Azur Lane – 2020 First Impressions and Thoughts

So I’ve been meaning to do a follow-up on Azur Lane for a while now. When I first played through the game I maybe played for what, a little over an hour? Maybe less, because I felt the repetitious nature of the game at least early on really didn’t provide much for me to do.
This time I spent several hours playing through it since I have more time to dedicate to the mobile channel these days, and I’ll admit, it was a lot more addicting then I recall.

To begin with, you’re thrown right into a battle. Granted, it’s a tutorial battle.
Then you’re thrown into several more tutorial battles. I think the entire introductory tutorial experience takes over half an hour. After such, you’re able to actually get into the game properly, recruit Waifu’s, upgrade, actually go out into battle. You know, take direct control over your destiny and all that.
Now I’ve never watched the Anime, nor do I really understand much of the premise, but from what I gather, there are good and bad warships. We recruit the good ones, and attempt to stop the bad ones from.. doing bad guy things. Or in this case, bad.. girl things. Since there are no males in the game from what I’ve seen.

And if it wasn’t evident, yes, this is a Gacha game, and from what I can tell Azur Lane is absolutely packed with different Waifu’s to collect.
From what I played through, I gained access to a plethora of different Waifu’s as one would expect. They fill 2 different roles: Support which stay in the backline and provide access to a variety of skills, and.. uhh the frontline heroes that you actually control in combat.

Speaking of, the combat in Azur Lane is interesting.
Your heroes, effectively referred to as a “fleet,” stick together and fire out shots horizontally. You’re capable of directing them but don’t have control over them.
Battles consist of multiple waves of ships you need to eliminate, and larger ships with actual female avatars that act as mini bosses and stage bosses.
You’re required to maneuver around enemy fire while positioning your own fleet appropriately to maximize damage and skill usage.
Battles themselves take place in an instance – outside of the tile-based grid that missions take place in. Missions being the chapter-like form of progression present in-game.

Graphically, the game’s pretty adorable. You have an HQ that you can retire to and upgrade, you have a dorm that you can send your Waifu’s to so you can train them to be the ultimate Waifu.
There are plenty of side-activities to do outside of the main-story, which is more or less battle after battle after battle, and there’s a ton of story to sit through as well.
Which makes the game highly worth playing purely off of those aspects alone.

However, I’m not sure how difficult the heroes are to collect as I recall people complaining at one point they were more difficult than in other games.

All in all, the combat, graphical style and emphasis on story, even with it mainly consisting of ships fighting ships, makes for a highly interesting title.