getting gacha currency too. Oh, and Arknights are pretty bad in limited banners, but this is not a video about Arknights. Other than that, thanks for this vid. I like this game and also want it to be more popular. From what I heard, this game is pretty popular in CN, consistently in top 10 gacha game or so, so maybe that's why they can afford supporting global.
100% right about Arknights' gacha. The limited banners especially suck, I'm genuinely baffled as to how everyone seems okay with the ridiculous 300 spark that doesn't carry over. And the 6* operator rates are 2% just like PTN iirc. Some will argue that arknights operators don't gain significant benefits from dupes but you don't need dupes in PTN either, although they do give a good power boost. Regardless, PTN's gacha is less RNG-dependent when trying to get the unit you want. I really respect AISNO for making limited banners identical to regular banners in terms of the rules, i.e. rates, pity, 50/50 and not following in Hypergryph's footsteps when they could've easily decided to increase the pity or reduce the limited sinner rates. Don't forget that AISNO has rerun Deren after just a year too so you won't have to try getting old limited sinners purely by RNG or sparking them like in arknights.
@@WadeWontson "everyone is okay" its because games like genshin and in this case, path to nowhere, are an outlier. huge chunk of gachas that even have pity system have specifically the "gbf-style" pity - which is 200-300 rolls with no carry over, significant % increase only on SPECIAL banners. which works for gbf because they give a LOT of currency and has free roll periods where sometimes you can just get 300 rolls for one banner for free, basically (which, in turn, was made in order to combat just how BLOATED the banners are, holy moley....), but it doesnt work in a lot of games because usually, other games are way more stingy. as to why.... idk, most likely has something to do with it being more profitable and gbf being the mother of pity systems, so other games copy that?
Plus compared to AK, I can easily get like 1800 pulls from just logging in for 1 week and doing missions. Unlike AK which you will need 6000 Orundums to just do 10 pull which takes like a few more days. The limited gacha is also better that my pity counter is saved and can be used in the next limited.
@heartunderbruh7735 sorry, don't you mean 1800 hypercubes xD I unfortunately don't remember the exact F2P income for arknights but I don't remember being particularly impressed by it back when I was playing either considering the horrible gacha
@SorarikoMotone I see, so that's why so many games use that annoying spark system. I never played GBF so thanks for providing some background. As for genshin, their gacha system is less RNG dependent but it's certainly not generous. The rates are abysmal and the fact that EVERY 5* other than the original 5 is limited means you have zero chance of getting them when losing a 50/50. The weapon banner is also horrendous.
PTN is hands down my favourite game, their events always have pretty deep societal meanings behind and also have some popular Chinese legends used as a base too, designs are amazing and the MUSIC IS JUST DAMN
Ive actual gotten this reccomended by the store and my emulator a few times. Looked nice but I was hesitant to pick up another gacha. Glad to get a rundown and review! Also I really liked the artstyle but generally am not a tower defense guy so your review helped me out a bit in deciding to give it a try
As someone who has been playing for nearly 2 years, I wanted to play gacha games and see what's the fuss was about of them, so hoping on play store and scrolling through many gacha, PTN caught my attention. *STORY* PTN's story is grim, dark, realistic (As far as characters and politics go not the whole sinner things) and bittersweet. They have crafted a wonderful story which captivates into this mysterious world right from the start. The way different factions/organisations operate and with each other, the power they hold, the way they work behind the scenes and all the political drama that happens between is very well thought and executed. I wont go into too much detail otherwise I'd be spoiling its story heavily but they have geniuely created a interesting lore behind "dis" City. *Characters* The characters in this game are unique, not in a way like their design or something but the way they are written. Almost all of the major and even minor have well thought goals, past and motivation behind them. All of them feel human, struggling to survive in this hellhole sometimes barely holding by. All of them have strong and well written writing behind them making you care about them like real people. *ART* This might be a little bias as I love PTN's artsytle. Usually I'm tired of seeing generic anime like artstyle, nothing against them but when the only difference between a 14 year old girl and a 30 year old woman is the size of their breasts its get a little too boring really fast. In this regard I believe PTN is very good at, they very attractive, fashionable and stylised real looking women who look according to their respective ages. Every time you will see their sprite you'll find that its uniquely theirs, the way they stand, look, everything tells you a little about themselves without even saying one word. One more thing I'd like to mention is how almost every character is independently recognisable, meaning you dont see 2 or 3 characters that look vaguely similar or identical keeping the looks of each sinner fresh. *MUSIC* There's this joke in the community that ASINO is actually a music company and there gacha business is just promotion to their music which honestly I agree with. The music is phenomenal, ranging from moments of despair, helplessness to emotional and somber to energetic and powerful to silly and funny. All of the music just hits the right spot. What I like the most is that the music isnt the one carrying a certain scene or moment in this game, no, its like a perfect glove for that scene that emotional moment that full of hope and energy moment, the music perfectly encapsulate those emotions very well while also being on the back pedal letting the scene or moment shine but helping it shine brighter.
This game is actually worth playing. It’s really a hidden gem among gachas. The writing is…actually pretty solid in a lot of places, and it also doesn’t feel like it drags on. Things are always moving to the next plot point. Also, the unique interrogation dialogue you can do with all your sinners ranges from funny hijinks, to INCREDIBLY emotional backstories and tragic tales of pain and being ostracized. Some of them legit got to me, especially the one for Wendy of all people. You learn how she used to be a MBCC officer at one point, but was sent on a suicide mission with her team (that they didn’t know was a suicide mission), was the only member from her unit that narrowly survived, went insane and still thinks her friends are alive. Of special note, event stories are AMAZING too. Almost better than a lot of main story chapters. They’re really worth your time. I guess the only negative is how there aren’t a huge amount of villains that feel super impactful or deep, but the atmosphere really can’t be beat. The world feels believable and lived in too. It’s also commendable JUST HOW MUCH of this game has voice acting. It’s almost fully voice acted in the main story which is quite long. Not to mention every sinner’s unique interrogation dialogue that has at least 3 stages to it.
I been playing this title since pretty much release and been praising it in the gacha community. Really sad that it hasn't gained much attention/success. I absolutely love the dark story and vibe of the characters. The mature artstyle is really appealing to me and the gameplay is really fun. ❤
For everyone, if you don't like the tower defence aspect and don't plan on playing, check out the PtN music and OSTs The best music out there. We in the fandom often like to joke that AISNO just might be first and foremost a music company
My favorite feature back when I was still playing was that somewhere in the options you could set which language the in-game voice would be for each character, so if you want one character to speak English while another one could speak Japanese, you could do this. Something I wish more games with different voice language options did.
Thank you for this review. As a staunch PtN player, I got super invested thanks to the story. It's really good, the art is amazing, the events are really good too and recently actually spent money for some skins too! I try to not be a spender and I suck at the gameplay but I am part of an amazing supportive community and our guild is super nice and active. Everything you said was on point.
Pretty good review, I'm subscribing! A few corrections: you cannot fully limit break your SSR characters simply by grinding, the rewards mentioned in the video are in limited quantities. You get one free limit break and that's it. Also there are other end-game activities besides the BFL and the Eternal Nightmare. Mania Intensifies is kind of like a gauntlet with added roguelite elements, Tides of Ashes allows you to cooperate with your guild to deal as much cumulative damage as possible to a boss and Remnants of the Depths is a thematic challenge, not unlike BFL honestly, only with more twists to it. Oh and I would say that the soundtrack is a lil bit better than serviceable! But that's just me nitpicking, I was genuinely impressed by how thorough and accurate this review is.
