A Quick Look at Crossing Void Global

Crossing Void is a mobile game developed by 91Act and based on the Dengeki Bunko series. Characters from all over the publishing conglomerate come together in this new mobile game that's been available in JP for over a year. The global closed beta test has been running and will end on October 31, so how is the game so far? 

Preview provided by Redditor u/Slayith.

The gameplay is your standard turn-based RPG that any fan of anime based gacha has probably seen many times. Your units have 2 skills on the left, an Ultimate Skill in yellow, and then 1-2 support skills on the right gained from Support Heroes.

Units Skill 1 is usually a 0 cost action you use as your basic attack, their Skill 2 is a more powerful attack but requires mana/AP to cast which you gain a set amount of per turn. The skills on the right are attributed to the support hero equipped to your main unit.

Each support character has a skill that anyone can use, but they also have a variety of 2nd skills that activate based on who they are equipped to. For example in my image above Shizuo and Izaya have a special skill when equipped with each other that no other character has access to.

Targeting is also somewhat different than you would expect. Instead of being able to freely target enemies as you see fit, unit skills will designate what position they will attack. For example, Izaya only targets the middle enemy with this skill and his ultimate. Other units can target the first position, the back position, or has a classic AoE skill that hits everyone. This can lead to some interesting team building as you try to combine units who target similar positions or who have debuffs that hit certain positions.

The game features a fair number of modes to try out your units and marvel at your waifus but sadly none of them are altogether unique or outside the template of most gacha games.

• Story: Normal story mode, advance through missions attempting to 3 star them for rewards.
• The Pinnacle: Typical Tower Event, battle your way through floors for rewards at each step.
• Treasure Hunt: Daily gear grind as this game features gear with RNG-based stats.
• Void Expedition: A Challenge map where you willingly debuff your team and attempt to beat 8 floors
• Golden Storm: In-game currency grind, Gold is used as a currency for most upgrades.
• Void Trial: A set of challenge/puzzle maps in which you are given a situation of pre-set units
• Void Agency: Dispatch Missions, send out a team of units who return after a set time with rewards.
• Mirage: Typical PvP vs AI opponents, features weekly rankings and bonus units.
• Decrepit Dream: Another weekly ranking event, mostly who can deal the most damage in a mission.
• Burst Link: A sort of draft PvP mode. You are given a choice of 3 cards at a time and build a team in which you compete against other players teams in a PvP like setting also vying for win-streaks for greater rewards.
• Uncharted Void: A co-op gear grind.
• Breaking Event: Occasionally after completing other modes you will receive a limited time breaking event that you can complete for bonus rewards such as EXP or Gold.
• Guild Dungeon: Work with guildmates to defeat missions for rewards and guild buffs.

Events: As you would expect there are special limited-time events running every couple of weeks. There are the standard shop events were you farm limited-time missions for event currency in order to buy out the special event shop for upgrading materials or special items. But we have also seen events that you can just passively complete by doing your normal everyday grind that can reward additional items or special backgrounds/player borders

As discussed earlier units are divided into 2 sections, normal characters and support characters. For the most part as far as upgrading and equipping units go they are virtually identical. They require the same materials to rank up, they both gain EXP and gain character levels, they can both equip gear, and both have access to the Talent system.

First we should talk about how rarity works in this game as it is a bit odd. Most units can come in every rarity available. The rarities are described as C (green), B (blue), A (purple), and S (gold). Of course a lower rarity version of a unit is weaker, but they have the potential to be upgraded to a higher rarity in game. So say you pull for your favorite unit but only get an A rank version, eventually you could turn it into the highest rarity version S rank. Some people may find this system cheap or used to filler the banners with units without actually having a large roster, but I find it rather fun and less overbearing on my wallet as I can pull for lower rarity versions of my favorites and then eventually know I can turn them into the higher rarity by farming. The exemption to this system are the limited time banners who only come as A and S rank units which if works out to being just under 3% chance to pull one on their rare focus banners.

The star system in this game has no bearing on rarity and is instead just a pure upgrade system. Everyone starts at 1* and can be upgraded to 6*. The star rarity will dictate what skills and passives your unit can learn, as well as the maximum level you can upgrade your skills to. The materials used to upgrade this can be a bit of a grind but are present in the story mode and special events for you to farm at your own leisure.

The Talent system doubles as both a passive skill grind and the means by which to upgrade your lower rarity units. Each unit can reroll these passive skills for better effects or higher tier effects as well as unit-specific abilities, but the rarity of the unit dictates how many you can have. An S rank unit can have 4 talents while a C rank can only have 1. You reroll these passives using unit shards you either get from dismantling duplicates of any rarity, asking guildmates to donate shards, farming from story/events, or purchasing for real-world money. Every time you reroll one of these passives your lower rarity units have a chance to upgrade to the next rarity above them, C and B ranks have shown to upgrade rather easily while turning your A rank into S can take a fair amount of time.

The Cross Skill page here simply shows what other units share a special synergy and would unlock another skill to use in combat. It features the specifics of what ability would be unlocked as well as sometimes amusing Skill Names or flavor text about the pairing.

The tried and true Equipment page where you can equip and upgrade all the gear you acquire. It's a fairly standard system where you equip 4 pieces of gear to receive a set boost and can upgrade for a random stat boost. I have not spent enough time with the system to know how tedious it will be overall or how impactful gear itself is on gameplay as most set boosts appear to provide a small boost.

It's finally time to discuss probably the most anticipated section, the gacha. There are at most times 2 focus banners running, from what I noticed in the short time I have played it seems to be the Main Unit and a Support Unit solo focus banner but that may not always be true. After 91 summons on a banner, you are guaranteed to summon an S rank copy of the focus unit. S rank starts at a 1.5% with the focus unit taking up .33% of that. However, every summon raises the S rank probability by .02% so while you are working towards that 91 summon pity timer you are also receiving slightly higher S rank chances along the way. Plus as mentioned earlier you can always just take an A rank of the focus unit and set yourself to upgrading them to S rank on your own. Every 10 summons will award you an A rank unit regardless of if you single or multi summon as its a separate counter that you can track just above the summon button. The summon button itself also allows you to perform up to 100 summons at a time for those who are choosing to whale or simply don't want to waste time doing multiple summons. For the most part, I find this an acceptable system, but as every gacha, there has to be a downside. The banners are not solely inhabited by units, they also feature skins and EXP items at an uninformed rate. Skins in this game amount to no more than color palette swaps as well as paying homage to its fighting game routes, and many players may find them to be unrewarding to pull.

In addition to the pity rate, and 91 Guarantee Focus there is another pity system in place. Every summon you do awards you these tickets that persist across all banners and allow you to directly purchase units or skins from a weekly shop. The math works out to about 250 summons to afford a 5* or 125 summons for the skin. This system in addition to the other pity rates I find makes for an excellent chance you will be able to summon units you want.

The game also features 2 one time only ways to receive 2 S rank units of your choice. Sadly I used both methods before thinking of writing this and I have no desire to emulate the game just to receive them so I have no pictures. But the game features a new player quest line that should be fairly easy to complete over your first days playing that rewards you with an S rank selector for any permanent unit you want. For those paying customers, you can also buy a multi summon that will infinitely reroll for about 10USD, the summon always features 1 A rank and 1 S rank so you can reroll until you find units you want and then accept it.

For those paying players the game offers many package deals you can purchase for what I find to be very acceptable prices. You can expect to purchase enough summons to hit the 91 guarantees on any banner for just under 90USD using these special ticket packages that seem to reset every event, including limited banners. I also find selling packages at the exact amount of summons needed for the pity rate to hit to be a very nice QoL update.