Genshin Impact has a lot to answer for.
Like the many dark fantasy Soulslikes that seem to be releasing every single week, anime gacha games have become a genre all of their own. There are dozens of them now, from Zenless Zone Zero to Wuthering Waves and everything in between.
Neverness to Everness, or NTE for convenience, is very much another one of those. It sits closest to the aforementioned Zenless Zone Zero on the style spectrum, as this is an urban fantasy which takes place in the vibrant fictional city of Hethereau.
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But where HoYoverse’s effort opts for a collection of hand-crafted districts, this is a true open world you can explore both on foot and in vehicle, which is something a little different for the genre.
We played a recent PS5 build in a glitzy (and no doubt expensive) booth at Gamescom, and the game already felt fairly polished, leading us to believe it may not be too far away.
You can summon your chosen car when you’re exploring by tapping a button on the d-pad, or alternatively you can use traffic officer Mint – a green-haired waifu from many of the release’s marketing materials – to requisition vehicles from random NPCs. Just like GTA, there is a Wanted meter in the game as well, but we didn’t get to test that out during our demo.
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The vehicles control fine albeit a bit basic. You can drift around corners using the Triangle button, but it doesn’t have that satisfying sense of traction you get from a real racing game – it’s more just a means to get you around corners effectively. The anime-style car models look lovely, however, and there’s a surprising amount of traffic in the open world.
Like you’d expect from any GTA-style game, you can set waypoints which will trigger a virtual line to appear on the ground, directing you to your destination. We did notice this bugged out on us a couple of times, sending us in a sub-optimal direction, but it’s an unfinished build and we’re sure the team is aware of the issue.
Combat is similar to Genshin Impact, where you have four units in your party and switch between them, using each one’s unique abilities to stack buffs, debuffs, healing, and deal damage. There’s a faster and tighter flow than HoYoverse’s game, but that’s because devs have been iterating on this format for a while now.
The character designs, however, look like they could have stepped out of any of these games, with token loli Sakiri wielding a massive polearm and Hathor’s bodice leaving little to the imagination. Their Ultimate attacks are all gorgeously animated, though, and don’t interfere with the flow of gameplay too much, which is always essential when you’re popping them off every few minutes.
Considering these tend to be quite complicated games, it was impossible to really get a taste for how everything works during such a short hands-on, so we couldn’t really speak about what role each character we tried had in battle and why. We were mostly able to button mash our way through, but obviously the full release will require you to be much more thoughtful about your team composition and how you intend to approach each encounter.
One thing we did like, however, is the Console – which basically acts as the Relics from Honkai: Star Rail. These will give your characters different buffs depending on the pieces you use. However, in a neat twist, like the famous Resident Evil inventory management minigame, you’ll need to slot your different pieces together like in Tetris to get the kind of build you want.
One other really neat feature is the gacha system itself, which is called Scarborough Fair and sees you rolling a dice a la Mario Party to make your way across a board. Each square you stop on will reward you with a prize, whether that’s a new character or an important item.
With competition now heating up between these titles, NTE is doing away with the controversial 50/50 system from other gacha games, meaning you’re now guaranteed to get the character you want within 90 pulls – as opposed to 180. There’ll also be no weapon banners at all, and you’ll unlock those through gameplay.
This means NTE is bound to be one of the more free-to-play friendly gachas of its ilk, and if it takes off it could put real pressure on its rivals to change their approach. It’s also all beautifully animated – we really loved engaging with the board game-style system during our demo.
Of course, there’s a lot more to this game we weren’t able to explore during our hands-on: life sim elements will allow you to purchase your own apartment within the sandbox and decorate it how you please. And you’ll be able to customise your cars with different liveries and add-ons, too.
There’s definitely promise here, and it seems to realise it’s entering an enormously competitive market. Playing on a base PS5, we were fairly impressed with the level of polish on display, and we wouldn’t be surprised if this game is closer to being complete than you think.
But with an overly familiar art style and so many established rivals in the space, NTE’s really going to need to lean into its defining characteristics to stand out.
Will you be rolling the dice on NTE when it releases on PS5? Have any of the characters caught your attention and why? Speed into the comments section below.
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