You can still buy more S rank shackles copies from the shop, but its from a different store, the one which is using yellow marks which you get automatically when you get an A rank or S rabk sinner
I like to add some suggestions to play or make a video on because I’m enjoying this type of videos from you! Some games to try out Monster Super League, Grand Summoners, Arknights, Epic Seven, AFK Journey, Brown Dust 2, and Another Eden. Also some dead games that can make a interesting video Brave Frontier, Dragalia Lost, and Kings Raid.
i have 3 people i know that play this game. One is an arknight veteran who really like tower defence , the other two is suprisingly female friends of mine. Like the sinners all female, it's clearly a waifu collector but somehow those two friends really like the characters. The only other games they play is either husbando collector (ensemble stars etc) and genshin (to main the hot dude like zhongli etc)
Been playing this game since launch and there is lot to like about PTN. I especially like how generous they are with hypercubes and arrest warrants. Every week you can get over 1000 hypercubes. -40 from daily missions every day. -150 from weekly missions. -170 from each of the broken frontline bosses. -Idk how much but a good amount from the factory, a few from dispatches, and arrest warrants from surveillance orders. On top of those, add in events, big or small, which give more hypercubes and arrest warrants. You can get a good amount of hypercubes from the archives as you play the game. Interrogations also give hypercubes. A few more things -Sin city arrest is kind of useless. -For Samples exchange buy the discounted soul marks, they refresh monthly. If you have a lot of samples, buy the sinners. This gives you shackles if you don't have them and if you already maxed them out they will give currency for Arrest Exchange. -Arrest exchange you can get 5 arrest warrants, refeshes monthly. -Friendship exchange you can get 3 arrest warrants, refeshes monthly. -B-rank does NOT equal useless.
Just gave a try yesterday, and I liked, usually i just skip the story, but I got interested enough in the characters and story to no skip and try to read everything, Ariel interrogation for example was a good story, probably gonna continue playing.
Crazy that you've positively reviewed both ptn and limbus, two somewhat obscure games I've been playing since their respective launches. Thanks for the detailed look at these games and your honest opinion! Like and subscribed 😊
Watching you say that there's no difficulty spike while I was someone who spent 3 months stuck on one level in Chapter 9 after mostly no problem beating everything else makes me worried LMAO Good luck if you continue the game, it's one of my favs
Ive been playing ptn for a year now and i stumbled upon this hidden gem while looking at the appstore for something to download, and I GOT HOOKED and ptn really deserves the attention it needs, its so underrated, and its partially their fault for not having proper advertisement aswell 😅😅 like i only saw 2 ads of ptn through the span of a year
I love the creators of this game. There is so much they didn’t have to do, especially in terms of music, story, and how they interact with the fans. This could've easily been another mindless mobile game, but Aisno decided to really take the extra step and it shows
Oh, Path to Nowhere. I do remember hearing about it, but never got it because I have numerous other games. Now I'm gonna wait for a review of Figure Fantasy. It's an older gacha game, older than Nikke, but is still going. They often have collab events. I do kinda like it, but I haven't played it in a while.
You should review Eversoul, I'm curious what other people think about it and even though I don't play it anymore part of me smiles at the possibility of one day having a decent degree of visibility.
Man it's great to see more people know this amazing game. I've been playing this for 400+ days and everything is beyond my expectations especially in a gacha type.
World and story concepts sound awesome. Imagine the adventure hack'n'snlash gameplay with loot thrown in! Kinda love the artstyle too. Too bad it's tower defense on mobile with a format that shows it.
As a first day player and still ongoing player, i gotta say you pretty much hit everything on the spot without getting complicated. The fact you even noted the Gacha having different type of banners was something I was hoping to see since many players haven't even noticed and then they go complain their pity is "gone" in another banner.
DisCars was released for first halfanni (Deren being the first limited sinner we have) The most formidable B ranks that are still useful in DZ would be Che and Labyrinth.
It is possible to exploit the roughlite by only going to the second area then end the run immediatly to still slowly build up the reward meter. For the pacific rim robot story roughlite specifically, a map layout where a possible path with no encounter can be found to allow u to go directly to the second area without engaging with the enemies. Since the run score is partially calculated based on the amount of stages nodes passed, this can rack up count very easily. It's also possible to get an purple artifact in the starting shop or treasure nodes that grants free 1000 points for that run only. These "exploits" help cover for the other edge if the player wants the rewards but don't want to spent tremedous amount of time on playing the roughlite gamemode.
This was a fantastic review. I play a ton of gacha (too many) but PTN is definitely one of my favourites. It's very f2p friendly I've mainly just spent on skins and Surv Orders(for the skin mainly, mats/currency are bonus similar to EPs from E7). It's because one thing I absolutely love in this game is the artstyle. The units actually look like adults and grown women and men, and that's hardly in any of the ones I play. The gp is prob its weakest aspect it turns off a lot of people, it's not for everybody. But everything else from it's art, music, VAs, story, events, UID and it being pretty f2p friendly are all very solid. I do enjoy the game, and I believe others will as well. Thanks for making such a solid review, and to anyone who does start the game, really try your best to get Nox from the starter missions she's still one of the best units you can get even today and will make things much smoother for you. I didn't get her and had to wait to get spooked by her.
Very detailed and thoughtful review. Though for the aethetic and tone I want to say as a player I don't like generic anime look and IF PTN actually went down the generic look of anime genericville I'd have never tried it in a million times. Same with lightehearted or isekai. The very draw in the first place for me is that it looks so unique. More mature (for the most part) and able to go darker than many other IPs. A bit eldritch (almost darkest dungeon in horror and dark cyberpunk in aethetics and punk like in music) I like it for what it is and what they were trying to do. What's more I hate that a game could try so hard and produce so much beauty and be ignored. So far I don't blame the makers nor the potential fans. I blame the mostly really low tier Advertisements. They were a terrible nightmare and I cringed at most of them.
I never realize that my taste was quite peculiar until he listed the reason this game not popular and it got me thinking. This game really didnt has mass appeal and thats what appealing to me hopefully jojo collab would bring the right people to the fandom
Glad you're spotlighting this Gacha game! My second favourite after FGO. Yeah, I feel it doesn't get enough attention. And it nice having a Protagonist that actually speaks for themselves instead of a Paimon type character doing all the talking for them. I like how the Chief has urgency in his/her character.
I am surprised that some people dislike such art style. I think it's pure joy to look at and stands way above typical anime visuals. I wish this game had a PC version :(
Another thing that maybe you didn't noticed about the progression is that for time limited / gated content like the events / weekly battlefront is that you only will be blocked by game difficulty from content which rewards simply don't matter for you at your current state. For example, the battlefront is a major source of the gacha playing currency. But once you rank up it will be difficult to fully complete the rewards, regarless of that they spread the rewards to make sure you get what makes sense for you. While mid-risk battlefront has hypercube spread out on your score rewards, the high-risk has it stacked at the bottom rewards, and the top rewards are late-game only materials. I really liked this cleverness, not a fan of multiple upgrade materials but this is a smart way to go about it.
I came here as I read there is a 2yr anniversary event coming up so I might give the game a go. You did point out some good QoL but lack of PC client and no Google Play PC support is a big bummer. Anyway, I like your review and will check out some more. :D
A few things I didn't see mentioned: -Event currency is always based on stamina spending. You can spend stamina anywhere and you'll get currency so there's no need to farm specific nodes for it. -Oblivion Pit has a skip mechanic, so after you complete level 5 you never manually play it again. Also, the shackle upgrade items from its shop do not refresh. You only get 2 from there. You can still get S-ranks upgraded with these items, but you need to purchase them from the gacha dupe shop.
I've been playing Path to Nowhere since October 2022, so it might be on few days after the global release. I immediately got hooked by the art style from the ads that randomly spawned on my youtube, I think it was Zoya, Ninety-Nine and Wendy. I don't even know what makes me love this game so much that I continued playing it for the past one and half year. I stopped playing Arknight after like a month, but I didn't quit PtN ..., and I don't like this kind of tower defense game at all. Maybe the one that got me good and keep playing this was the Sinners, all of them are beautiful badass looking women(there's only 7 male and 1 Oliver from 90 available Sinners, so yeah, the criminals that get arrested are mostly women). The interrogation that sometime feels like some kind of dating sim, and the way that they had a special event or case in every new patch to integrate those sinners are just amazing.
