Gacha! How much is too much for a 6* waifu? 30,000 yen? 50,000?

After all the revelations that day, I seriously need a break for my mind.

Luckily, one of the mobile games I play from time to time just got a new update. It was an open-world RPG that I found quite enjoyable. And yes, there are many, many opportunities to spend thousands of yen on characters and weapons. Or, I should say, the chance to pull ultra-rare characters and weapons.

In the world of gacha games, there exist two players on the ends of the gacha spectrum. Ones like myself who will not spend a single yen on the game, and the whales.

In my case, some enjoyment stems from efficiently collecting in-game currency to convert into pulls; when one pull ends up as a 5-star, it's a great day, and pulling a 6-star is winning the jackpot. Of course, the game needs a good storyline, battle mechanics, leveling system, art style, among others, and this game does the job.

As I played in the common room, I must have been so engrossed in the current battle that I didn’t notice a figure standing by me.

“Ah, Iwasaki-kun, you play EX Starcross!”

Watson appeared in my field of view, wearing a surprised expression.

“Yeah, you play too?”

“Mhm! I really like the game, and…I’ll actually stream the game tonight,” she gave a mild smirk. “A sponsored stream.”

Sponsored stream? “So, you get paid to play?”

“Yep, for the new update! Which means,” she held her hands up in anticipation. “Lots of rolls!”

I chuckled. "As expected from the streamer. Watching rolls can be exciting."

"Mhm! And the other day, some streamers were doing collabs on co-op! You know, that’s a good idea,” her eyes lit up. “Do you want to play co-op?" 

“Me? On your stream?” Wait, I thought she meant her other streamer friends? 

"It'll be fun!" 

I was a bit curious about the gaming experience with Watson, or rather ChocoNyan.

“Sure.”

***

Later that evening, I sat at my desk, my laptop open, tuning into her stream as she went live.

I’ll have to mute that once I hop in the call with her.

Her introductions had an unfiltered energy I was always puzzled by. Interacting with her streamer character will be…something alright.

“Today we’re gonna play an action-filled, open-world RPG game available on mobile, PC, and console! Ya already seen me play it before on stream, and now they have a new update, with an option for co-op story mode!”

“And to test that out, I invited one of my buddies to play through it together, get ready, chat!! Let me hop on the call.”

I saw her profile join the call, and I switched audio.

“Ryuhiro!” –I cringed slightly at the sound of my online name. I blame my middle school self for that name.

“What’s up, Choco,” I steeled myself to not sound like an absolute buffoon. “Evening chat, or morning.” Mission failed.

“Yep! Ryuhiro’s from Japan, so finally being on the same server’s much better!”

Her chat started greeting me…hold on her chat’s pretty nice to me, a bunch of heart emotes and waving.

“They’re asking me to speak in Japanese,” I chuckled. “Sure.”

“Evening everyone, Ryuhiro here, Choco and I will be playing EX StarCoss today, hope you enjoy!”

With that, my screen started filling with messages.

“So cool!”

“Yooooo!”

“I don’t know what he said, but dang!!!”

A funny idea popped into my mind. “Appreciate it, Choco, your chat’s so nice to me, must be nice having a supportive community.” Immediately, messages of laughing emotes started appearing.

“Ahaha, exactly!” I could hear the slight frustration in her laugh. “Supportive and kind, you guys are!”

I accepted her invitation to join her in-game world, and we began playing the new story progression.

Coincidentally, the levels of our strongest characters were roughly similar; her main character is an archmage with fire-type abilities, while mine was a sword-wielding priestess.

“You main Lilia! Why’d you pick her?”

“She’s one of the few 5-star characters I have, plus I like the sword-wielding mechanics.” I slashed another pair of mobs. “Works well that I got this 6-star Excalibur.”

“Mm…well, I like Sylvie the archmage so I can fireball everyone– good range and AOE! Plus, she’s cute!”

Not to mention, she’s one of three 6-star characters…she showed me her builds, and she had a lot of unlocked characters, weapons, and trinkets.

Now, I don’t think she is what many gamers would call a “whale”, but on the spectrum of gacha, she was definitely more pay-to-win versus free-to-play.

