Title: Inazuma Eleven SD イナズマイレブン SD
Platform: Android / iOS
Genre: Action
Language: Japanese
Company: LEVEL-5
Summary: review was written 12/20 and I don’t intend to play beyond the few hours, so just small points. https://twitter.com/inazumaSD_L5/status/1318027689651892224 Shutting down Dec 1, 2020.
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This is clipped from my friends only lj entry:

Small points:
-Tutorial lets you reroll your first 3 as much as you want. This part is cool and the rates are 5% for rank S, 6% for rank A. Since there are more units in the rank A pool than rank S pool, it’s ironically harder to get a specific rank A unit from this. After a few hundred rerolls, I managed to get 2 sets with an S rank and A rank–1st set was Haizaki (S) and Tsurugi (A), and about a hundred rerolls after that, I was kind of regretting not keeping it. But I kept going and eventually… I kept the 2nd set as it was Gouenji (S) and Fubuki (A).

—THIS STARTER ROLL IS DECEPTIVE TO ME IN GENERAL to get you to stay in the game because the rates for free currency in all other banners are PRETTY BAD, such as S rank 1.6998%, A rank 6.0996%. Overall it’s supposedly nearing 7% as A rank is still really good, but of course all the exclusive prizes are going to be S only anyway. There are no guarantees for using any currency, and paid currency only gets an extra 1% increase for S rank.

-There is certainly a good amount of depth and customization to be made with the teams, akin to the 3DS games. Teachable techs, combos to be made if you happen to have particular players or hissatsu, training to increase specific stats… all of this is pretty similar to the 3DS games with a slightly different feel overall.

-There’s a LOT of loading time in between basic menus. This is already such a huge pain in the butt for me for Tales of the Rays, and after being spoiled by other better optimized mobages and ESPECIALLY Fire Emblem Heroes, I just don’t have the time to wait for these. It makes me sorely miss console games/single-player experiences that don’t have such loading times. and FEH.

-Stamina system is counted with soccer balls, similar to Puzzle de Inazuma. Each stage generally uses one soccer ball. A soccer ball recovers every 10 minutes and natively caps at only 5. You can have +soccer balls on top of the 5, but it’s not efficient of course because you won’t be recovering soccer balls in the meantime until you reach 4 or less.

-The music was nostalgic… for a good few hours, and then the tracks starting feeling repetitive and overstayed their visit.

-Again, the gameplay was also nostalgic for the 3DS games. But a little TOO nostalgic and close, which just leads me to scrutinizing SD even more for what it lacks as an experience. When FEH launched, this was what I felt about it as well (small maps, limited movement and all), but IS has their head in the game way more than Level-5 has been proving in the recent years. In terms of future improvements, I honestly don’t have any confidence in Level-5 that there will be much.

-There’s nothing really special to do with your collected figures except to customize them for battle and put them up on your diorama. Again, I don’t have the confidence that Level-5 will ever put in the effort to do more on this end before the game dries up. They’ve already delayed this game multiple times to get it to “this level” and it just doesn’t provide.

-And really that’s what it boils down to for me. I did two multis (3000 coins each) with what the first part of the story and login bonuses provided and got only a few B ranks, with all others being actual junk. I mean, all I wanted in the end was Fubuki anyway, so I guess I’m done with the game. :V They’ve already put out seasonals (Xmas Hakuryuu and Shuu–Are these coming out since the game was delayed until Jan 3???), so they’ll no doubt put one seasonals out for Fubuki, but I already don’t feel any urge to even save up for them when I think about the dismal rates.

-Grind is pretty time-consuming. Needs an auto feature, lel.

-This took a bit longer to sink in, but OMG why does there need to be an extra layer of RNG just for basic goal shoots/defense? So… a ROULETTE pops out anytime you make a goal shoot or defense. The highest rates I saw using combination Fubuki + Gouenji hissatsu was 93% success–meaning there’s still a 7% chance of not scoring due to pure RNG. This takes me back to Pokemon Duel where regardless of the biggest brain play you could ever do, in the end you have to rely on RNG to determine if you get the win or not. NOT FUN and it’s the reason why I stayed as far away from possible to anything PvP related there. Inazuma SD seems to be all single player, but I’ve long grown tired of this element by now. You could argue that most meta (Pokemon VGC and whatnot) all rely on RNG “in the end”, but to have it slapped in your face this directly every single time with the pop-up roulette, having to wait for it to spin and land every time… is just insulting to my time and effort. I don’t understand how the developers thought this was a good idea in any way.

-At least it’s not crashing stupidly like Pokemon Masters (of which I finally figured out that it seems to have something to do with the friend request screen after co-op maps and can be mostly avoided), but LOAD TIMES AND CONSTANT STAMINA GRINDS ARE NOT MY THING. I’ve played dabs of Level-5’s other mobages (for work), and I’m aware this was co-developed by the folks doing Inazuma Everyday and whatnot… but it’s still a Level-5 mobage in the end. They really didn’t do anything to prove that this time is going to be any different. So it probably won’t live long.

Sorry but

I’d rather be playing Fire Emblem

or really you could just play the old 3DS games as they’re better, I think Level-5 is just banking on the people who are desperate for Ares/Orion characters… and seasonals

I know there are a decent amount of people who are actually really optimistic about this game and really want to enjoy it, so just know this is all personal experience and opinion. So please don’t let me ruin your uh… personal idea of fun. Butseriouslythe3DSgamesarealotbetter. I’m still trapped in junky gacha myself, and I’ve already long ago decided not to commit to any more gacha after Tales of the Rays and Fire Emblem Heroes. Inazuma SD would’ve had a tall hurdle to overcome to get me to overwrite this decision in the first place.

(February 20, 2020 addendum): I originally had a 6 for this, but in light of how things have (not) progressed in the game after 2 months, I’m lowering this down another notch and thanking the stars that I never played beyond a few hours. To reiterate, I don’t even bother reviewing games that I’d score below a 5, and to reach a 5 basically means you have to be the bottom of the trash I would bother to review.

But yes, 2 months in and there have only been PvP events.

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