Ayakashi Ghost Guild (Android/iOS) – In-depth Review

Disclaimer: This is detailed, and quite a long read. I apologize if this much info just isn't up your alley. For my next review, things will be a little more condensed. If you do enjoy this article though, thanks a bunch!

Due to recent events, certain bits of information have been added to this article and it now serves an archive of the game under Zynga's administration. At the time of editing, there are projects related to Ayakashi that have not been completed, and will only be talked about here if and when they come to light.

Edit 4/29/15: Zynga announced the game's closure on March 20th, 2015 via a Facebook post on the game's page, with the ETA of said event occurring one month later, on April 30th. The announcement was sudden but speculated by many members of the community following an entire month of no announcements, daily gifts, or events whatsoever. The Facebook page also held no answers, with two posts prior to the announcement advertising two other unrelated Zynga games. This method of breaking the news caused backlash by every member of the community who posted on the thread, as even to the day of closure there were still no in-game notices about it. 

(Pic provided by Zynga's App Page on Google Play, when it was still listed.)

Greetings and salutations everyone. After reading a plethora of “reviews” for Zynga's immensely popular Ayakashi Ghost Guild app, I thought it was about time that a real review hit the scene. You know, not something in 200 characters or less, but an actual review. Being as how I truly enjoy this game and have played it long enough to be quite far, I think I've gotten just about everything figured out-- to an extent. There are people way more hardcore than I am, and their talents can be admired over in the Ayakashi Wiki. However, for those of you who are interested in the game but aren't sure how it works or what lies beyond the fine print, this article is for you.

What is Ayakashi? It's a mobile collectible card game where your primary objective is to recruit, fuse, and power up your cards. You take the role of a Ghost Agent working for the Ghost Guild, whose goal is to investigate and cleanse any unwanted spiritual activity. You're joined by a mirror-dwelling spirit named Mira, and she helps you throughout the story and acts as a guide of sorts. She gets you started and helps you to summon your very first daemon to protect you.

Like many Asian-influenced games, the cards are referred to as “daemons”, and there are 3 types of them-- Phantom, Anima, and Divina. Phantoms are just what you'd expect, ghosts who embody hate or other strong negative emotions. Anima daemons represent physical objects or weapons, and Divina include gods, deities, and legendary spirits. Phantom is strong against Anima, Anima is strong against Divina, and Divina is strong against Phantom. This rock paper scissors setup adds another layer of depth and variety to the system, but it isn't terribly deep.

So how's the gameplay? Well there are many aspects of Ayakashi that I will explain briefly.

(Pic provided by the Wiki)

Story Mode – The Story Mode is where the “meat” of Ayakashi lies. At first you might be a little confused, but there's nothing to it. Tapping the “story” icon listed in the navigation menu will take you to a chapter select, where you can choose which chapter you'd like to play. If you've just started, you'll only be able to play and progress through Chapter 1, but that's to be expected. Each chapter is further broken up into subsections, which usually have a dialogue between them. What you'll be doing in each section is repeatedly tapping the “investigate” button until you complete the section. Every time you tap, you'll get some money and sometimes a daemon, just like that! Be careful though, as your health depletes a fixed amount each time you do this, and once your health is low enough you won't be able to investigate for awhile.

Health replenishes once per minute, so at earlier levels it takes a very short amount of time.

Every once in awhile, a powerful foe may appear and this is where the battle system comes in. It's all automated, using simple math to determine the winner. If you're overall attack (after daemons' special abilities fire off) is higher than your opponent's defense, you win! If not, you lose. For story bosses, after defeating them you'll get a chance to negotiate. You can buy cabal chains from the in-game shop to make sure the negotiation is a success, as trying to without them usually doesn't work. Fear not if they refuse, however, as you'll still find them wandering around in that chapter later on if you need to come back at another time.

While investigating, you may also find “Sealstones”. Sealstones are like puzzle pieces and when you collect 6 of them, you'll acquire a daemon that can't be found elsewhere! Very useful for the earlier levels. Investigating is also the only way to earn experience points.

Ability Points and Spirit Cost – After completing a section of the story or leveling up, you earn Ability Points. These points work just like stat points, and you allocate them to either increasing your max HP, Attack Spirit or Defense Spirit. How you distribute your points is entirely up to you and your preferred play style. While the HP is self explanatory, Attack and Defense Spirit need a bit of explanation. As a Ghost Agent, you control 2 parties of daemons-- your attack party and defense party, consisting of 5 members each. You also assign a daemon to be the leader, who is present in both parties.

