A few weeks ago I did a writeup on Limbus Company. You can read it here.
After playing more, I’ve realized there are a few factual things I got wrong in my writeup, and also a few more things I wanted to talk about. So I’ve decided to put those here.
Some Corrections
I had complained about Limbus Company’s energy system, Enkephalin. I thought that if I lost while playing, and had spent energy or modules to attempt a level, I would just lose that energy.
As it turns out, in many cases, the whole amount of energy is refunded if you lose. And in others, even though there is some loss of energy, it’s 5%. So if you spend 20 energy to enter a stage and lose, you get 19 back.
I still don’t like energy systems in games. Energy systems are in my mind, a gaming dark pattern. But Limbus Company’s energy system isn’t as bad as I thought in my initial writeup.
Glorified slot machines, and some other F2P bullshit
I never really mentioned that Limbus Company does have a Gacha system. In abstract, it’s very similar to most Gacha systems. You spend premium currency, which you can buy with real money, or earn small amounts of per day. In exchange, you get random characters.
Mechanically, though, it’s actually somewhat unusual. For starters, the game starts the players with 13 characters, and each extra “character” you get is just an alternate personality for one of those 13. There haven’t been any times when I’ve gone, “Wow, I need a character who can do X, I guess I need to spend the Gacha.”
The game also has a system for upgrading characters that boils down to: the default free characters get stronger easier, while premium characters are resource sinks.
Again, I don’t like Gacha systems. But there was never a point playing Limbus Company that made me think “I could beat this if I just spent money.” It’s a better system. Admittedly, it’s better in the same way that being stung by one wasp is better than being stung by five.
Going back to actual gameplay: Limbus Company does have a solid combat system, but it’s incredibly poorly explained and displayed, and the more I play, the more convinced I am that the tutorial was some sort of joke.
So yeah, Limbus Company. An interesting F2P game with generally reasonable systems by F2P standards, and absolutely stunning lack of meaningful tutorials.