But, this game was an example where you didn’t have to spend money to enjoy the gameplay and leveling– if I said that on-stream though, the sponsors might not be that happy though; it is gacha after all.

It’s also not very common for mobile RPGs to have co-op in story mode, which is a cool feature. Not that I had much use of co-op before….Kaede barely plays video games.

“DIEEEE!” Watson shouted as she unleashed a firestorm on the incoming mob wave. Bless, friendly fire is virtually nothing in this game.

“I’ll take care of them.” While my character wasn’t very tanky, she had a self-healing passive ability based on damage dealt, which came in handy when fighting bosses surrounded by mobs.

I noticed both our Ultimates were fully charged. “Choco, ult combo?”

“Let’s go!!”

I used my ultimate ability, sending a storm of swords raining on the enemies, dealing damage, but more importantly, immobilizing them.

“It’s OVER!” She sent a comically large fireball straight at the group, wiping everyone out.

“Alright, time for what you want to see…gamba time!” On stream, she navigated to the store and to the character gacha page.

“Chat, how many rolls until we get Kaiso?? Fifty? Stop saying streamer luck…”

Fifty rolls came and went, with no Kaiso. She is the new 6-star character, so even though her odds are slightly boosted now, it’s still near 0 percent.

“Kaiso, come home, please…”

“PLEASE KAISO–”

“Come on…see streamer luck isn’t a thing,” she sighed. “Ryuhiro, say something to give us good luck and tell me when to pull!”

Am I a charm or something!

“Uh…it has to be the next one, the code’s churning right now—go for it!“

She rolled again, and this time, the screen gave an iridescent glow different from the previous ones

“YESS! OMG OMG WE GOT HER! FFUU—“She stopped herself. Sponsored segment. “KAISO CAME HOME!”

To say she was excited about the pull was a massive understatement; I was having a difficult time containing my laughter as it sounded as though she were running around her room as her mic would cut off every so often.

“Is she like this every time?” To which the chat replied with a resounding “yes.”

Eventually, the sponsored segment of the stream was concluded.

“It’s time,” she started laughing, somewhat maniacally. Is she okay?

Suddenly, the in-game currency in her account jumped by thousands. Wait…that has to be worth…tens of thousands of yen?! Like 30,000 minimum!

“We’re not stopping until we have BOTH KAISO AND DVALIF!!” she clamored as she once again started rolling.

Oh boy…

With each failed roll, her frustration started leaking like a faulty water spout. Between the curse words and desk slamming, I started hearing the sound of keyboard switches popping out.

Were those packages she receives every so often new peripherals, or every time she breaks one?

My question was answered as chat started spamming “-1 keyboard” and “-1 mouse”.

She, at this point, has gone through at least two hundred rolls. Wasn’t helping that she was turbo-rolling ten at a time.

“AHHH!” she screamed. “Sorry, Ryuhiro, I get heated with this–”

“I can see...” I also just witnessed the five stages of grief.

“Do you have any rolls?’

“I can do like one or two turbos–”

“Alright, lemme switch to your POV while I reload my account.”

One of the features of the game is that you can view your friend’s gacha rolling when visiting each other’s world, stargazing parties, as the game calls them. Within a few seconds, I saw my screen now casting onto her stream.

I clicked on Dvalif’s roll event; of the two, Dvalif fit more with my party comp and would bring good spellcasting power. Once I pressed, the screen went dark, followed by a cutscene.

Wait. That means–

Chat started cheering, filled with lots of congratulations and fireworks emotes…and many laughing emotes presumably directed at Watson.

“Dvalif!” I exclaimed, to no response from my headphones. “Choco, that’s cool, I–”

“I know where you live!” she growled. Watson?! “I just spent three hundred dollars and you get him on the FIRST TRY!??!” The fervor in her voice reverberated in my mind as I attempted to reorient my marbles. This has got to be a bit, right? Classic ChocoNyan rage moment.

But knowing where I live sounded quite personal!

Chat started going crazy at this point. What’s a monkaW? Okay, I know what o7 is. And I agree with that sentiment.

Her text-to-speech donation went off again. “Rest in peace, Ryuhiro, it was nice knowing you. Death by cutting board is inevitable.”

“CUTTING BOARD?!”

Chat, I am for sure cooked.