Your attack party is what you use when you're on the offensive, and you'll want to use daemons who have special abilities focused on boosting attack and lowering the enemy's defense. Your defense party is only present in PVP, as in-game story or event battles always have you take the offensive. Whenever someone challenges you to a battle, if they initiated, it will always be their attack team versus your defense team. For your defense team, you'll definitely want daemons with defensive skills as well as those that lower the enemy's attack.

Each daemon has a general “spirit cost” which is how many points they consume when in either of your parties. Let me map out a quick example.

I have 50 total attack and defense spirit at my current level.

The 4 daemons in my attack party come to a total cost of 45.

The 4 daemons in my defense party come to a total cost of 40.

I have an Anima daemon, “Barbetta”, who has a spirit cost of 6.

As I have 5 points remaining in my attack team, she will only fit in my defense team.

Did you get all that? This may seem intimidating, but once you play you'll get the hang of it. There's just a majority of simple math in this game, but all it takes is a short amount of time to understand it fully.

(Pic provided by the Wiki.)

Fusion – During your adventures you'll obtain many, many daemons, but not all of them are useful! Take the Magatamas and duplicate daemons you find and fuse them into your stronger ones that you wish to keep. Fusing not only increases the selected daemon's attack and defense, but their skill levels as well! For many daemons obtainable in events, there are specially-marked Magatamas that exist solely to level up that daemon's skill to a higher level than normal. This is absolutely beneficial and it's wise to seek out a daemon's Magatamas whenever they're available.

PVP—Other than during specific events, there are times in which you must do battle with other Ghost Agents. As mentioned before, Sealstones are obtainable via story mode, but chances are you won't be finding all 6 on your own. Sometimes, you'll need to snag one that you're missing from another player who has it. All that is required of you is to enter the “Stone” section of the menu, tap your desired missing piece, and then search for an opponent. Don't get cocky and try to fight someone who is a much lower level than you, otherwise you'll be fined and receive Mira's utter disappointment. You can also battle opponents to obtain money or event Sealstones.

Crew mates-- No one should be alone! Friendly competition (and trolling) between Agents is common, but it's important to stick together. While exploring the Story, you might come across another Agent. You can send this person a crewmate request, and there are many benefits to doing so. If they accept, you can poke them daily for a free summon point (explained in the “free summon” section below), call upon them to help you during some battles, and send them short messages. Guilds also exist, and level up when a member donates 20,000 silver. The more your guild levels up, the more members it can hold and the more benefits you can receive. There are also events called “Guild Conquest (GCQ for short) where a Guild must band together to defeat a powerful foe, and everyone who participates gets something nice.

(Pic provided by the Wiki.)

In-game Shop – In the mystical land of Ayakashi, there exists a Shopkeep named Dora. Every day when you log in, you will receive silver apples. You will get 1 during weekdays and 2 on Saturday and Sunday. Certain 3 and 4-star rarity daemons can also be traded for silver apples. Dora can exchange your apples for limited-time Daemons, cabal chains, or a permanent increase to the amount of daemons you can own at one time. Many other useful items can be bought with gold, which is of course the currency conversion of actual cash. However, you do get a free daily gift just for logging in which consists of said items, so if you're not interested in spending money you can always wait and acquire items that way.

Daemon Rarity and Events – Rarity is a pretty common asset in just about every card game, and it's no different here. Rarity ranges from 1 star to 5 stars; with 1 being common, 2 being uncommon, and so on. Rarity also coincides with strength, as 5-star daemons are the strongest in both attack, defense, and abilities.

Events are the easiest way to obtain one-of-a-kind daemons and are also the easiest way to obtain 5-stars, albeit being more difficult for lower-level players at first. Events are happening in Ayakashi almost constantly, so there's always something to do, and always new daemons to collect!

