English
Tokyo Debunker Review(s)
2.6
First off: whatever cool and snazzy modern supernatural detective story we were told we were gonna get originally? Throw that right out into the can. What we actually got is thinly-disguised Twisted Wonderland copying meets Harry Potter meets In/Spectre with a LOT of handwaving. If you step back from the steadily increasing levels of Series Of Incredulous Events, the first two chapters alone track story beats and elements PRETTY close to TWST: ordinary MC gets unwittingly pulled into an encounter with a supernatural creature that ends with her attending the Special Snowflake Academy on borrowed power and accidentally playing underpaid therapist and babysitter to a bunch of tortured and emotionally constipated questionably teenage boys. As of chapter 3, we are playing the same Meet The Houses pattern as TWST did.
Frankly, the worldbuilding and framing devices, while interesting individually, feel almost piecemeal and farcical in the way the writers have attempted to meld all the varying concepts together. The MC's admittance, for example. Apparently, it's not enough of a reason for the school to want to keep her around and keep an eye on her already for being immune to the memory wipe LIKE THE SPECIAL HUMANS (ghouls), but the writers decide no, she has to also be the Chosen One of a Super Special Magic Item that very conveniently gives her the Super Special Magic Power of being a walking permabuff to all ghouls... BUT ONLY IF THEY'RE HOLDING HANDS!! And to top THAT all off, as if her POTENTIALLY BEING A GHOUL WHO CAN BUFF OTHER GHOULS isn't already incredibly Special Snowflake and admission worthy enough, they decide, you know what else the MC needs? A ONE YEAR LIFE EXPECTANCY CURSE. Yes, it's as extraneous and unnecessary as it sounds.
Other lore things, which again aren't bad on their own, include: the Statute of Secrecy being maintained by using magic matches on civilians like the MIB (of which the MC and ghouls are immune), ghouls being made by humans "eating demons they made a deal with" (no, they NEVER elaborate on what it means for a human to eat a demon), the academy's 99% non-Japanese-ness handwaved by being "an international organization" despite 99% of the cast BEING Japanese (+1 British transfer who also happens to be the Token Dark-skinned Character) and being a literal Hogwarts castle-shaped Tardis IN THE MIDDLE OF TOKYO BAY, and almost everything in the school being some kind of anomalous inanimate object that just so happens to conveniently handwave a plot device.
Wild worldbuilding that kinda works if you don't think too hard about it aside, the story and characters are probably the best aspects of the game. The plot is unique for an otome, but moves at inconsistent speeds, though I blame that on the game purposely chopping it up into a dozen and a half segments and the poor MC suffering from early 2000s otome game heroine syndrome of having the personality of cardboard, a spine made out of wet tissue paper, and the intellectual retention of a sieve. The boys are all engaging and unique in their own ways even if they do feel a bit tropey at times, and oh BOY you better have the patience of a saint cuz I seriously do mean it when I call the MC an underpaid babysitter (which I feel so bad for her because it would be so much more interesting IF SHE HAD A BACKBONE TO BITE BACK WITH). I WOULD say the graphics are nice, but the backgrounds are using AI-generated images, so as long as you stare ONLY at the characters and not think too hard about it it's tolerable. The music is actually kind of fun? A lot of them I recognize as remixes of classical pieces (i.e. Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy or Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice) so that's neat but.... with that, we get into some of my problems with the game.
The settings and UI. Oh my days, the settings and UI. So with the benefit of doubt in that it's an honest mistake that they missed and that hopefully they'll fix, the volume control for story voices is tied to the SFX slider instead of the Voices slider. The layout itself isn't horrid, but it could definitely to with some clarification and tidying up. If you want to level up a character or card multiple times, you have to tap each time; nope, there's no tap & hold feature. There is no way to adjust the timing window of the bonus stage rhythm game. The big culprit, however, is the WILD CHOICE, IN THIS THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2024, to NOT have an option to turn off notifications. Which would be fine, ish, if not for the fact that the game literally sends you notifications for Every. Little. Thing. It'll tell you normal game things, like timed events starting, or new banners being added. And then it'll tell you good morning. Ok fine, pointless but kinda cute. And then every time some schmuck decides to gift gems, whether it's exclusively to their guild or whatever, it'll tell you. Yes. Every. Single. One. Legitimately woke up one morning to 40-something notifications from Tokyo Debunker alone, all about like 4 people tossing gems into the wind. JFC.