Path to Nowhere’s somewhat obscurity on the western gacha gaming market is due to their lack of marketing (which, as far as I know, is not a huge problem in the CN community as it is here seeing as how their ads in there are made), and I think this game would be much more popular if 1: they put more effort in promoting the game in social media & ads and 2: targeted it towards lesbians. idk how effective that would be or even if it’s anything beyond extremely niche advertisement , but if there’s something I know for a fact is that at least me and a dozen other bottoms immediately jumped at this game upon seeing a few screenshots of Angell’s event and hey! now I’m absolutely obsessed!! trust me aisno the girlies are gonna eat this shit right up like just hire me and I’ll-
i learned a lot from this vid, and opened the game for the first time in a while, ty i played a bit (joined during OwO), was surprisingly intrigued by the story, got stuck on a stage, arknights updated and my full attention moved back there, and that's my experience of ptn (i still have it downloaded and occasionally just log in) i think the art is nice, i just don't too much like the oversexualized characters' my reason for kinda dropping would be all that i felt i had to scroll and click thru for collection dailies every day, but i do still have held a soft spot for the game omg 7:40 is the stage, 2-9, where i've been stuck for a year. i just logged in, went to the stage, and completed it without changing the setup whatsoever. i've not really a clue what happened wow
Nice overall review. To me, the cute, light hearted style and story never had much appeal, which is one of the reasons why I could never get into gacha games, but that's exactly why I like PTN. Great art style, amazing music, a good, relatively dark story line and the characters actually have proper depth to them. There is almost never a simple good or evil which makes it a lot more conflicting. Also, the team behind it is not afraid to test out new things like adding live musical videos which keeps the events unique while also matching the mood so well, no matter if it's about horror, partying, film making, traditional mythology or other themes. As for the tower defense, I wasn't really sure about it either when I first tried it, but it actually grew on me, and I kind of like it now, though I do play it more for the story. On that note, the story will only get better later on.
I dare say PTN is the best Gacha I've played, Been playing since their second ever Event. It got the first event rerun a while back so I've completed every story (main/event). The dev is one of the funniest dev you can get, care about their community, and beyond creative. Last event they had an irl musical performers play a story cutscene. I'd never imagine to see that experimentation done by any game dev let alone on a game with stylized artstyle. I just think Aisno is a game studio that is filled with rebellious artists who just want to make stuff because they can. Also they are collabing with Jojo Bizarre Adventure.
They actually advertised like crazy in Korea lol but don’t think they did a lot of irl subway billboards like genshin or love and deep space tho also the ads looks like a hentai game sometimes lmao
Bruh the ads I saw on RUclips a while back gave me second hand embarrassment. The game is so good but people will get the wrong impression from those ads...I believe they've improved them now after player feedback though, saw a decent 5 second one a few days ago starring Raven iirc.
The next Atrocious Gacha Review will be Tower of Fantasy. It's gonna be a fun one
Oh boy, that going to be an adventure LOL.
I’m excited lol
blue archuve whennnn
review arknights please, plus they just revealed wisadel
When are you coming back to NIKKE man? Miss your analysis and guide to these newer characters 😢
PtN is the first game where my favorite character is straight up the idiot MC/cheif. They always get the short end of the straw, gets beat up, kidnapped so often it even became a running gag. I love it so much
Lmao true, our Chief always serves on the frontline so being hurt so often is inevitable. Chief isn't an idiot though, we're certainly flawed (loves rushing headlong into danger) but far from being dumb. Also this may not be related but I love that we get different outfits - still waiting for swimsuit chief (the Cabernet event outfit) to someday be added...
And it has ducks!
Also, they routinely bring up when they get captured “lol, I don’t have any powers of my own other than my shackles, of course I am easily captured”
@@WadeWontsonand the one from adela
Every gacha game the mc is idiot
For those who don't know, "Dis" is a reference to Dante's Inferno; Dis is the name of a ring-shaped city that encompasses the sixth through ninth circles of hell and is moated by the river Styx.
I like that this comment have zero like. So 266 people just read this and goes "nice" and just leave.
@@smithhardon4341 it has 267 likes.
Where'd you learned that info?
@@newt4050 It's in Dante's *Inferno*
@@dautunhudanhealh2568 damn i should've known
Only thing i have to point is the OST.
The music in this game is just phenomenal. They music team know what they're doing.
They range from chill to metal to jazz to eerie and creepy sounds, this guys are amazing.
King of the Party 🕺🕺🕺🕺
Ikr
Truly a hidden gem. I just wished that it gets the attention and love it deserves. But not to the point its popularity becomes overblown and has instances of conflict within their communities.
Weird. The discord has been pretty chill.
@@QuickQuips The subreddit as well, most of the time people are just thirsting over lesbian fanart or simping for characters xD
@@WadeWontson this is the best gacha fandom currently
It’s a solid little community, where thirsty lesbians and sweaty malders discuss their favorite walking disasters.
@@adroitws1367probably one of the benefit of being a hidden gem.
PTN gave me the same vibe as Punishing Gray Raven, they both started late in their own respecting genres, but managed to carve out their own little niche thanks to the refined game design and genuine dedication to the players.
Holy shit thank you for perfectly voicing my thoughts on why I love this game. Its so generous to its player base to the point I always make this and Punishing Gray the gold standard on how you cater to the player base without gouging their wallets whenever a new gacha releases.
Aisno games is actually a subsidiary studio from Papergames, a Chinese studio.
Papergames' global releases has been under their subsidiary, or a re-name of their company all over.
In fact, their other Gacha games have been targeted towards women, such as :
Mr Love Queen's Choice
Love Nikki
Shining Nikki
Love and Deepspace
In fact, Love and Deepspace is also released under their subsidiary / rename 'Infold'.
In contrast to Tencent, which required all subsidiary games to include Tencent in their launch up, Papergames doesn't require that unless the game is being published by a different publisher, for example Mr Love Queen's Choice and Love Nikki (published by Elex globally).
LOVE NIKKI?!!!? LOVE AND DEEPSPACE?!!!??!?!!?
yeah i think that confirms my female appeal point.
@@everyyxy8425 funnily enough they have old gacha ads but it was mostly appealed to male players with like the lewd direction of like free the character or some lewd ads.
But the playerbase ended up being mostly dominated by female players who are lesbians and are attracted to the characters
@@stuckerfan2563 lmaoo 😂thats so good, even when trying to appeal to men they just end up appealing to women once again
@@everyyxy8425 yeah it's hilarious.
I mean there are male players.I'm one of those but it's been dominated by mostly female players
@@everyyxy8425 hey it attracts man too. Im 1 of them lol. But yeah somehow this game becomes a lesbian hub lmao
"I know genshin was the first one to do this mechanic"
What? Fate/grand order? Arknights? Epic seven? Heck even granblue had elemental material quests that would change depending on the day, this is not something brought by genshin. There's a reason why it's archaic, because it's an old practice
Azur Lane too
oh as far as I remember, it's way older. I remember I played a very old gacha game, call brave frontier, it is possibly 1 of the first popular gacha. It already had that mechanic
Even dead gachas like Brave Frontier had it, lol
Even girls frontline does this. In fact between the oldest gacha's GFL's character like azur lane, grand blue, GFO, and that one ship gacha that was both the inspiration for azur lane and GFL, GFL is the most forgiving character gacha. In fact you don't even need money. Just wait and you get at most 5' and 4 stars. But holy crap the game is the hardest gacha I've played. Even if the story was good the campaign is puzzles are hard.
@@anhkhoanguyen8562brave frontier mentioned 🗣️🗣️
3:06 tbf with AK, their art style isnt the usual cute anime stuff and is actually the biggest reason why I started playing; the drip is just too good and the fact you can buy skins "for free" helps a lot.
also, genshin's lore just seems lighthearted, thing is as dark as the old testament.
I wouldn't have played Arknights for years if it weren't for artists like NoriZC and how he can make a painting of an anime girl look like a technical drawing. Imo the painterly style of Arknights opens the opportunity to convey a lot of the operator's personalities.
@@bruhhhh--- the drip is insane yep
The best feature is the one in audio settings where you can make each character speak a different language of choice. I have seen no other gacha with this but it adds a certain level of customization to the experience. YOu never get stuck with one VA option like other games. Some of my girls speak Korean, others japanese, others english. Superb!