Free Summon – Other than through events or exploring in Story Mode, the Summon page is another method to obtain daemons. Each day you're allowed one free summon, and you get another at lunchtime. You can earn “summon points” via poking your crewmates, beating an event ghost in story mode, or sometimes as a guild donation reward. When you collect 10 summon points, you're allowed to make another free summon. There's a feature called “summon 6-pack”, which you can use to get 6 daemons at once after racking up 60 summon points or more. It's very useful! After completing a chapter of Story Mode 100%, you'll get a Special Summon Ticket. This ticket is used to summon stronger daemons than in free summon, as the ones there are usually just good for fusing.

(Pic provided by the Wiki.)

NOT Pay-to-Win, just Pay-to-Speed-up-- Whew, that was a mouthful, and I apologize. There's a lot to Ayakashi that makes it more than your standard phone app time-waster. It can be kinda fun to go hardcore and make strategies from time to time. Being a free player doesn't hinder you as much as you might think, as I've been able to reach many goals and collect several daemons without spending a dime. The only way you may feel outclassed by paying players is for rankings during events. No matter how you look at it, to be at the top of the rankings and receive the “best” prizes, you'll need to use several items to avoid wait times. Now, whether you've spent money on those items or if they're just what you've been hoarding for several months is irrelevant. Either way, you'll have to put in some kind of time and effort. While this may be dampening to some, personally I feel that as long as I keep leveling up, hanging on to my items, and making my daemons stronger, I can do anything that I set my mind to. If there's something that I really really want, I will use my item stash and do my best to get it.

Unless you're after the absolute best and fanciest daemons in the game, you'll find that there's more than enough in Ayakashi to keep you coming back and having fun. Of course, it's all about perspective in that regard.

Then again, the point of Ayakashi is that it's a game, and you can play however you want to. Keep the daemons you like even if they aren't considered “good”, participate in events that you're interested in, and take your time exploring the story. Truly, it's your own experience that matters the most and no one can tell you otherwise.


Limit Break- At the end of 2014 a new feature was announced called "Limit Break" where you could permanently increase your daemons' level and stats by fusing copies of said daemon together OR by using special mixer daemons called "Da Liu Ren". These Da Liu Ren came in 5 variations, just like normal daemons (1 star - 5 star). If you didn't have a copy, the Da Liu Ren that you used had to be the same star rarity or higher to give you the level increase, otherwise, it would only work like normal fusion fodder. This was the last major element added to the game before its closure.

MMO Monday: Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE Online - Goodnight, Sweet Prince!

Edit: 5/18/2014 - The amount of attention this article has gotten is not only overwhelming, but heartwarming as well. I'll reply to every comment when I can. I'm truly humbled by how many people enjoyed reading, and I sincerely hope I was able to do it justice. Feel free to share your memories or fondest moments in the comments. Despite SMT: IO's closure, the fun times we have shall always live on.

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Sorry about being gone so long, my urge to write just hasn't been here lately. As a present to anyone who reads my garbage, this article is jam-packed with info! Please, I sincerely hope that you enjoy.

It's the day we all fear from the bottom of our wallets-- er, hearts. The day our favorite mmo gets shut down and we are given nothing but a short amount of time and a cutoff date. Everyone spreads the news, gathers on the forums, and gets contact information from each other before the inevitable climax. Some players become pessimistic, claiming that they "knew it would happen eventually", and strive to bring everyone else's optimism down. Others cling to hope, an uncertain hope that maybe another publisher will come to save the day. Just maybe. Nonetheless, the story ends as the server shuts off and hundreds sit at their desks. A few-second silence fills the atmosphere as the player wears a slight frown before eventually exiting out of the application. Some have already accepted the cold truth, and have already done the deed of uninstalling, moving on to other things. Time passes; and although tears are shed, we players lie powerless in the wake of the very corporations that control what we love. Acceptance finally leaks into our hearts, and we continue on with the memories and friendships that we made etched into our souls.

It sucks, doesn't it? As someone who has been fondly attached to MMOs for the past 5 years, I know the pain of a game eventually shutting down. You invest time and money to it, but in the end it all gets erased. Truly then, it's the journey that's most meaningful, and not the destination.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online is a case of such, being up since 2007 in Japan and late 2008 for North America. While the Japanese server is still alive and running, the U.S. server has unfortunately kicked the bucket as of February 28th, 2014. Nontheless, SMT:IO is a wonderfully crafted game, and so I'd like to take the time to appreciate it in retrospect as its glorious age in NA has drawn to a close.