Speaking of gems. Now. If you're the kind of person who walks into Tokyo Debunkers with the mentality of a chill idle game where progress doesn't have to move at the speed of sound and you're okay with taking your sweet time with it, then this you're golden. However, if you actually want to see progress post stage 30-ish within the next week or so, then the game starts to become pretty blatant in its paywall.
There Are No Pre-registration Rewards. There Are No Launch Rewards. I wish I was kidding. The game has a tiered VIP system, which is unfortunately all too common a feature nowadays. Mission rewards are a little lackluster. Profile pictures require gems to unlock, with ones of SSR cards costing MORE THAN AN ACTUAL 10-PULL FROM THE GACHA (2500 for an SSR profile pic, 1980 for a 10-pull). While SSR rates are 5%, 4 of that 5 is skewed towards warding (equipment) cards, meaning it's a piddly 1% for a SSR character. Hard pity is 500 pulls, the highest number of pulls I've EVER seen in a gacha. It's $57.99 USD for 2100 gems, which will get you a 10-pull with a bit of change, meaning you're looking into the $1000s if you hard pity a banner. Now I know that a company needs money to upkeep a game, but $6/pull is a little exorbitant, no?
Overall, it could be a good game. Just... idk. There's a LOT of questionable choices being made.
EDIT: They've since added a tap & hold feature to most of the leveling bits, but everything else is still the same piecemeal shenanigans.
5.0
there are many different Houses/Dorms to choose from and many males to choose.
game has Arena and Guild areas
Please note! preregister rewards will be sent later on! ♡
2.0
Anyhow the gameplay is pretty meh to me, there is almost nothing to play here since its all auto/idle, no strats needed. Story chapters are really short and locked behind cases (battles) The power difference between each cases is pretty big so the process is not very enjoyable to grind for.
I didnt rly had it rough gacha wise cuz I got my first ssr in 10 pulls and havent pulled since, but the rate for ssr is 1% (0.730% for rate up iirc) and it is the type of gacha where they put equipments and characters in the same pool
Don't have much to say about the characters, it just reminds me of twisted disney ngl (might as well just play that instead
)
1.8
The game uses AI pictures and backgrounds, even I'm not sure if they changed it since I cannot even open the game on how boring it is.
The characters are complex, it is decent, however it can not erase the timid and no backbone MC. Half of the problems in this game would've never happened if the MC stood up for herself (it is default that the MC is female). I get that she's suppose to be a self insert of [player] but it actually is infuriating to see how she allows herself to be treated like shit even through the "texting"/ "bonding" experience of the game.
The only saving grace really is the voice actors. No hate to them really, it's disheartening to see amazing VAs casting in a shitty game or anything in general.
"You just don't like timid MCs"
I do not mind "timid MCs." But what I do not like is when the writers make them unable to defend themselves in situations just so a man can save them. It leaves a sour and bitter taste in the experience, especially when your MC is capable of defending themselves as well.
"You must like the male characters more then if you don't like the MC"
I do enjoy their complex dynamic and personalities but I cannot find myself "liking" them even with reading the storyline. It makes it real where not everyone is nice and friendly, it is a fresh slate. I enjoy those types of games and stories. What I do not like is the disrespect of the male characters purposefully doing stunts just for the sake of something ridiculous. Honestly, its more of a "I hate them but I will tolerate you for the sake of plot" type of ordeal I rather play than; "Oh I hate you because I can't lie about going out to do my own shit, therefore I'll purposefully do something to hurt you."
"You're a hater, why play the game"
I play what seems interesting especially when I got an ad of it. That is a reason why we all play games to see if we like it or notm in my obvious review it is mid at best. Decent but also not so decent.
It may be fun for some people, yes, but for me? I won't play in the long run because of the constant turn offs of the direction of the storyline is going for.
3.6
The rest of the game is fine, and I love the community and the users (the chat is really active so far) but I just can't get past the gacha rates. I'll keep playing casually for now but there are games that value your money far more than this one
Edit: I just checked and the pity doesn't even carry over between banners so if you don't get the card your pulls go to waste completely
4.2
glass half empty: gems and spirits and all that jazz because you mainly get power up items through achievements and farming gives you random things, so there's that. it gets a bit uphill because the missions ask for a good Power value / Lvl / cards to be successful and keep reading. second: amount of notifications is annoying.
overall i was able to get to Lvl 40 in day and a half, but it's very hard to want to keep going when the server is down.