Idk PTN could do this as well, I thought only Arknights do this. I even always asked this to other games whenever they held some questionnaire. It's easy and fun for us who likes certain charas using certain language.
Best and my favorite thing in the game, basically I can have my characters talk with very different languages in battle maps and enjoy and snicker a little cause this thing specifically reminds me of tekken interactions hahaha
YO That is amazing!!!
Arknights also do this tho, they even has specific regional area for Chinese and some character get Russian, Italian, and German, other than that I can't name any other gacha that let you do this
Path to Nowhere has one of the best writing I ever witnessed. Main story, and the events around it, are honestly Chef's kiss. Sinners interrogation, majority wise, are Top tier stories.
Not only I would recommend the game for the tower defense game style and above good gacha experience(F2P), but I would also recommend it to people who love a good well written story. (Only bad part is waiting for past events to rerun. Would've liked it if they just offered the events stories for free, for those who did not play it.)
According to information from China, in the near future all events will become available in the archive. But it’s not yet known whether it’s free or for some kind of in-game currency.
Don't you mean...Chief's kiss?
I'll show myself out
yeah, it's amazing
In terms of mobile game story it is 100% S tier, I can literally count on 1 hand how many mobile game stories I've paid attention to and Path to Nowhere is definitely one of them.
There are some lukewarm stories like some of the Garden sinners like the new one, which was basically just attacking us > regret > becomes a friend.
The "Atrocious" in the title of the video gave me expectations that the game or the developer was up to unsavory shenanigans. I was surprised to see that your actual overall reception of the game is quite positive. I've tried playing Path to Nowhere a couple times but the combat didn't really grip me since I'm already playing Arknights. Your video made me think about giving PtN another chance.
I think the word "Atrocious" was perfer to the review itself
The combat gets much better in late game. Doesn't really feel like tower defense at all
@@iamrick4469 end game become high-speed chess instead of tower defense with all the micro-management/character move lol.
@@air1744 now that I think about it, you are right!
It is atrocious
Its bias and there are misinformations here and there, this is what happen when review only for the sake review
A typical r/gachagaming behaviour
As someone who has played for over a year I feel like there is another point you didn't mention about the gacha. The game feels very generous compared to other gacha games I've played with it's distribution of Hypercubes. As a mostly F2P player (look, the skins are pretty), I've never once converted Ultracubes to Hypercubes, but I do have almost every sinner, with some S-ranks at multiple shackles and most A-Ranks at full or near full shackles.
It is also worth mentioning that the power creep is low, and some new Sinners will make old Sinners viable (such as Dreya enabling the Life Loss team). This is partially because the game is only PvE, and means you can skip banners much more easily than some other games.
I hope they make enough money 😂
@@orsikocsdon’t worry, they make more than enough since, unlike global, the game is super popular in China
Much higher gacha rate so currency is never issue for collectors which is pretty rare. But also good thing because otherwise a lot of story content would get locked out.
>be me
>saw zoya
>instant download
SHES SO HOT
welcome aboard, chief
Must've saw one of those Zoya cosplayers. Everyone turned rabid at that convention.
Same brother
PREACH BROTHER 🙌
I got into Path to Nowhere during it's Western release launch because of just how AWFUL the advertising was. I expected a game I could dunk on and delete, but 🤡 now it's my favorite mobile game... The story, voice acting, music, and art are all amazing, and the monthly bonus pack is pretty cheap so... Scratches my head. They got me good. As a side note! Like you said, most Sinners do go into the general pool as soon as their banner is done. "Limited" Sinner arrests are very rare; theyre definitely not the norm. As of right now, we only have 3 limited S-ranks out of 86 total units (so 3 out of 31 S-ranks if I'm counting correctly) bc AISNO only puts 1 Limited sinner out every half-year (1 for chinese new year, and 1 for the anniversary event). Gives lots of time to grind up currency for them 👌
I hope more people play it! It's genuinely enjoyable
Edit: I forgot to say, but concerning FOMO, according to the official Chinese updates, they're going to start leaving old event stories playable in the game permanently, starting with the dreamy bubble event and the raging sands event 🥳 hopefully this extends to other events in the future too 👍
There are quite a few inaccuries, but overall, quite a solid video!
l'll just list the most important parts that I think are worth noting (that I haven't seen other comments mention)
- Broken Frontline is arguably the main game mode of the game, pushing Path to Nowhere further as not just a tower defense game but a tower defense game where you have a boss rush. It also does not allow you to lower the difficulty, which is a pain. It is highly recommended for beginners to deliberately avoid hitting 720k points (and reaching the next difficulty) until they find the current difficulty easy (or at least not hard, if you're willing to spend a lot of time to clear the hard stages).
And speaking of being pushed further into the tower defense niche, due to the ability to move Sinners, there's a lot of micromanagement as you've already mentioned. It is highly beneficial in Broken Frontline to learn how to properly animation cancel. Ideally, you'd end your Broken Frontline run with exactly 0 moves remaining.
Interrogations are not "just" bonding with the characters. I mean... well it kinda is. But that's downplaying it. One problem I have with Path to Nowhere is actually how much stuff is locked behind these Interrogations. For example, Ariel's Interrogation shows how her father is so disgusted by Sinners that he is glad when his Sinner daughter is reported to be dead. This mirrors most Eastsiders' views on the matter. Or NOX, which shows Chief how it feels to enter DisSea, as her consciousness erodes. (Edit: Just finished Summer's Interrogation. She explains how Mania crystals work and talks about stuff relating to how the gangsters got access to Mania weapons)
Or Cabernet. In Cabernet's event, she only really was evil towards Chief, who she decided to let go. Other than that, she's more so allowong awful things to happen around her and knowing that she indirectly causes it (someone is doing these things to win her approval) and not stepping in... but not actually doing anything evil. Then you go to her Interrogation and you see how she tortured these two lovers to the point where both lovers are willing to do anything to please Cabernet to maybe get his/her lover free, and also wanting to die so that his/her lover will stop being willing to do anything to please Cabernet to maybe get his/her lover free. And Cabernet is completely unfazed when Chief finds out and confronts her and keeps talking about how delicious their souls have become. It is also revealed that Cabernet is willingly shackled by Chief because Chief's aroma is too nice. She also makes a vague threat that she will one day feast when Chief's soul is properly cultivated (even though the Shackles stop her from harming Chief). The Interrogation fleshes out her character imo.
Also keep in mind that some characters have no stories except for their Interrogations.
A Rank and B Rank Sinners are cheaper to build, but they really aren't as good as S Ranks. B Ranks have Che (always good) and Laby (always decent, sometimes OP), and Pepper (optional for Life Loss team but falls off as you get more S Ranks). A Ranks are typically specific to a specific team, like Levy and Sumire being made for Life Loss team or Thistle being best when supporting Yao, or Priscilla being good only with Coquelic team. Or they're healers. Who are indeed good at healing. There's only 1 or 2 non-healer A Ranks who are good in general.
Speaking of Coquelic... we do not talk about what happened to Coquelic on CN.
Speaking of which, Limited Sinners come every half a year. Deren (arguably the strongest character in the game) came in the first half-anniversary and is now rerunning in the second half-anniversary.
For the Shop, please don't rush to buy the Sinner Mark. In almost all cases, using Soul Marks to unlock the ECB is much more important than an extra Shackle. You won't have enough to buy them if you save for the Sinner Mark.
Also I'm pretty sure it's 2 Sinner Marks per account
For skins, I don't think that Battle Pass skins have ever rerun.
For events, they get added to the archive if you've played it.
The community also really likes the game's music. I'm not really a music guy (rather, I'm most interested in the lyrics lol) but I think it's up to standard with all the other bigger gacha games
Battle pass skins started rerunning on CN this month.
You can also lower the difficulty of DZ, you can't go back to high risk if you're in dark zone or anything like that but you can use the drop down menu on the difficulty selector to always be fighting the boss at difficulty 2 instead of 3.
@@joannespluym6109 Damn, they actually rerun BP skins? That's pretty cool. As for your second point, you're right, though players should be confident that they can achieve at least 160k per BFL DZ boss.
