Princess Connect!, also known as Priconne, is a multimedia franchise created by Cygames. The first game, released in Japan in 2015, didn't meet the expectations and was canceled soon after, promoting the creation of a new game: Princess Connect! Re:Dive. This is a sequel of sorts that also works as a 'what if?' scenario, where the baddies won the final fight and the protagonist doesn't really remember what happened.

Gameplay-wise, this game is catered to all of you who love casual gacha games with cute waifus, especially if you enjoy a good isekai story.

Priconne Re:Dive, as we just mentioned, is catered to a casual audience, but that doesn't mean you can't be competitive. In this initial phase of the game, only the first part of the story is available, and not all game modes are playable. However, by reading our Gameplay section you will understand why we consider it a casual game, and what you should be looking forward to once we catch up with the Japanese server.

If you like grinding for gear and collecting attractive girls to improve your team, look no further! Oh, and you should be paying attention to the story too; not only it's quite interesting—more so than its animated counterpart—but it's also on par with some high-quality anime!

We have to separate this into two parts: the anime cutscenes and the game's graphics. Princess Connect! Re:Dive is a very demanding game, and that's mostly because it's full of anime-like cutscenes, character introductions, guild introductions, etc. It honestly looks way better than some anime currently on air (yes, we're looking at you, Ex-Arm... but you're not the only anime who couldn't hold a candle to this game), and now you will understand why giving it a real anime adaptation was a no-brainer for Cygames, who coincidentally is one of the best companies when it comes to anime game graphics.

On the other hand, we have to talk about how Priconne actually looks when you're playing it. We know not all of you enjoy chibi characters in your mobile games, but in this case, they are so well designed that everything works. Some animations are not that great, we know it, but it wouldn't be fair to say this game looks bad. All in all, we love a clean UI, and all gear designs are somewhat cool-looking, so we're pretty happy about how it all comes together.

Okay, the animations are amazing and all cutscenes will make you feel like watching an anime... but that's not enough. The cherry on top of Priconne's cake is that all anime scenes are fully voiced. And not only that, because they got some very famous voice actresses to play these waifus!

If you watched Princess Connect! Re:Dive the anime, then this is not a surprise to you, but this game features Kana Hanazawa, Yoko Hikasa, Sora Amamiya, Yui Horie, Aoi Yuuki, and Rie Takahashi, just to name a few. What a fine seiyuu cast!

Last but not least, we must highlight the OST. From the powerful string arrangements in the main theme to the victory fanfare or the battle background music, it's hard not to fall in love with Priconne's soundtrack. It's totally fine if you don't like the game, but we won't believe you don't like the soundtrack!

In Re:Dive, you play as Yuuki—you can change your username as many times as you want, don't worry—a guy who fell from the sky and has no memories other than his name. As you may have already noticed, Yuuki is the only male character in the game. His guide and loyal advocate in this world he doesn't know is the elf Kokkoro, and soon they are joined by the beautiful glutton Pecorine and the tsundere cat-girl Karyl, with whom they create the Gourmet Guild.

We don't want to spoil the plot for you, but let's say it starts as an isekai where Yuuki thinks he was transported to a parallel world, only to find out he's actually inside a video game called Legend of Astrum. But why is he there, why all the other characters are girls, and what is this he can't remember...? You'll have to play to find the answers! Sadly, only the first chapters of the story are available at launch, but some of you will be happy to know that the anime only covered a small part of it, so you can expect a lot of surprises and revelations coming soon.

Once you know why you're playing, you need to know how to play, right? Well, your objective is to earn Jewells to pull new units, clear as many missions as possible while improving your units' stats, and try to beat the rest of the server in PvP matches, as in every other gacha game.

You can have up to 5 characters in your team, and all units have a set position: front, middle, or back. You could have 5 front units if you will, or 5 units attacking from the back; that won't be an issue, although you should reconsider your strategy. At the same time, some units deal physical damage, while some others deal magic damage, another aspect you need to take into consideration. In the main story, all battles have 3 waves of enemies (sometimes the final wave is a boss fight), and you need to defeat all enemies on screen before moving on to the next one. If all your units survive, then you win 3 stars. If one of your girls dies, then you only earn 2 stars, and if 2 or more of your girls don't make it but you still win the battle, you only get 1 star. Only if you clear a stage with a perfect score you'll be able to use Skip Tickets to simulate the battle for instant loot—it still consumes stamina, though—so perfect scores are more important than what you might think.

If we have to mention any blemishes in this game, is that all units attack automatically, so your impact as a player is minimal. Sure, you can tap a girl's avatar when their special attack is ready, but it only makes a difference if the fight is too tight. Otherwise, you're better off playing everything in auto and with increased speed... that's without mentioning all PvP battles are 100% automatic, and there's nothing you can do other than watch your team get obliterated or crush your rival.

The more you progress, the more game modes you unlock. There are dungeons with different difficulties, a grotto where you can farm mana and experience potions, a PvP arena, a special PvP arena called Princess Arena, clan battles, and even some more game modes that will be available at a later date. If you like housing, you can spend your time decorating your guildhouse or visiting other players, liking their guildhouses for a small reward. Truth be told, almost every gacha game has similar features nowadays, but it definitely would have been a shame if Princess Connect! Re:Dive wasn't to include them...

Since we love grinding, we enjoyed Priconne's upgrade system, but we understand it can be a little too tiresome. All girls can equip 6 pieces of gear, and some of these have to be crafted first, which means you need to beat the same stage several times while hoping you get what you need at the end of it. At first, that's not a problem since crafting an item uses 3 other pieces, but good luck trying to drop 20 gold weapons. Only once you equip all 6 pieces—which you can't unequip—you can rank up a character, improving their stats but at the same time, consuming those pieces so you can repeat the process...

If you want more power, you can spend mana to level up your attacks, sacrifice items to refine your gear, bond with your characters to unlock special scenes and stat upgrades, collect memory shards to unlock a new star level, etc. Yeah, that's a lot of work... but nobody said it was easy!

It will only take you a couple of hours before understanding that, despite the auto-attack system, there's a lot of strategy involved in this game, especially in team-building and resource management. In only 3 days and going the F2P route, we made it to first place in the PvP Arena, so that reinforces our idea of this game being F2P-friendly, and the fact that you can buy stamina using Jewels definitely makes it casual-friendly too—and believe us when we say this game is veeeery generous with Jewels.

There's no way to know how Crunchyroll Games will handle the upcoming events or banners, but if they do an okay job and this global version is similar to what we got in the Japanese server, then things can only go right for this Western release of Priconne.

So far, Princess Connect! Re:Dive looks very promising, and we're so looking forward to upcoming updates and events. We need to know more about Yuuki, the girls, and everything related to this story... and after seeing all units available in the Japanese server, we can't wait for more girls and outfits!