4.2
And that's all good here. SADLY AGAIN. I really like this kind of games, where you have no need to do a lot of things, just open it twice a day, tap here and there and close the game, repeat again the next day and it's go on like this. So that is not a problem for me here, but the problem, a VERY HUGE ONE, is the greediness of devs. The gacha percent actually looks nice at first glance, but only at first, because you have only 1% chance to get SSR character, which is very low. I play a lot of gacha games, and this is the lowest percentage in all of them... Even when you get SSR, it's 4% out of 5% to be another stupid summon, AND THAT'S ACTUALLY AWFUL. I haven't got any SSR characters yet, and I've been playing a lot. But summons? Yeah, you're welcome. But what are summons without the characters you equip them on?
Another problem is difficult diamonds farm. The rewards everywhere are super low. You can be in t2000 on the arena and get for it like 70 diamonds as reward...Also you get 10 diamonds for finishing 1 chapter of the story, and the 10pull costs 1980 iirc, IT'S A VERY SMALL AMOUNT, almost everywhere you see bait to spend your money and it seems like even the game itself tells you that you won't get any pulls and characters without investing your money. This is very sad because I don't even want to donate my money to those greedy developers.
I will probably delete it after finishing the story because the overall situation is very bad for me. Starting this game, please keep in mind my warnings for you that I've just written above.
3.5
Being a F2P is hard in this game, though still can manage to move forward as soon you have more or less a good team. However you need luck (& money) to get SSR Character card you like. The drop rate is really bad! And the limited banners only last for a week. Farming recourses is very hard & takes forever.
It can get boring when all you can do is slowly upgrade your cards & you are in a less active guild. Only the 16 highest guild ranks can play the Game of Claws. So the rest can only do their daily missions. Usually players just chats away at chat board (it goes by in a flash. Especially when someone shared a gift LOL).
This game doesn't care about people different timezones. So you can miss out on lots of cats visits that only comes at certain time of the day (including midnights).
I'll be playing this for a little while longer. Until I get stuck or really bored with it. Or just use it as time filler. But definitely not something I want to play for years.
3.6
5.0
3.6
UI can be improved as it feels a bit clunky.
Only downside is that the gameplay is kinda meh. So I'm only having the app for the story rn.
2.2
Honestly let's all be real here, you've seen that one particular ad where the boys are butt naked on the ad from YouTube Video/YouTube Short, thinning you're gonna get some action.
HAH! Boy oh boy, how wrong we were, its's a typical P2W game, greedy devs that's gambles on the diamond well or if you've purchased for VIP, bogus limited and cheap on Diamonds as you pay! Who would even bother to pay these guys? I mean sure, I did got scam on Evertale $1, thinking its a pokemon inspiration, hell no! Its's an ad parody of Pokemon Lost sliver and Omori bull crap. I can't believe they waste their time on using money to make supposed AI art and same VA! look, the story is great but these characters and story design SOUNDS AWFULLY FAMILIAR, HMM? I WONDER WHY! OH WAIT, IT'S KAITO DESIGN AND VOICE/PERSONALITY IS BASICALLY DEMON SLAYER? OKAY AND WHO ELSE? DOCTOR HYDE? PLEASE! ITS'S GOJO AND CROWLEY STEP BROTHER FROM JJK AND DISNEY TWISTED WONDERLAND? HOW IRONIC?! A ANOMLALYIS AND GHOULS ARE BASICALLY A CURSE WITH A DEMON INVESTIGATOR/HUNTERS TO ELIMINATE CURSED/ANOMALY'S LIKE JJK! and why is it suddenly a trend in F2P but P2W otome games that involves with a school and your a human MC or the Boys aren't even human at all?
please not another friendzoned game! ALSO THE STORY IS ALREADY SCRIPTED, IT DON'T MATTER WHO YOU CHOOSE ITS ALWAYS GONNA END THE SAME BECAUSE ONLY MINOR CHANGES IN THE END OF THE STORY WILL BE DIFFERENT AND VOICE BY THE BOY YOU SAVE!
okay but like, Towa, my autistic cinnamonroll! you can't possiblity be romanticize, can you? I forbidden that from happening! Also, Jiro? HUBBA HUBBA, IM'MDOWN FOR DOC KIN-, you know, I'm just tired...
THE GACHA IS RIGID! IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU PAY OR DON'T, ITS A 0.01% CHANCE YOU'LL GET A CHARACTER SSR CARD AND YOU'LL LIKELY GET A WANDERING SSR CARD INSTEAD!