Cheers, thanks for explaining some details about PTN. I already had a bad impression of Cabernet from what she was doing, but I really dislike her now after reading what you said. She's one of the few sinners who is a genuinely horrible person. As for Coq, my condolences to CN players who will never be able to get her if they don't have her already, and best of luck to global players who can only hope to get her from 50/50s. Perhaps they could add her permanently in the arrest exchange for global?
Regarding BFL, ani cancel is important for some sinners like Luvia, Serpent and Nox (typically normal atk focused sinners with slower atk spd) but not for everyone. For example, Deren doesn't benefit that much since she attacks quite fast anyway. Fair point about A ranks, most work best in certain teams with a few exceptions like Luvia, who is a pretty versatile magic dps that works well with Lamia.
@WadeWontson For Cabernet, yeah, she's like most serial killers, not having any moral compass and genuinely not feeling that what they're doing is wrong (or at least it seems that way for Cabernet)
Also animation cancelling is significant for probably more than two-thirds of all Sinners. Deren does have animation cancelling and is a decent candidate because though she only saves a bit of time, her attacks are really strong (and also you need to move her once every 10 seconds so learning attack cancelling for Deren is always useful)
Although you just spoiled Cabernet interrogation, im glad i read it because i was not willing to do her interrogation. There's only two sinners in this game that i really don't like, she and oliver.
No matter how good she can be, if a character is a piece of crap i just dont play it. lmao
Funny enough, playing Epic Seven back in the day i also unequiped everything i had farmed for Lilias because some events that happen later in the story, proving her as also being a piece of crap.
The hardest part of the game is finding the settings menu
It's the only mobile game I've kept playing for over a year straight, and I'm still hooked.
the story is crazy good, I need their cocaine when writing it
Ikr
I loved this game
The story immediately hooked just by the prologue alone because it's such an interesting premise.
And the story gets better in later chapters and events
I mean the half and 1st anniversary event story is amazing.
Heck their second event which was with serpent had amazing writing
Apart from the lack of content at late game and the lack of diversity in stages (something like letting players rotate characters in arknights), i would say i love Path to Nowhere and i think it deserves attention just like arknights. Badass character design, wonderful waifus, stories of conspiracies above conspiracies, you named it.
im very intrigued to be honest
pretty women…
if you play for like 3-4 months, 1 annoying thing will start notice is that it took forever to max out 1 sinner.
It has more endgame content than most gachas though. And it's not really less diverse than Arknights. Being able to move Sinners around makes up for not being able to deploy new operators, especially when you factor in animation cancelling. My main critique would be that the events only have 1 difficult stage, the boss fight, and you get most rewards with just decent gameplay... then to get the last reward you need a really good team plus play really well so it's usually not worth the effort (or your team isnt good enough)
@@byeguyssryTo be fair, the fact that the rewards decrease as you transition from the "intended performance" zone into the "over performing" zone just means that they don't encourage pay to win the way some games do.
@@byeguyssryi agree about the gameplay, but tbh i felt like the game is easy and stuffs at late game is kinda boring to do. I remember doing many very hard stages and still passes with a lower level team lol
Your review made me reinstall the game and man... the returning player event is straight up adorable wtf
Welcome back fellow Chief! I am a returning player too (day 1 player but took two breaks, missed about maybe 5 months total?) and it's good to be back, though I came back of my own volition before watching this review.
Good timing. Deren is back.
welcome back chief, the story is crazy, you better catch up
Is it worth? Cause I remember I left because the levels are getting impossible to beat, and I'm only a 'after-shift' kinda player that can't focus much. Got frustrating though I love the story so much.
@@Haru-rs2su Nope i unstalled fairly quickly afterward, even with over leveled characters i got dumpstered on and couldn't progress
This part in 11:07 that you commented on content locked in by day of the week is not from Genshin, it's quite old in fact summoners wars has had this for years of having material by day of the week
So glad that someones talking about this game its such a hidden gem
How can anybody dislike the art style of ptn? This has one of (if not the best character art ive ever seen in gacha games. Waaaaaaay better than games that just focus on oonga boongas fan service cause have you seen the new nikke characters? i feel like the new designs are pushing the limit
listen, that's was your taste, i do like ptn artstyle but i also like the simple looks like BA or Nikke so i kind of get them. Can't really blame the fanserive if it was what get people hooked because in the end of the day that just mean the majority of player like it
But that's the main charm to it and you can't deny their sexiness.
@@nanotsuki don't get me wrong im one of those peole who also got pulled in by nikkes fanservice but the new character designs i think are a bit too much. Not gonna stop me tho
A game's art style is entirely subjective, therefore always will be subject to the opinions of players. You may not like Nikke's art style but a lot of other people do - to bash what one likes is discriminatory and inflammatory.
@@ResidentWeevil2077 i never said i didn't
Path to Nowhere review! Can't wait to watch it
Oh you're here too, hello fellow Chief
@@WadeWontson Hello! I love seeing people's opinion on Path to Nowhere! Of course I will be there haha
A fantastic review for a game just as fantastic. For me, PTN was an accidental discovery, but a pleasant one nonetheless. And I could say the same about your review; comprehensive and eloquently narrated. Subscribed. I'm sure the devs would be thankful for your contribution to their game's marketing by thoroughly reviewing it and bringing it into focus of many more potential players.
11:06 If i recall correctly Fate Grand Order is doing this way back in 2015, i dont think Genshin was the first at all.
A lot of gacha games have done it before.
I have gotten the three woman advertisment art twice, and i wonder if the game's good.
This video has answered my question.
The ads are sometimes...questionable. That being said, today I got a fairly decent ad with Raven in it (the green haired lady dressed in white and black with, well, a raven) that thankfully didn't give me second hand embarrassment
It's very good. Almost as good as Nikke in it's own way.
Very good and fair review man. concise, brief, and with less or no rambling. funny you said tower defense is not your thing while i also feel the same when i quitted arknight. i tried PTN when it released and it doesnt click also. then retried it january this year and been enjoying it since. PTN made me realize what a gacha dev with common sense could make.
they have strong fanbase in CN (even in global too altho the number is smaller) so i guess that what could keep them going.
The only gacha where I have had an almost entirely positive experience so far is PTN (except in the first month when farming crimebrands was a pain). You can feel the thought, love and care the devs put into both the game and the players. What got me started on PTN were the pretty designs and dark atmosphere, but I stayed because the devs respect my time.
As mentioned in this video, AISNO have thought of almost every QoL feature. You can focus on the gameplay and your actual life rather than waste time idle farming, micromanaging non-gameplay aspects or minmaxing farming efficiency. WHY DO SO FEW DEVELOPERS UNDERSTAND SOMETHING SO SIMPLE? People have a life outside of your game, make it easier for them and they'll play your game for longer.
im nearing level 70 on global servers and ive played since launch on cn, the game has received a lot of criticism since then (primarily from cn), but the devs have been very receptive to the community's opinions. this is genuinely one of the best games ive played in recent times, the story is by far my favorite and the writing quality seems to be consistently ramping up, with a notable spike at chapter 9. every event is worth playing, and with them rerunning them theres always a chance for new players to experience them (heavy bias towards flora unfurl & the next main event after ode to sun).
even with the game's large amount of characters, everyone has an interrogation (story quest) available, so even if you have a character you really like that isn't heavily featured in an event or the main story, there is always a chance to get to know them better.
another notable thing about PTN is it's sound design, the music in this game is nothing less than outstanding. i would highly recommend checking it out even if the game isn't that appealing to you.
I usually don't like gacha games, but PtN is a game that I've been wanting to try due to its gorgeous art style. I think you just sold me on this and convinced me to give it a go lol
do it just for the art and story man. you wont regret it.