(Image courtesy of hardcoregaming101.net - the site that I practically worship)

SMT:IO is a unique game in that it gives the player a huge element of control. You decide everything, from where your stat points go, to what skills you learn, to what expertise you learn (to coincide with your class selection) and what demon partners you have by your side (based on your alignment). Any SMT fan will immediately have a nerdgasm, but all of these options can be overwhelming for a casual mmo player or even someone not entirely familiar with anything in the SMT universe. I'll break it down into a few subsections.

Class - While there are no predefined classes laid out (healer, mage, ranger, etc) there are a few "classes" that utilize specific skills and expertise. You could become a close-range melee, using blunt-force weapons to do your damage, while pumping your stat points into strength and vitality for the most common melee build. You could become a magic-user, cramming your stat points into magic and intelligence to get the most bang for your buck, and learn all of the various AOE magic skills the game has to offer. While being a mage, you could also go out of your way to learn a  few healing skills and buffs to help out your party or to just help while soloing -- if you choose.

You could go the gunner route and focus on shooting things from afar, but you could then add curse magic to your roster of skills, and charge up cursed shots that do more damage than normal shots while debuffing your enemies. Even so, you could make a character for the sole purpose of crafting weapons or refining armor. You could be a jack of all trades, and a master of none. Or, you could limit yourself to one profession but be completely maxed out in all respective areas.

(Courtesy of the SMT:IO Wiki, currenly hosted by Sesshou. http://megaten.sesshou.com/wiki/index.php/Expertise)

Alignment - Alignment only affects minor parts of the story (there are story quests in this game, they actually make up the meat of the quests, if you're wondering). However, alignment is much more relevant in deciding your choice of demon partners. Much like in the early SMT games, you recruit demons from the field (yes, the very same ones you grind and level up on) and then have them fight alongside you. That process in itself isn't terribly complicated, but your choices matter much more when considering alignment. There are three paths for you to choose: Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Just as players fall into different alignments, so do demons. A lawful character can befriend, summon, and use a chaotic demon just fine, and vice-versa. However, the magnetite cost to summon a demon that isn't of your own alignment is substantially higher.

What is magnetite you ask? Basically, a secondary form of currency that is only used for demon summoning and certain special burst attacks. Let's say that a Lawful Character summons the Seraph Uriel (also of the Lawful alignment). The magnetite cost to do so might be around 400~500. However, let's take that same demon and try to summon him on your character who is aligned with Chaos. That cost jumps to double or even more. Magnetite may go around somewhat quickly these days, but when different dungeons/situations call for a variation in your partner choice, you'll find that this can get exceedingly expensive.

Stats & Expertise - Finally, we come to the art of numbers in electronic gaming. Imagine lets you distribute your stat points any way that you see fit, so you have full control over the growth of your character, as well as their strengths/weaknesses. You also can choose what expertise to level up, which paves the way for skills (both passives and actives). Expertise leveling up is time-consuming and sometimes a pain (for example, to learn healing skills you have to use healing items quite a number of times to level up the expertise), but every level feels rewarding as your character continues to become more defined.

While no character was truly perfect, there were so many variables that no two people were exactly the same. Even if their end result was similar, the path they took to get there was quite different. Sadly, screwing up badly enough was usually a death sentence for your character, as the ways to reset stats and skills were very limited.

(This is actually one of my screenies! Hooray!)

The meat of the game is composed in story quests, which yield the most exp, the best rewards, and are the primary way to establish your alignment. While sadly I have not played a story quest in a very long time, it wasn't nearly as lackluster as many MMOs and even had some heart-tugging moments involving a pixie near the beginning (how could I let her go with that adorable face?). The best part is that most of the story quests can be done with a party, so you could invite others to share in the experience and loot they they wouldn't be able to get just by going through the standard dungeons.

Demons level up just like Pokemon, and they gain new skills as they do so. While it'd be much too lengthy to explains all of the mechanics here, I can at least give a brief overview. If you befriend two demons, you can take them to the cathedral of Shadows and fuse them together, usually resulting in a stronger demon that has inherited a few skills of the original two, giving it an edge over the ones you'd normally find in the field. You can also level up your friendship with demons by leveling them up, using a specific item, or using the "Care" command ever 12 hours. If you use care while your partner is at max friendship, they will give you an item. It's usually a consumable (though a very useful one) but sometimes you can get a very nice consumable item that you can't find elsewhere, making it worth your time and effort to make your entire team love you. Try not to let them die though, as it decreases their friendship a bit.

