Tokyo Afterschool Summoners

When I read that Tokyo Afterschool Summoners was a “card based social RPG for the LGBT community” I was very excited to check it out. This was really popular in Japan for a while and I waited until the majority of the game was translated into English before giving it a try. I will tell or perhaps I should say “warn” you right off the bat that this is a Gacha style game. However, at the end of the day, it is free to play and you can always walk away if you feel like the Gacha and mobile game mechanics are starting to get in the way of your fun! That is what I do with all these types of games.

The Modern Day Tokyo

I am a massive fan of the Persona series, Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal are easily in my top 20 video games of all time. Like those games, Tokyo Afterschool Summoners is set in the modern day. Here we get Tokyo and all the different districts that make up Tokyo. The thing is, as we are dealing with “cards” we may play as a typical Japanese guy or girl (you can pick the gender of your character) the other characters in the game are taken from all kinds of different mythologies, making for a very diverse and quirky cast of characters.

Time To Get Emotional

One of the things that I really liked about the story in Tokyo Afterschool Summoners was that at the core of it was the relationship between our character and the other characters that we met along the way. One of the main gameplay gimmicks in the game is called the Affinity Burst System. Think of this as kind of like the social system that we have in the Persona games. The better you get to know a character and the more you level them up, the better they are going to serve you. I liked this as it not only helped with the combat, it also helped make me care about the characters a bit more.

The Cards In Your Favor

As a card based RPG game, Tokyo Afterschool Summoners has a really fun combat system. You need to select the right cards, but positioning them, moving them, and buffing them is where the fun and tricky stuff comes into play. There is a solid leveling up system here and I did feel like as far as the combat went, I was always moving forward. There are a decent amount of quests for you to embark on too so there is a lot to keep you busy. Now, the Gacha and mobile mechanics here are very much on the nose. The Gacha system for getting new cards can be very frustrating as sometimes it feels like the same cards are on offer time and time again. We also have a stamina system that limits how many times you can do things. Of course, both of these issues can be addressed if you are willing to spend some money. I am not going to hate on the game too much as there are a million other Gacha/mobile games that do this same thing!

Meet The Gang

For me, while I liked the card based combat, the best thing that Tokyo Afterschool Summoners had going for it had to be the presentation. You can pick between five different looks for your character and each one has its own voice actor which is cool. There is a lot of variety to the cards/characters that you can add to your rank ranging from a hunky dude, a badass looking chick to furry characters too. I feel like they have done a great job of making sure that there is a character for everyone here, but due to the Gacha mechanics, it does of course depend on how lucky you are in regards to getting the character you like. It is bright, and wacky and the whole game has a ton of personality. I do think though that while it is a game aimed at the LGBT community, they could have gone a bit more in on this, it is certainly here, but I have seen it embraced more in other games.

Pros:

• I loved the diverse cast of interesting characters
• The card based combat was challenging and fun
• The character progression system based on affinity was a great idea
• You can play the game for a few hours without having to spend any money

Cons:

• It does have your typical gameplay halting Gacha and mobile game systems
• Sometimes I would end up with dialogue in Japanese!