I think now is a great time to start. You're 1.5 years behind a day 1 player so you won't have many of the top sinners but don't be discouraged, once things stabilize you should be able to get most if not all new sinners, and not every one is a must-pull. In the early game, it's a good idea to build Labyrinth, Che, Hecate, and EMP as you get them for free and they're very good (though EMP falls off in the lategame). Make sure you complete your 14 day missions to get Nox, she will carry you especially for waveclearing. For a healer, Hamel, Ariel or Macchiato are good options (and we have Du Ruo now too, though Hamel is the best out of them all for story imo). You'll get Luvia Ray for free eventually, she's a good magic dps. If you somehow get Lamia from the gacha, she and Luvia pair well together and can be effective even in endgame. For a tank, Demolia is sufficient and you won't need them for earlier stages anyway so don't level her too much.
If you can, try and get Deren from the current banner and if possible, Yao too. Deren is the best single target physical dps and Yao is the best magic dps in short battles (mainly for the weekly boss mode called Broken Frontline) In the early game, build only one or two S ranks max as they're more expensive and will slow your progress through the campaign.
Good luck new Chief! If you need any more advice, feel free to check out the subreddit and discord.
@@WadeWontson Woah thank you for the detailed advice! It's really encouraging and I really appreciate it. I'll keep this in mind as I start this later tonight!
@@ivana2609 no problem, best of luck!
I adore the use of a 3 point rating system in these reviews (below, meeting or above expectations) it's such a clean and clear idea with no ambiguity. Beats the shit out of 7/10 somehow being a low rating.
some small corrections:
- About end game contents, there are actually 2 more modes.
+ First is in Oblivion Pit, but you click the down button and switch to Remnants of the depth. This mode changes maps every 2 weeks and is true end game content. Original Oblivion pit doesn't change and can be raided/skipped once you clear.
+ Second is a mode called Mania Training. You have to access this mode in Event tab. Weird, I know. But this mode is presented at any times, like other game modes. This mode is another true end game mode. Its updated every 2 months or so.
+ There is another end game mode, called Tide of Ashes, which is raid boss for guild. But it is treated as recurrent events so you wouldn't know if you don't play regularly.
- I wouldn't say Eternal Nightmare is a late game mode. In this mode you don't use your own sinners, the mode gives all sinners to you at max level. I consider it a fun game mode to fool around and try out new stuff instead.
- About gacha, I would say it is better than Arknights. In Arknights the hard pity only starts at 150+ pull, while this game is 80 pulls, and guaranteed banner is at most at 120 rolls. And you may not know, but you can get gacha currency from base, and you can speed up getting gacha currency too. Oh, and Arknights are pretty bad in limited banners, but this is not a video about Arknights.
Other than that, thanks for this vid. I like this game and also want it to be more popular. From what I heard, this game is pretty popular in CN, consistently in top 10 gacha game or so, so maybe that's why they can afford supporting global.
100% right about Arknights' gacha. The limited banners especially suck, I'm genuinely baffled as to how everyone seems okay with the ridiculous 300 spark that doesn't carry over. And the 6* operator rates are 2% just like PTN iirc. Some will argue that arknights operators don't gain significant benefits from dupes but you don't need dupes in PTN either, although they do give a good power boost. Regardless, PTN's gacha is less RNG-dependent when trying to get the unit you want.
I really respect AISNO for making limited banners identical to regular banners in terms of the rules, i.e. rates, pity, 50/50 and not following in Hypergryph's footsteps when they could've easily decided to increase the pity or reduce the limited sinner rates. Don't forget that AISNO has rerun Deren after just a year too so you won't have to try getting old limited sinners purely by RNG or sparking them like in arknights.
@@WadeWontson "everyone is okay" its because games like genshin and in this case, path to nowhere, are an outlier. huge chunk of gachas that even have pity system have specifically the "gbf-style" pity - which is 200-300 rolls with no carry over, significant % increase only on SPECIAL banners. which works for gbf because they give a LOT of currency and has free roll periods where sometimes you can just get 300 rolls for one banner for free, basically (which, in turn, was made in order to combat just how BLOATED the banners are, holy moley....), but it doesnt work in a lot of games because usually, other games are way more stingy. as to why.... idk, most likely has something to do with it being more profitable and gbf being the mother of pity systems, so other games copy that?
Plus compared to AK, I can easily get like 1800 pulls from just logging in for 1 week and doing missions. Unlike AK which you will need 6000 Orundums to just do 10 pull which takes like a few more days. The limited gacha is also better that my pity counter is saved and can be used in the next limited.
@heartunderbruh7735 sorry, don't you mean 1800 hypercubes xD I unfortunately don't remember the exact F2P income for arknights but I don't remember being particularly impressed by it back when I was playing either considering the horrible gacha
@SorarikoMotone I see, so that's why so many games use that annoying spark system. I never played GBF so thanks for providing some background. As for genshin, their gacha system is less RNG dependent but it's certainly not generous. The rates are abysmal and the fact that EVERY 5* other than the original 5 is limited means you have zero chance of getting them when losing a 50/50. The weapon banner is also horrendous.
I never thought that you'd review PTN but nevertheless I'm glad that you gave it a decent score
PTN is hands down my favourite game, their events always have pretty deep societal meanings behind and also have some popular Chinese legends used as a base too, designs are amazing and the MUSIC IS JUST DAMN
0:25 LIMBUS COMPANY MENTIONED 🗣️🗣️
Thanks for covering this hidden gem. I'm a long term PtN player and found you because i started Nikke recently.
Same. Probably won't continue with nikke for long though since I already play PTN and Aether Gazer, no time for a third gacha sadly.
Where is my chief gang at? Eirene is my girl, zoya my beloved, OwO my kid, don my man. What about ya?
mcqueen
Nox is queen
eureka is the best, I love her. also, love golan so far
Adela is my literal wife 😭
angell is my wife
Ive actual gotten this reccomended by the store and my emulator a few times. Looked nice but I was hesitant to pick up another gacha. Glad to get a rundown and review!
Also I really liked the artstyle but generally am not a tower defense guy so your review helped me out a bit in deciding to give it a try
Hooray! More Path to Nowhere videos!
25:20 actually when you finish the level 55 oblivion pit, you just got out of the newb zone. There is a rotating challenge changing every 2 weeks.
One more thing that could have been praised is the OST. Absolutely stellar production for making variety of genres and also using english lyrics
i've been playing since day 1 and this game has one of the best stories and atmosphere i've seen in a gacha game so far
As someone who has been playing for nearly 2 years, I wanted to play gacha games and see what's the fuss was about of them, so hoping on play store and scrolling through many gacha, PTN caught my attention.
*STORY*
PTN's story is grim, dark, realistic (As far as characters and politics go not the whole sinner things) and bittersweet. They have crafted a wonderful story which captivates into this mysterious world right from the start. The way different factions/organisations operate and with each other, the power they hold, the way they work behind the scenes and all the political drama that happens between is very well thought and executed. I wont go into too much detail otherwise I'd be spoiling its story heavily but they have geniuely created a interesting lore behind "dis"
City.
*Characters*
The characters in this game are unique, not in a way like their design or something but the way they are written. Almost all of the major and even minor have well thought goals, past and motivation behind them. All of them feel human, struggling to survive in this hellhole sometimes barely holding by. All of them have strong and well written writing behind them making you care about them like real people.
*ART*
This might be a little bias as I love PTN's artsytle. Usually I'm tired of seeing generic anime like artstyle, nothing against them but when the only difference between a 14 year old girl and a 30 year old woman is the size of their breasts its get a little too boring really fast. In this regard I believe PTN is very good at, they very attractive, fashionable and stylised real looking women who look according to their respective ages. Every time you will see their sprite you'll find that its uniquely theirs, the way they stand, look, everything tells you a little about themselves without even saying one word. One more thing I'd like to mention is how almost every character is independently recognisable, meaning you dont see 2 or 3 characters that look vaguely similar or identical keeping the looks of each sinner fresh.
*MUSIC*
There's this joke in the community that ASINO is actually a music company and there gacha business is just promotion to their music which honestly I agree with. The music is phenomenal, ranging from moments of despair, helplessness to emotional and somber to energetic and powerful to silly and funny. All of the music just hits the right spot. What I like the most is that the music isnt the one carrying a certain scene or moment in this game, no, its like a perfect glove for that scene that emotional moment that full of hope and energy moment, the music perfectly encapsulate those emotions very well while also being on the back pedal letting the scene or moment shine but helping it shine brighter.
