ZZZ anniversary update

People love to criticize live service game anniversary updates. It's partially the developer's fault because they tend to set high expectations at launch, but it's also on players for being greedy. The first ZZZ anniversary update seems to be one of the best received anniversary updates ever. It brought us way better rewards than I expected in addition to many other additions and improvements in the game, so I wanted to express my overall thoughts about this specific update now that we are in the second half of it.

The rewards

Getting a free highest rank character selector is always welcome. Even one of the least generous games ever, Genshin Impact, has started doing that on anniversaries. However, this reward can have more or less value depending on how relevant the characters in the selector are.

ZZZ has been around for a year, so not all standard banner characters have been replaced yet. Specifically, Lycaon and Rina are the only characters in their element and class. I got Rina because I already had Lycaon, but either of them is a good choice. As for the rest, unless you're a new player or really like them, they probably won't add much value to your account. Technically Nekomata is still the only physical attacker, but even I prefer to use Piper, who's a physical anomaly, instead. There's also Jane Doe and the upcoming Alice Thymefield.

Getting S-rank characters is great, but an even better reward was the S-rank W-engine selector. Unlike characters, the highest rank weapons or weapon alternatives seldomly lose their relevancy. You can instantly improve any A-rank character by putting an S-rank W-engine on them, unless there are superior features of an A-rank W-engine tailored to that character. I would honestly prefer a standard banner weapon selector over a character selector in most games.

A new area

Unlike all other ones that we've gotten since the launch of the game, Waifei Peninsula is not only a new area, it's a new base for the siblings. We have a mini store, a new coffee shop, a new commission mode and most of the things we can find in the video store, and even new outfits for the main characters to match the aesthetics of the new place. Failume Heights is a really nice place. I love the aesthetics, but even more than that, I love the verticality of the place. We have been able to go up and down the stairs here and there, but Failume Heights adds a new dimension to the whole area. It feels great and creates an impression that the place is significantly larger.

The only complaint I have about Failume Heights is the presence of the coffee shop that I mentioned before. I get that it's something the players are used to, but a teahouse would fit this place much more. This new area gave us a new daily lottery system, so why not a new beverage system? It's mainly a personal preference because I love tea, but it would have been a very nice touch.

In connection to the new area, we also have a new map. I hated the previous navigation. It was unscalable. The more areas we got, the worse the experience became. The new map makes the navigation a breeze. It might even be my favorite feature about this entire update.

As with every update, we got new characters. Three new characters this time: Yixuan, Pan Yinhu and Ju Fufu.

I didn't pull for anyone in the first half because I was waiting for Ju Fufu, but Yixuan is a pretty fun character to use. She is the first rupture character, which is a new class, and the first character in the game that has two ultimate skills. Plus, her bird looks amazing.

Similar to Miyabi, her element auric ink is a modified version of an existing element ether. All of these features make her a very desirable character, but I still decided to skip her for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I prefer the design of Ju Fufu way more. Secondly, I wanted to save some pulls for upcoming characters, whose designs I also find more appealing than Yixuan. Ironically, my pulls for Ju Fufu went horribly, so I probably won't be able to get the upcoming characters anyway.

The events

Regarding the events in this version, we didn't get anything special or anniversary-related. We didn't even get an event in the new area. The cinema event is chill and fun, depending on a movie partner, but I don't enjoy the mecha fighting event at all. I don't enjoy fighting events in general, but controlling the mecha feels clumsy and slow, and the event itself is quite long. I would have probably skipped it if I didn't need those extra polychromes.

Like most players, I'm glad that ZZZ managed to break the curse of gacha game anniversaries. I'm very satisfied with this update, the story, the new area, the rewards and the fierce tiger thiren that cost me all my polychromes. If you haven't started ZZZ yet, this is the perfect time to do so.

P.S. the new area is filled with fat cats.