Arknights Low Rarity Characters Are Better Than High Rarity Ones

Arknights, the enormously successful tower defense game, does something special in the crowded field of gacha games: Some of the most common characters in the game can help clear difficult levels that their rarer counterparts can’t. By giving the consolation prize characters unique niches, Arknights builds up a more nuanced, dynamic gameplay meta compared to other games in its genre.

Most gacha games like this, as you strive to build an effective team, have very underwhelming three-star units and extremely powerful five-star units, meaning you’re always striving for the more powerful characters in order to succeed. No matter how pretty the designs for low rarity characters are, I usually end up shredding them for extra resources or ignoring them for years. Gacha is a genre where the resource grind is most of the game, so it often doesn’t seem like a sound investment to build up my common characters. It’s a shame, since many of them in games like Dragalia Lost and Fate Grand Order have incredible character designs and voice over. Gameplay usually wins out when the power disparity is so wide.

However, these neglected characters truly shine in Arknights, where the gameplay mechanics allow common characters to outshine more powerful characters in their niche. Rarity in Arknights often corresponds with a higher play cost: In order to use any character, you have to pay out of a pool of points that regenerate over time. If your lineup is exclusively made up of rare characters, then you might not be able to use any of them until the enemy is already at your base. There are maps where I needed an easily obtainable character that I might have shredded in any other gacha game.

And that’s really refreshing. I was stuck on one of the main chapters for days, where the map required me to assassinate all of its mages while keeping costs low. A friend asked if I remembered to strengthen Melantha. I was confused; she was a common character that I regularly summoned for free, which turned me off her immediately. My knowledge of gacha genre conventions had kept me from seeing her true potential.

Source: Kotaku