The Best Single-Player Games With Gacha Mechanics

When you think of the word ‘Gacha’, mobile games probably spring to mind, alongside the notions of incredibly predatory monetisation. It’s not an unfair, if a tad unfavourable, viewpoint. Plenty of Gacha games rely on the social aspect, the need to show off your characters to other players to urge them into doing just One More Pull to get that really cool character.

Some games though have the ambition to incorporate Gacha mechanics in entirely single player games. Without multiplayer, these Gacha systems have to work harder to make you use them. Sometimes this can end up being more predatory, sometimes less. If you’d like an experience that’s a tad more focused though, check out these games.

9

Octopath Traveler: Champions Of The Continent

With the original Octopath Traveler, Square Enix knew it had a winner on its hands. Not just by merit of that games own good merits, but the advent of the HD-2D art style, one they would immediately capitalise on. This resulted in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent.

While the game is far from free of predatory practices, making you pull for characters that form the main draw of the game as well as having absurdly high costs, the actual act of playing is completely free. No limits on how much you can play, how far you can progress. It is Octopath Traveler perfectly distilled into a mobile setting.

8

Arknights

Arknights occupies a realm of gameplay rarely seen anywhere in mainstream gaming, let alone mobile. It is a variation of a Tower Defense game with the tactical placement of units being some of the only barriers stopping enemies from reaching your base. It is also played fully in real-time, adding to the tension of decision-making.

Outside of levels, the game also features base-building to maximise material and currency acquisition, with many players even tactically deciding what characters they want to acquire for where they are in the game. This also means there’s not a rush to get the ‘best’ characters, with more common ones just as useful in certain scenarios.

7

Honkai Star Rail

Hoyoverse already enjoyed plenty of popularity in China with their Honkai Impact series, though they reached international acclaim with the release of Genshin Impact. This pushed them to market their other series’ to a worldwide audience, eventually culminating in Honkai Star Rail.

In sharp contrast to Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail is a turn-based game and focuses more on the tactics of party composition. With this extras focus comes the removal of multiplayer mechanics entirely, with a scant few social features remaining in their place. The Gacha mechanics remain the same as their other games, though you can at least enjoy them more at your own leisure instead.

6

Another Eden

Another Eden is a game that has slipped under the radar for a lot of people, despite the prestige behind it. Written by Masato Kato and composed by Yasunori Mitsuda who both previously worked on Chrono Cross. It is a Gacha game, yes, but one intended to evoke the style of older RPGs and the various features that entails.

Another Eden is entirely single-player, and its Gacha mechanics are relatively generous. You unlock new characters through it though plenty of free currency can be acquired as well to give you a few more draws on these characters. It’s definitely worth a try if you’re looking for a fulfilling single-player adventures without too much baggage.

5

Tears of the Kingdom

Is it cruel to mention Tears of the Kingdom here? Maybe. In fact, you’re probably wondering how Tears of the Kingdom, a full-priced Nintendo game with no in-game microtransactions, is in any way a Gacha game. And it is based purely on a technicality.

In the Sky Islands, you’ll come across a bunch of machines that, once you throw some Zonai materials into, will reward you with parts to build anything you want with. The thing is, these are literally Gacha machines. Like the real-life capsule machines that the mechanic is named after. So there you go, Tears of the Kingdom is a Gacha game.

4

Punishing Gray Raven

Character Action games are in and off itself a rare genre, and an even rarer one to find success and competence in. It’s hard to make enticing characters and enemies that reward you for experimenting while still being able to be completed without expert-level talent. Interestingly, Punishing: Gray Raven tows that line quite well.

The game takes place in quite short missions primarily challenging you to defeat all of the enemies within them as efficiently as possible, though promoting high and fashionable combos as well. Plenty of characters come free in the story as well, while the remainder are acquired through the Gacha mechanic. It is a very stylish game though, and one you can find satisfaction in with any character.

3

Fire Emblem Heroes

Nintendo very rarely enters the mobile market, and rarer still do they keep those games running for an extraordinarily long time. Fire Emblem Heroes is the exception to that rule, having gone from strength-to-strength since its launch in 2017. There is a lot of Fire Emblem to pull from for it, after all.

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Like the console games, Fire Emblem Heroes is a grid-based strategy game, though with a Chibi artstyle for its characters during missions. Characters are gained through Gacha mechanics, and variations of them are gained through certain events as well. They also have such absurd scenarios in which abilities trigger that would put any of the mainline entries to shame.

2

Nier Reincarnation

While Yoko Taro has developed a few games for mobile, Nier Reincarnation was easily the most well-known of them after the massive cultural impact of Nier Automata. Reincarnation has an entirely new setting from either Replicant or Automata, and has you play as various different characters across its story chapters.

During missions, you assemble a party. While many of these characters will be provided to you by the story, their variations as well as improved weapons much be acquired through the gacha mechanics. They weren’t the harshest, though the story behind these items was one of the biggest draws.

1

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Speaking honestly, this is the game that inspired this entire article’s existence. Just about every other game on this list is either a mobile game, or a more typical Gacha game that still wants you to spend money. That is is the logic of Gacha – do you want immediate gratification, or the grind that might get you the character you want?

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 grants you new Blades almost exclusively as part of the Gacha system, with only a scant few guaranteed ones as part of side quests. It could be argued that the random nature of this means every player has a unique playthrough and must build their teams differently. That’s absolutely true, but try to keep believing in that opinion when you’re burning through Core Crystals to unlock Kos-Mos.