Review on "Sephirot" (still ongoing, probably will play forever LOL)

Okay. So Sephirot is this online RPG game, and you can download it from the App Store.
My iTunes account is Japanese, and if you guys want to play this game, you'd better get an iTunes Japan account, too, unless you are confident that you can be satisfied with just playing it free (the application is available for free download).

So, in this game, you basically need to keep the World Tree growing by gathering "Sephiras", which can be gotten when you kill monsters/bosses, or from special weekly events.

• Monsters: are randomly encountered during exploration
• Bosses: are met at the very end of each area

You need "partners" for this, which are cards that have Otomate characters on them. While exploring, the character on the card you select as your leader speaks to you with lines that were in the original game. There are two ways to strengthen partners:

• Strengthening: Use other partners and "leaves" to strengthen another partner. Leaves can be gotten from the World Tree, from defeating bosses, and from selling partners you possess.
• Evolution: You can make a card evolve only if you have a card IDENTICAL to that card. This increases the card's maximum strength, and if the card is your leader, the words the leader speaks to you get sweeter and sweeter and sweeter as you make it evolve.

The cards are categorized into Normal, Normal+, Rare, Rare+, S-Rare, and SS-Rare. The rarer the card, the stronger it is, and the sweeter the words the partner speaks to you. Partners can be gotten via the following methods, which are mostly random (the ones in blue are the ones I purposefully got):

• Exploration: Only gets you N or N+ partners. I usually just sell these to get leaves.
• Sephirot's Pond: You can either pay to get partners from this OR get Hermes's Red Stones from weekly events. But here's the catch: if you pay, you get ONLY R and above. With the stones, you get about 95% N/N+ and 5% R and above. Partners change every week. There's about 100 R/R+ partners in the pond including one SR/SSR that you can choose from among several. If you keep pulling partners out from the pond, you are GUARANTEED to get that one SR/SSR. So, here, I got:
• Saitou Hajime (R+)
• Okita Souji (R+)
• Ibuki Ryuunosuke (R+)
• Serizawa Kamo (R)
• Yamazaki Susumu (R)
• Nagumo Shuu (R+)
• Chitose (R+)
• Noel, Bilal, Alvaro, Julius from Wand of Fortune (R)
• Yuuichi from Hiiro no Kakera (R+)

The above partners were actually gotten just because I had nowhere to spend my Stones OR as byproducts of my attempts to get an SR and above Okita Souji.
If you want a fully evolved SR and are prepared to pay some bucks, this is the most unrandom way to get one. So, that's how I got my:

• Okita Souji (SR), who is my leader partner. He has evolved 5 times and is at his maximum strength. ♥♥♥♥♥
• Rare Bingo: I'm just calling it Bingo because I don't know what else to call it. You can either pay to get partners from this OR you can get Premium tickets from special events. Here, I got:
• Harada Sanosuke (SR)
• Kazutake (R)
• some guy from the 4th Hiiro no Kakera (R)
• Onizaki Takuma and Mahiro-senpai (R)
• Est from Wand of Fortune (SR and R)
• Mordred from Princess Arthur (R)
• Matthias from Moujutsukai to Ouji-sama (R+)
• Alvaro (R+)
• Normal Bingo: You can get up to R partners from this bingo, which can be used free once every day PLUS once every lunchtime (11:30~12:30 pm Japan time). In addition, by saying hello to other users and completing tasks in special events, you can get "Hearts" which can be used for this Bingo.
• Selected Bonds: By offering these to a few select 'dormant' cards (from Hakuouki, Toki no Kizuna, Urakata Hakuouki, and Nise no Chigiri) you can get R/R+ partners. These 'bonds' can be collected when you defeat monsters. Here are the partners I chose to get from this system:
• Hakuouki: Okita Souji
• Urakata Hakuouki: Okada Izou, Takasugi Shinsaku, Katsura Kogorou (I may also get Glover but I haven't decided yet)
• Toki no Kizuna: Kazuya (I may also get Shin but I haven't decided yet), Suzumori Yukina
• Special Bingo Packs: Sometimes you can purchase packs that contain R and above cards pertaining to one particular game (ex: Hakuouki pack). This is where I got:
• Kazama Chikage (SR)
• Okita Souji (SR)
• Okita Souji (R+, three kinds)
• Yamazaki Susumu (R+)
• Toudou Heisuke (SR)
• Saitou Hajime (SR, two kinds)
• Saitou Hajime (R+)
• Ibuki Ryuunosuke (R+)
• Nagakura Shinpachi (R+)
• Serizawa Kamo (R)
• From collecting hidden treasures during explorations (you can only get heroines from this, though)
• Yukimura Chizuru (R)
• Tiana (R)
• Lulu (R)
• From a high rank in a weekly event; this is how I got:
• all my NORN9 cards, (R+) (just because the NORN9 event was the first event I ever took part in)

Yeah, I guess I left out smaller details but that's about it. The opening animation of the game is pretty cool. Weekly special events are themed after one of Otomate's games; this week's event is on Hakuouki SSL.

N/N+ partners' quotes NEVER change, even if you make them evolve. And they're incredibly weak, so you really do need R and above partners if you want to keep clearing areas.
So... Some people are just happy with R partners, some people want SSR partners. I'm happy with a fully evolved SR.

So, the hardest part of this game is actually getting the partner you want to say sweet, sweet quotes to you. You NEED an R or above for this. I actually was unsatisfied with either R/R+ (these two say the same things); that's why I wanted a fully evolved SR.

• If you are happy with a fully evolved R/R+ partner, you can just use the Selected Bonds method (the safest, most certain method!) or try and get a high rank in a weekly event. Another alternative would be to use Sephirot's Pond, but you might have to use a few bucks to get the number of identical partners you need in the allotted time. The Normal Bingo is really useless, though. During my Sephirot lifetime, I only got TWO R partners from that Bingo thing, out of, what, HUNDREDS of turns.
• If you want a fully evolved SR partner and have some bucks on you...
• Let me tell you that USING THE RARE BINGO OR SPECIAL BINGO PACKS IS A VEEEEEEERY BAD IDEA. You will use hundreds of dollars and never get your partner to fully evolve, unless you are VERY VERY LUCKY. I was lucky with Kazama; I got him to evolve 4 times (his maximum is 5 times). But I really wanted Souji, and I spent a lot of money in these Special Packs and only got him to evolve ONCE. The Rare Bingo is even WORSE. Special Packs, at least, give you cards from a game you are interested in. The Rare Bingo gives you a bunch of cards whose characters you don't even know. The probability of you getting a card that is identical to one you already have is EVEN LOWER, and you will, alas, end up spending a lot of $$ and never getting a fully evolved SR partner. SO what works?
• Use SEPHIROT'S POND. SR cards can evolve 5 times. And if you are diligent enough in weekly events, you can decrease, FOR FREE, the number of R/R+ cards in the pond by about 20 in a day - up to half in a few days. This increases your chances of getting that SR when you actually use money to get the rest of the unwanted R partners out of the way. By using this method, I somehow got my SR Okita Souji. I used, like, 4-months worth of allowance, though (about 80000yen?). :P Oh well, I'm not gonna spend any more, so I guess it's OK haha.

The game itself is quite fun, so give it a try!

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