Worst Gacha Ever | Destiny Child

Admittedly, going into this I didn’t expect this to be a replacement for your girlfriend. When I booted it up for the first time, my wife Mrs Stix looked over, stared at me, and asked me what I was playing. I stared right back at her – then again at my phone – then again at her.. and honestly had no idea.
After playing for 30 minutes…. I definitely had an idea. This is the kind of game you hide from your significant other. Or that you say you downloaded thinking it was one of the albums from back when Beyonce was part of that girl group. Easy mistake to make.

Hey, my name is Stix and welcome to another episode of “Worst Gacha Ever.” A video series where we play through every single Gacha game and proceed to analyze what the game does right.. and what it does wrong, based off of my experiences within it over a period of time.

Destiny Child is the first vertical Gacha game I’ve played for this channel. Admittedly, I don’t have much experience with them. They always felt weird – it’s like watching a vertical movie as opposed to a widescreen one, you know? It just feels wrong.
Until you start playing it, and then out of nowhere… you’re engaged, you’re enthralled, and you can’t put the game down. Couple that with the fact that the game literally threw 11,000 stamina at me upon downloading the game, and realistically, I’ve had absolutely no reason to put the game down.
Well.. okay that’s a lie. I’ve left the game auto-grinding stages I’ve completed for hours each day to attempt to get resources, to obtain XP for level ups. I mean, sure, I made excessive use of Exploration missions to aid in the XP grind, but I just felt like if I wasn’t auto-grinding, I was wasting my time.

Destiny Child is your typical Gacha RPG, with a very mature twist: You take on the role of some random dude who seems kinda emo, uninterested in everything going on. The literal definition of a millennial.
When a super hot succubus comes along – Mona, who tasks you with becoming the Archfiend – the ruler of the infernal realm. Which beats the 9-5 job you work at the supermarket. Yes, we’re really that guy.
See, if I were some kid working at a convenience store and was presented with the opportunity for greatness of this magnitude, I can say with utmost certainty that I would be immediately interested. Leading a demon army of some of the hottest Waifu’s in existence? You’d have to be crazy to turn that down.

And thus, we’re thrown into a fight we didn’t want to take part in. Or, at least I don’t think we did. Did we? Okay I may have skipped a little of the intro. But you can’t hold that against me. I had more important things to do.

Now this is where the game begins.
This is a traditional RPG: It has a very, very deep narrative. A lot of it could honestly be condensed, but one thing I’ve learned from Gacha is that there are 2 ways developers craft their stories:
1.) The game is barren. There is no story, no world-building. You exist solely to let the game kill monsters for you for absolutely no purpose. Or none that you’re aware of.
And then 2.) The game is filled with so much story that if you don’t skip some of it you’ll never actually be able to play the game. This is present in Destiny Child. In Arknights. In Azur Lane. All of which are actually incredibly fun games, but packed with so much story you’ll often find yourself skipping parts, against your better judegement.

As a traditional RPG, the game makes use of a familiar type of progression: You’re presented with a world filled with Chapters. Each Chapter denotes a certain part of the story, with characters, levels and enemies specific to that story.
Each Chapter has a variety of different levels, with every level having their own unique sub-levels to conquer. As an example, Chapter 4 might have 8 levels. Typically, you’d do those 8 levels, and progress to Chapter 5.
In Destiny Child, you select one of those levels and there are 4 sub-levels to engage in, 3 of which are normal encounters consisting of 3 waves of enemies, and the final encounter being a larger-scale boss fight.
Meaning typically there are upwards of 30 to 40 fights, with 3 waves per fight to clear before moving on to the next Chapter. Admittedly, this can get repetitious, especially when encounters don’t seem to provide any real spike in difficulty or challenge.

Thankfully, auto-combat is present, along with the option of multiplying the speed of combat by 3 times. This makes an otherwise at times arduous grind much easier to tolerate. Especially given how long you spend grinding and regrinding content.
Speaking of, there are over 300 unique units you can recruit currently. Each character has their own unique look, personality and selection of abilities that can drastically alter the course of the battle.
Yes, they are divided up into varying categories based off of their rarity, but as we all know, sometimes lower rarity heroes are just.. better than their higher rarity hero counterparts. Each unit has 5 different elemental affinities, with strengths and weaknesses corresponding to other elements.
As an example, Fire is good against Wood, Water against Fire, Wood against Water, and so on.
Therefore, while it’s effective to level a select group of units – much like I did, it’s much more beneficial to instead level a surplus of different heroes to take advantage of the elemental system present.
If you have an elemental advantage, you’ll deal 25% more damage with each attack, as opposed to dealing 20% less damage due to being at an elemental disadvantage.
Then there are class archetypes: Attackers, who are fast and strong, but have low defense. Defenders, which function the exact opposite. Supporters, who buff their allies. Debuffers.. who, much like Defenders, do the exact opposite.
Healers, that keep your group in the fight, and Combine units that you sacrifice for the greater good of your better Waifu’s and Husbando’s.
You can actually do quite a bit with your units: You level them either via Exploration, questing, or sacrificing other units.
You can level up their skills, making them more powerful. You can Awaken them, unlocking their potential. Uncap them, Evolve them by.. sacrificing other units.
You can equip them with gear, there are 4 slots total that I have available at level 50. Each piece of gear can be enhanced, upgrading them into something exponentially more powerful than what they were in their base form.