Dungeons are another big aspect of the game, as it's where you will get the most delicious loot and fight alongside strangers or friends. In order to access the dungeon, you must first purchase a plate (the only really annoying aspect, as these could get costly later on) that corresponds to the difficulty that you desire. Bronze plates are "easy" mode (Level 10~25) Silver is "intermediate" (Level 25~50) and Gold is "Hard" (50+). Because this game is awesome though, any lowbie with highbie friends could sit back and soak up the exp from higher level players in a Gold instance, making the grind a little less... grind-y. The best loot is given when the boss takes their fall, and every player is rewarded their own special treasure chest. There were also some dungeons where you're under a time limit and control your demon partner only, but getting to party with people could sometimes be a hassle, as their partners had to be of the same family and high friendship to tag along.

One of the things I loved about running dungeons was that it was usually pretty easy to find a party, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We all were very different in our builds, yet we worked together to take down hordes of enemies utilizing our skills and our partners' skills. In my entire experience through all difficulties of dungeons, I never once got called out for making a mistake. We all played our part and did our best, and sometimes the fight for survival could be incredibly intense.

I personally started playing sometime mid-2010, before completely wrecking my character, going on hiatus for a few months to focus on school, and then coming back early 2011. Not sure what made me want to come back, but I was interested in giving it a try once more. I buckled down, did some research, and made a solid plan so that I wouldn't completely destroy the new character I had created. She was a melee named Sanix. The melee class was simple and easy to understand, and after some rough stat setups, I eventually got comfortable and leveled her up. It took quite some time, but I proudly got her to level 65. She may not have had the best gear ever, but she was a solid melee with good attack and defense, and I had a blast playing with her.

Graphically speaking, SMT:IO isn't incredible (look how old it is) but it remains faithful to the SMT franchise with the character and demons models, as well as the locations. It always seems like it's nighttime, and the atmosphere that Imagine creates is hard to match, and will likely be the only game to do so effectively. The Kagutsuchi phase always there to remind you of the passage of time. Even the holy city Arcadia feels eerie and quiet with the blanket of stars overhead and the cathedral in the distance.

In conclusion... SMT:IO is just a great game with so many innovative ideas and freedom that it never gets old. Despite the extreme lack of updates and bugs in the game, the players never ran out of things to do, and continued playing very often. The community was a bit on the small side, but very receptive and welcoming to new players. It's truly a shame to see such a lovely community get denied time and time again by a greedy publisher and a company that had no intention of ever improving the NA experience of Megaten. I saw it leave Aeria, move to ATLUS Online (not to be confused with the Atlus that doesn't suck), and finally on to Marvelous USA's Online division. With the hint of new updates being released sometime this year, the abrupt announcement of MarvelousUSA's online dept. closure was a real shame, and ultimately, the game's conclusion.

Most saddening to me was a quote from a forum mod basically saying that they never saw it coming and that they were informed at the same time as the players. My heart does go out to those who only had a month to get new jobs and I really hope that they were able to find something before the cutoff date. I know that can't be easy. I also give my condolences to the Pandora Saga community, which although I knew not much about, was a game that saw its prime some time ago and surely had a great cluster of dedicated players.

I was happy that I learned just quick enough to log myself in for a short time before the servers went down. It was fun being silly in Shinjuku Babel for some mayhem one last time.

From Wikipedia: Unfortunately, on January 27th, 2014, Marvelous USA announced that it would be closing down as of February 28th, 2014, and that all of the titles it was responsible for hosting would be dropped. On February 28th, 2014 many players of Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online logged in to spend some time in the game for the last time before it closed at 5:00PM PST. [Link]


Resources:

http://megaten.sesshou.com/wiki/  -- The Wiki, hosted by Sesshou and preserved for all to take a gander at.

http://www.megatenonline.proboards.com/  -- The player-hosted forums, where players still gather and talk about the game, as well as give tutorials for those who wish to play the Japanese servers.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/megaten/megaten4.htm  -- The hardcoregaming101 article that talks about the game when it first opened, worth a read (like many articles on hcg101).


As always, thanks for reading! If you played megaten, be sure to cherish your memories and experiences~