I honestly just want to be a cute anime girl that kills shit but I don't like the gambling stuff so I'm kind of hesitant to play it
I've been playing it entirely f2p since it was released and don't have any plans to spend money on it, and so far it's been fun enough. Obviously it can be a bit grindy at times, and the gambling makes it such that you'll really need to dump a lot of money into it if you want to get what you want immediately, but it's not that bad as far a f2p games go. It's one of those games where you only really need to play for an hour or two each day in order to progress. That's how I've been playing it for the most part, and I already have a handful of characters who are at max level or are close to being max level. The good rewards from the gambling can still be accumulated over time for free, just at a much slower rate. It can be somewhat annoying at times, but it's far from being pay to win.
If you slow-play and actually read and watch everything instead of treating it like a go-here-get-this simulator there's 50-100 hours of gameplay before you'll start to any mechanics that matter.
So yeah, in terms of being free there's a lot of "worth" there.
Is the story/lore actually decent or is it just generic anime stuff?
It's anime but it's very Chinese. You know how Japanese anime leans in very heavily on Japanese cultural elements from their Shinto religion and folktales? Well my impression is that it does that but it leans in on Chinese folktale and weird cultural religious beliefs instead. That comes across pretty fresh for someone that doesn't get exposed to much Chinese folktale and stuff, otherwise it's obviously still intended to be appealing to a young audience so it's not too complex.
You don't have to spend a penny of real money to be competitive in the story and general questing stuff. I've been playing it since October without any investment. You get premium currency through basic quest completion, and for a million other things, so you'll laways have a steady income as long as you play every day. In addition, there's the ability to acquire otherwise gacha-exclusive characters via playing in-game events (there's one on right now) where all you need to do is acquire a certain amount of points through completing in-game challenges and just buying the character. Characters rotate in and out the gacha shop as well, so there's the possibility to just buy a character later on. You will get a full roster of starting characters just by unlocking the main quest.
As for the rest, it's a lot of making your own fun exploring, opening chests, and solving puzzles, with a lot of grinding if you want to go pro and compete in the Spiral Abyss or the high level domains. This is almost entirely optional.
Hearing other people talk about it, sounds like it gives you a decent amount of hours of entertainment before it starts ramping up the grind to encourage you to put in real money.
I play with mouse and keyboard, but I vaguely remember remapping my controller a couple months ago when my mouse broke I had to use my controller for a couple days. I'm like 90% sure you can, but I don't remember how to do it lol.
yes, I'm f2p and I've gotten 100+ hours of fun out of it. Also, since its a free game its not like there any downsides to just trying it out.