This game is actually worth playing. It’s really a hidden gem among gachas. The writing is…actually pretty solid in a lot of places, and it also doesn’t feel like it drags on. Things are always moving to the next plot point. Also, the unique interrogation dialogue you can do with all your sinners ranges from funny hijinks, to INCREDIBLY emotional backstories and tragic tales of pain and being ostracized. Some of them legit got to me, especially the one for Wendy of all people. You learn how she used to be a MBCC officer at one point, but was sent on a suicide mission with her team (that they didn’t know was a suicide mission), was the only member from her unit that narrowly survived, went insane and still thinks her friends are alive. Of special note, event stories are AMAZING too. Almost better than a lot of main story chapters. They’re really worth your time. I guess the only negative is how there aren’t a huge amount of villains that feel super impactful or deep, but the atmosphere really can’t be beat. The world feels believable and lived in too. It’s also commendable JUST HOW MUCH of this game has voice acting. It’s almost fully voice acted in the main story which is quite long. Not to mention every sinner’s unique interrogation dialogue that has at least 3 stages to it.
Waiting for your Crown review as well man. Your vids are amazing. I wish u many more subs. It's only a matter of time for your channel to pop off.
I been playing this title since pretty much release and been praising it in the gacha community. Really sad that it hasn't gained much attention/success. I absolutely love the dark story and vibe of the characters. The mature artstyle is really appealing to me and the gameplay is really fun. ❤
For everyone, if you don't like the tower defence aspect and don't plan on playing, check out the PtN music and OSTs
The best music out there. We in the fandom often like to joke that AISNO just might be first and foremost a music company
Love the video, keep up man
Still waiting for that Crown review tho ngl
NUMBERS
from my experience she mostly just takes your dps TO THE MOON
My favorite feature back when I was still playing was that somewhere in the options you could set which language the in-game voice would be for each character, so if you want one character to speak English while another one could speak Japanese, you could do this. Something I wish more games with different voice language options did.
The fact that this video drop coincides with its collab with CoD Mobile is hilarious to me😂
Thank you for this review. As a staunch PtN player, I got super invested thanks to the story. It's really good, the art is amazing, the events are really good too and recently actually spent money for some skins too! I try to not be a spender and I suck at the gameplay but I am part of an amazing supportive community and our guild is super nice and active.
Everything you said was on point.
22:55 I agree that the music is servicable most of the time but please listen to some event one. King of the Party, Joyride, Dragon & Isle of Sky
The art style is the main reason I want to try it.
Even thou I already play Arknights and Watcher of Realms.
Pretty good review, I'm subscribing!
A few corrections: you cannot fully limit break your SSR characters simply by grinding, the rewards mentioned in the video are in limited quantities. You get one free limit break and that's it.
Also there are other end-game activities besides the BFL and the Eternal Nightmare. Mania Intensifies is kind of like a gauntlet with added roguelite elements, Tides of Ashes allows you to cooperate with your guild to deal as much cumulative damage as possible to a boss and Remnants of the Depths is a thematic challenge, not unlike BFL honestly, only with more twists to it.
Oh and I would say that the soundtrack is a lil bit better than serviceable!
But that's just me nitpicking, I was genuinely impressed by how thorough and accurate this review is.
You can still buy more S rank shackles copies from the shop, but its from a different store, the one which is using yellow marks which you get automatically when you get an A rank or S rabk sinner
I like to add some suggestions to play or make a video on because I’m enjoying this type of videos from you! Some games to try out Monster Super League, Grand Summoners, Arknights, Epic Seven, AFK Journey, Brown Dust 2, and Another Eden. Also some dead games that can make a interesting video Brave Frontier, Dragalia Lost, and Kings Raid.
I miss Brave Frontiers every day. It was my first ever gacha game
@@blazez9481 my first mobile game 🥲
i have 3 people i know that play this game. One is an arknight veteran who really like tower defence , the other two is suprisingly female friends of mine. Like the sinners all female, it's clearly a waifu collector but somehow those two friends really like the characters. The only other games they play is either husbando collector (ensemble stars etc) and genshin (to main the hot dude like zhongli etc)
Been playing this game since launch and there is lot to like about PTN. I especially like how generous they are with hypercubes and arrest warrants. Every week you can get over 1000 hypercubes.
-40 from daily missions every day.
-150 from weekly missions.
-170 from each of the broken frontline bosses.
-Idk how much but a good amount from the factory, a few from dispatches, and arrest warrants from surveillance orders.
On top of those, add in events, big or small, which give more hypercubes and arrest warrants. You can get a good amount of hypercubes from the archives as you play the game. Interrogations also give hypercubes.
A few more things
-Sin city arrest is kind of useless.
-For Samples exchange buy the discounted soul marks, they refresh monthly. If you have a lot of samples, buy the sinners. This gives you shackles if you don't have them and if you already maxed them out they will give currency for Arrest Exchange.
-Arrest exchange you can get 5 arrest warrants, refeshes monthly.
-Friendship exchange you can get 3 arrest warrants, refeshes monthly.
-B-rank does NOT equal useless.
Just gave a try yesterday, and I liked, usually i just skip the story, but I got interested enough in the characters and story to no skip and try to read everything, Ariel interrogation for example was a good story, probably gonna continue playing.
Crazy that you've positively reviewed both ptn and limbus, two somewhat obscure games I've been playing since their respective launches.
Thanks for the detailed look at these games and your honest opinion! Like and subscribed 😊
I have been obsessed with this game for quite a while finally I have a video to promote the game to my friends.
Watching you say that there's no difficulty spike while I was someone who spent 3 months stuck on one level in Chapter 9 after mostly no problem beating everything else makes me worried LMAO Good luck if you continue the game, it's one of my favs
Thank you. Finally more people talking about this game, Aisno didn't do any PR for the game at all.
I played since the released and the dev really listened to the feedbacks of the players especially for the quality of life systems.
Ive been playing ptn for a year now and i stumbled upon this hidden gem while looking at the appstore for something to download, and I GOT HOOKED and ptn really deserves the attention it needs, its so underrated, and its partially their fault for not having proper advertisement aswell 😅😅 like i only saw 2 ads of ptn through the span of a year
I love the creators of this game. There is so much they didn’t have to do, especially in terms of music, story, and how they interact with the fans.
This could've easily been another mindless mobile game, but Aisno decided to really take the extra step and it shows
Oh, Path to Nowhere. I do remember hearing about it, but never got it because I have numerous other games.
Now I'm gonna wait for a review of Figure Fantasy. It's an older gacha game, older than Nikke, but is still going. They often have collab events. I do kinda like it, but I haven't played it in a while.
Thank you for bringing light to my top 3 gacha game.
You should review Eversoul, I'm curious what other people think about it and even though I don't play it anymore part of me smiles at the possibility of one day having a decent degree of visibility.
Thanks for making this review, I discovered the game thanks to you and I love it!
Man it's great to see more people know this amazing game. I've been playing this for 400+ days and everything is beyond my expectations especially in a gacha type.
World and story concepts sound awesome. Imagine the adventure hack'n'snlash gameplay with loot thrown in! Kinda love the artstyle too. Too bad it's tower defense on mobile with a format that shows it.
I google to find some games tower defense genre. I randomly see Zoya and think Who is this cool lady? And now, i'm hooked with game
lol this comedian just lists the outro music! The music that plays around 31:00 is from the Danganronpa 2 soundtrack.
As a first day player and still ongoing player, i gotta say you pretty much hit everything on the spot without getting complicated.
The fact you even noted the Gacha having different type of banners was something I was hoping to see since many players haven't even noticed and then they go complain their pity is "gone" in another banner.
I have been spending and playing this game since release, Thanks for reviewing my favorite gacha game
AISNO recently announced that they'll be adding stamina storage system on CN soon (we'll be getting in couple of months on global)
DisCars was released for first halfanni (Deren being the first limited sinner we have)
The most formidable B ranks that are still useful in DZ would be Che and Labyrinth.