Chat is unfilter and unhinged with cursed bots that will try to scam or be racist/rude/weird, apparently report button is completely useless and doesn't work, it's best if you block. overall the players are nice, jist gotta fine the one your comfortable chatting with, yes, bewarn, there's drama! And if your LUCKY, maybe none at all
Here's a secret in getting a perfect score for rhythm Groove Coaster inspired game, just spam TAP repeatedly, Trust me, IT WORKS, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR DEVICE IS LAGGY FOR SOME REASONS, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I KNOW IT WORKS BECAUSE I'VE DONE IT BEFORE!
please don't share this on Tiktok or YouTube but among the game chat as it's unmoderated and nobody cares! Or it will get updated in the future and fix that! THEN THAT WILL SUCK BADLY FOR US ALL!
The story is a slow burn, undersatanable, but not gonna lie, its's killing me, KISS ALREADY! And anybody else think Janitor could be...? you'll gotta read it yourself to understand this chaotic mess, again.
Tokyo debunker is the same creator for Evertale, don't forget that, they've copy and paste some graphic from there older game, typical as it's AI and won't admit it, but i did admire there colorful manga panel, that i can make it up, also...
PEEKABOO, MERCH, WHEN?! "BOO!"
2.8
Also a word of advice, please don't spend any money on this game. The gacha is just rigged af. Last time I spent until I got VIP 3 and I still didn't get an SSR character card at that point. The game kept giving me SSR warding cards that I can't even use because they're all incompatible with the cards I have.
In my opinion, the stages are really hard to defeat without SSR character cards. When you get to case 38, theres's a really obvious spike in difficulty, I was stuck on there for a really long time.
On top of that, some of the materials needed to level up and ascend your cards are so hard to obtain (mainly the rainbow apples). I wouldn't have much to say if you only need like maybe 60 rainbow apples to ascend your cards but the amount you need doubles every time you want to ascend your cards which is absurd because how am I supposed to progress further if I don't level up my cards so that I could have more power?
Ignoring the fact that the gacha pity is at 500, the shitty rates can't even make up for it. Why on earth is it easier to get SSR warding cards than SR character cards? It would be so much better if they could separate the character cards and warding cards on diff banners. They can't be more blatant about how much they want our money, seriously.
The game has been out for quite some time and there are many complaints about the game yet the developers barely did anything to improve their game.
4.4
Lots of gameplays like a tapping simulator, a rythem game, and somewhat an afk(you just gonna hit skip and your done)
I saw one comment saying its f2p that peeked my interest to this game aside from the handsome mens AND ITS NOT F2P, Idk why I've been pulling for quite some time and no SSR
plus its kinda hard for me to get those gems(idk if its just my skill issues)
3.8
4.4
Hmm, for my opinion, maybe some characters can be more attractive, tho I haven't met all of them yet.
But still, overall, I like the game. It is simple, has a nice and catchy story that Mc speaks frequently (that I love), and the mini-fights are cute, too.
Maybe if they letted us to customize our character, I would feel better but oh well.
Oh, might I add, I also lovvve the manga-like parts so much!!!
3.6
I do like the art, however with the usage of AI for their background pictures, I cannot give them more points for graphics. The character sprites and cards are pretty and I overall enjoy the designs (even if some of them are also just. copies of well known characters cough Hyde cough).
I do really have to appreciate the voice acting and the style of the story, I really like how it cuts to a comic style sometimes, and the voice acting is absolutely incredible (even if there is a bit too much screaming from certain characters for my poor ears)
The story is very interesting! I'm actually hooked and can't wait for the Hotarubi chapter!!
2.8
its very hard to get ssrs because of the gacha system.
uses ai in their backgrounds.
the story is very good and so are the characters(i would say this is the only thing driving people to play)
i cant rate the sound because personally i always turn all the sound in my games off lol but i heard some clips of yuris voice and i love his voice alot
the funny thing is if they stop false advertising their game, fix the gameplay and gacha(make it less p2w) and remove the ai art(which is not that hard to do.) it would make this game a solid 5 stars in my book
1.6
People are too scared to leave the guilds of the bullies because they don't want to be the next victims and I think that's just unfortunate for them.
Also it's hard to get character cards to build stronger teams if you're f2p. Nothing wrong with p2p but some people need to mind their own business if people choose to spend their money and build better teams than them.
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