Combat itself is fought in real-time. As noted, you can turn on auto for this, or opt to increase the speed up to 3x total.
You’ll notice that while in combat, you have a gauge towards the bottom of your screen. This gauge continues to accumulate charge, and after filling up, allows one of your units to perform a type of ultimate attack.
During this ability, you’ll be required to complete a quick-time event by pressing the button at the exact moment – or, let the game do it for you as it achieves perfection 100 out of 100 times.
Your units themselves appear down towards the bottom of the screen in the form of cards. They have their own HP, individual levels. Gauges. When attacking, they just kinda.. pop outta the card and smack one of the enemies. Then proceed to immediately slide right on back. It’s a weird visual, honestly.

Graphically, this game is absolutely stunning. The combat, the effects, and the characters that make use of those abilities are all absolutely gorgeous. The backdrops aren’t bad – they’re typically just a small background with enemies placed atop them. Speaking of gorgeous things, though, have you seen some of these Waifu’s?
These characters are designed by the very same guy that did the Blade & Soul and Magna Carta games, and his style is very noticeable. As are certain… physics.
The characters are all incredibly varied. From different regions. Fantasy-inspired, medieval-inspired. There is a lot of inspiration taken from various time-periods – adding additional depth and personality to characters that would otherwise all seem relatively similar.
Speaking of the Husbando’s and Waifu’s.. The Gacha system isn’t bad at all. The current publisher provides many opportunities for players to acquire premium currency with which to purchase character pulls. On top of that, the rates for 5* heroes are 3% – significantly higher than the 1-2% often found in Gacha games.
There are 2 Pity systems present in-game. Pity for the new Banner Children, where if you manage a 5* pull, it’s guaranteed to be the new Child. And the Mileage Pity, which does NOT reset if you obtain a 5* summon – if what I’ve read online is to be believed.

Outside of the main story and progression, you’ll never find yourself with a dull moment. There are more things to do in-game than I realistically know what to do with, which I will admit was very overwhelming as a new player.
Something I’ve learned playing Gacha games however, is the older the game, the more packed with systems and features it is. When Gacha games launch, they’re pretty basic. They offer a narrative. A few methods to obtain materials to upgrade your heroes. Some avenues to drain your stamina.
Destiny Child? We have The Forge of Hephaestus, House of Reincarnation, Devil Rumble.. which is essentially a type of PvP system. Admittedly, I don’t tend to play PvP in Gacha’s because my heroes are nowhere near being as powerful as the vast majority of other players’.
Adventure of Eve, which was kind of a cool little minigame, actually. Probably the only form of direct control you have in this game. The Underground, Event Dungeons – which you use to farm materials each day. Hecate’s Library, to relive events you’ve watched before.
The Scarlet Collection, Infernal Spa – where you can creepily just stand there and stare at your Waifu’s bathing. I know there are plenty of you do – you can’t hide this from me. The Rebirth Labyrinth, Endless Duel, and finally Exploration. Where you deploy your units on missions, acquire XP. You know, the norm.

And yes. Yes I likely glossed over any number of features. Yes, I probably did something wrong when forming my team. Leveling my Waifu’s. But that’s part of playing a new game.
You make mistakes, you level the wrong characters, you equip them with the wrong gear, you waste resources. But slowly, over time, you learn from those mistakes. That’s part of learning the game, and honestly part of the fun.

Overall, this is a very good game. Graphically, the character models are some of the most overexaggerated, yet aesthetically appealing I’ve ever seen in a Gacha game.
The abilities look great, the combat.. well, honestly I feel like there were far too many instances where I had to grind, mindlessly. Which isn’t really all that appealing to me. Having real-time events adds an additional layer to an otherwise basic combat system, though, requiring a little attention if you’re not playing on auto.
There are endless amounts of activities to engage in, the narrative, while not translated perfectly, isn’t half bad. The emo main character makes me want to smash my head into a wall but other than that… I had a lot of fun.

Is Destiny Child the worst Gacha game of 2022? Not at all. This is actually one of the better Gacha games I’ve played. Definitely not THE best. But definitely something I could recommend to players interested in something they haven’t played before.