It is possible to exploit the roughlite by only going to the second area then end the run immediatly to still slowly build up the reward meter. For the pacific rim robot story roughlite specifically, a map layout where a possible path with no encounter can be found to allow u to go directly to the second area without engaging with the enemies. Since the run score is partially calculated based on the amount of stages nodes passed, this can rack up count very easily. It's also possible to get an purple artifact in the starting shop or treasure nodes that grants free 1000 points for that run only. These "exploits" help cover for the other edge if the player wants the rewards but don't want to spent tremedous amount of time on playing the roughlite gamemode.
I love this art style! Their graphics look much better than several much more popular gacha games. It’s just, the tower defense, as you said…
This was a fantastic review. I play a ton of gacha (too many) but PTN is definitely one of my favourites. It's very f2p friendly I've mainly just spent on skins and Surv Orders(for the skin mainly, mats/currency are bonus similar to EPs from E7). It's because one thing I absolutely love in this game is the artstyle. The units actually look like adults and grown women and men, and that's hardly in any of the ones I play. The gp is prob its weakest aspect it turns off a lot of people, it's not for everybody. But everything else from it's art, music, VAs, story, events, UID and it being pretty f2p friendly are all very solid. I do enjoy the game, and I believe others will as well. Thanks for making such a solid review, and to anyone who does start the game, really try your best to get Nox from the starter missions she's still one of the best units you can get even today and will make things much smoother for you. I didn't get her and had to wait to get spooked by her.
Very detailed and thoughtful review. Though for the aethetic and tone I want to say as a player
I don't like generic anime look and IF PTN actually went down the generic look of anime genericville I'd have never tried it in a million times. Same with lightehearted or isekai. The very draw in the first place for me is that it looks so unique.
More mature (for the most part) and able to go darker than many other IPs. A bit eldritch (almost darkest dungeon in horror and dark cyberpunk in aethetics and punk like in music) I like it for what it is and what they were trying to do. What's more I hate that a game could try so hard and produce so much beauty and be ignored. So far I don't blame the makers nor the potential fans. I blame the mostly really low tier Advertisements. They were a terrible nightmare and I cringed at most of them.
I never realize that my taste was quite peculiar until he listed the reason this game not popular and it got me thinking. This game really didnt has mass appeal and thats what appealing to me
hopefully jojo collab would bring the right people to the fandom
@@adroitws1367 yeah agreed. Cuz there's be tons of generic games of genericville already. If anything looks like generic anime I won't even touch it
34:05 Uhm acktually, I've been dealing with this day of the week nonsense since Fire Emblem Heroes in 2016
Glad you're spotlighting this Gacha game! My second favourite after FGO. Yeah, I feel it doesn't get enough attention.
And it nice having a Protagonist that actually speaks for themselves instead of a Paimon type character doing all the talking for them. I like how the Chief has urgency in his/her character.
just curious, are you going to do a video on crown and kilo? enjoying these vids though
I am surprised that some people dislike such art style. I think it's pure joy to look at and stands way above typical anime visuals. I wish this game had a PC version :(
Another thing that maybe you didn't noticed about the progression is that for time limited / gated content like the events / weekly battlefront is that you only will be blocked by game difficulty from content which rewards simply don't matter for you at your current state.
For example, the battlefront is a major source of the gacha playing currency. But once you rank up it will be difficult to fully complete the rewards, regarless of that they spread the rewards to make sure you get what makes sense for you. While mid-risk battlefront has hypercube spread out on your score rewards, the high-risk has it stacked at the bottom rewards, and the top rewards are late-game only materials. I really liked this cleverness, not a fan of multiple upgrade materials but this is a smart way to go about it.
25:20 I like how Oblivion Pit can also be raided.
I came here as I read there is a 2yr anniversary event coming up so I might give the game a go. You did point out some good QoL but lack of PC client and no Google Play PC support is a big bummer. Anyway, I like your review and will check out some more. :D
A few things I didn't see mentioned:
-Event currency is always based on stamina spending. You can spend stamina anywhere and you'll get currency so there's no need to farm specific nodes for it.
-Oblivion Pit has a skip mechanic, so after you complete level 5 you never manually play it again. Also, the shackle upgrade items from its shop do not refresh. You only get 2 from there. You can still get S-ranks upgraded with these items, but you need to purchase them from the gacha dupe shop.
PtN's visuals is what makes me want to try it the most, I'm so burnt out of mihoyo using the SAME artist for all three of their major games.
I've been playing Path to Nowhere since October 2022, so it might be on few days after the global release. I immediately got hooked by the art style from the ads that randomly spawned on my youtube, I think it was Zoya, Ninety-Nine and Wendy. I don't even know what makes me love this game so much that I continued playing it for the past one and half year. I stopped playing Arknight after like a month, but I didn't quit PtN ..., and I don't like this kind of tower defense game at all. Maybe the one that got me good and keep playing this was the Sinners, all of them are beautiful badass looking women(there's only 7 male and 1 Oliver from 90 available Sinners, so yeah, the criminals that get arrested are mostly women). The interrogation that sometime feels like some kind of dating sim, and the way that they had a special event or case in every new patch to integrate those sinners are just amazing.
you've been cooking with these vids
I like that you are making other kinds of videos but please don’t forget about nikke! Your character guides were the best on RUclips
Path to Nowhere’s somewhat obscurity on the western gacha gaming market is due to their lack of marketing (which, as far as I know, is not a huge problem in the CN community as it is here seeing as how their ads in there are made), and I think this game would be much more popular if 1: they put more effort in promoting the game in social media & ads and 2: targeted it towards lesbians. idk how effective that would be or even if it’s anything beyond extremely niche advertisement , but if there’s something I know for a fact is that at least me and a dozen other bottoms immediately jumped at this game upon seeing a few screenshots of Angell’s event and hey! now I’m absolutely obsessed!! trust me aisno the girlies are gonna eat this shit right up like just hire me and I’ll-
i learned a lot from this vid, and opened the game for the first time in a while, ty
i played a bit (joined during OwO), was surprisingly intrigued by the story, got stuck on a stage, arknights updated and my full attention moved back there, and that's my experience of ptn (i still have it downloaded and occasionally just log in)
i think the art is nice, i just don't too much like the oversexualized characters'
my reason for kinda dropping would be all that i felt i had to scroll and click thru for collection dailies every day, but i do still have held a soft spot for the game
omg 7:40 is the stage, 2-9, where i've been stuck for a year. i just logged in, went to the stage, and completed it without changing the setup whatsoever. i've not really a clue what happened wow
i need the smiley pictures of chief and other characters on the watermark
Nice overall review.
To me, the cute, light hearted style and story never had much appeal, which is one of the reasons why I could never get into gacha games, but that's exactly why I like PTN. Great art style, amazing music, a good, relatively dark story line and the characters actually have proper depth to them. There is almost never a simple good or evil which makes it a lot more conflicting. Also, the team behind it is not afraid to test out new things like adding live musical videos which keeps the events unique while also matching the mood so well, no matter if it's about horror, partying, film making, traditional mythology or other themes.
As for the tower defense, I wasn't really sure about it either when I first tried it, but it actually grew on me, and I kind of like it now, though I do play it more for the story. On that note, the story will only get better later on.
I dare say PTN is the best Gacha I've played, Been playing since their second ever Event. It got the first event rerun a while back so I've completed every story (main/event).
The dev is one of the funniest dev you can get, care about their community, and beyond creative. Last event they had an irl musical performers play a story cutscene. I'd never imagine to see that experimentation done by any game dev let alone on a game with stylized artstyle. I just think Aisno is a game studio that is filled with rebellious artists who just want to make stuff because they can. Also they are collabing with Jojo Bizarre Adventure.
they really are something, lovely duck devs
They actually advertised like crazy in Korea lol but don’t think they did a lot of irl subway billboards like genshin or love and deep space tho also the ads looks like a hentai game sometimes lmao
Bruh the ads I saw on RUclips a while back gave me second hand embarrassment. The game is so good but people will get the wrong impression from those ads...I believe they've improved them now after player feedback though, saw a decent 5 second one a few days ago starring Raven iirc.
Ptn is extremely popular in china its very much mainstream there