Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void Preview – Stylish and Addictive

Sometimes I find myself drawn to a game based on its style alone. While I would consider myself a casual mobile player, there was something about 91Act’s Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void that made it stand out as a game that I needed to play. With the open beta available, I jumped right in to see what this game has to offer. Surprisingly, I discovered an enjoyable and stylistic mobile game that I’m finding hard to put down.

Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void is set in an alternate universe where Dengeki characters exist in a universe. Yes, there is a collective antagonism between these characters. Still, I wasn’t too worried about the story for my first time through the game, especially after witnessing a couple of typos. However, there’s plenty of time for the story later; I was too busy enjoying the fact that Sword Art Online and Accel World characters were interacting together.

So there are a few modes in Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void. The story mode takes players through a handful of training to detail the game’s turn-based systems. The matches are set up as 3vs3, with each character being able to equip a supporting character. The animations of the character’s attack are each detailed and lovely to watch play out, which made me not be too quick to use the speed up option. Furthermore, each character has a special that unleashes some substantial damage and features a unique animation of the character.

I should add that the auto-battle features are well balanced, but I feel like the AI focuses on healing the characters even if they don’t need it at that time, which can waste a full turn. In battle, players can receive buff and debuffs marked under the names. However, these are displayed as small icons and I didn’t always catch them when they popped up.

Each character has a set of skills that can be upgraded once they reach a certain level. A lot of the game’s systems are locked behind the player’s level, which means you’ll need to get pretty far into the story to unlock everything. Characters can also equip items and be powered up using gained materials.

Outside of battles, players can take part in side quests that yield rewards but also feature strong enemies. While fights aren’t the most difficult early on in the game, matches are determined by the number of turns used to defeat the enemies. Typically, at least at the beginning of the game, matches must be completed in seven turns.

One interesting thing about Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void is the gacha offerings, which they don’t shy away from. Players get one free gacha pull a day and can increase their odds of getting a high ranking character if they use some of the gain resources. This allows players the chance to get strong characters without paying money. Furthermore, the developers will enable you to roll as many times as you want in their ten-character gacha pull. Yes, you can see all the characters you’d get and decide if that’s what you want to pay for or roll again.

What Dengeki Bunko: Crossing Void has a long list of beloved characters across some of the best anime and manga series to date. Luckily for fans, the game knows how to use that style to present a beautiful gacha RPG with enough to offer in the first 6 hours that I haven’t yet felt the need to pay anything. Sure, the game does leave little gacha hints lying around saying that you can get this if you pay that, but it’s not hindering my experience so far. I love the presentation and battle system that focuses on strategic turn-based RPG mechanics that I can lose myself in.