Zerowake GATES Review Summary

Highly engaging and enjoyable: Players find the game's core concept, compelling story, attractive characters, and overall presentation highly engaging and fun. The smooth gameplay, unique art style, and emotional storytelling contribute to a very positive experience, with noted improvements since beta.

Excellent art and characters: The game receives consistent praise for its beautiful art style, detailed character designs, and high-quality voice acting/dubbing. These elements contribute to well-developed characters with distinct personalities and strong chemistry.

Strong BL and character appeal: The game successfully caters to the Boys' Love (BL) community with attractive male characters and well-adapted BL Manhwa stories. Players appreciate the beautifully written BL narratives and specific suggestive content, despite some mention of censorship.

Engaging and curious plot: The storyline is a significant draw, described as good, pleasant, and enjoyable. It consistently sparks player curiosity and effectively maintains interest through its main narrative and additional side stories.

Strategic and fun mechanics: The combat system is well-received for its strategic depth, providing an engaging experience. Specific mechanics, such as the 'bond system' and 'Esper-Guide concept', are highlighted as particularly fun and meaningful additions to gameplay.

Severe, poorly executed censorship: The game, especially on Steam, features heavy and poorly executed censorship, often blacking out entire scenes, rendering content incomprehensible. This is frustrating given the advertised sexual content, and players cannot link accounts or transfer progress to uncensored mobile versions, leading to feelings of being cheated after purchases.

Prominent AI art and low-res visuals: Players frequently noticed the use of obvious AI-generated art, particularly in backgrounds and some dialogues, which many found distracting and unprofessional. Additionally, other visual elements like side character details and general image resolution were low-quality and pixelated, contributing to a cheap overall appearance.

Uninspired, generic combat and gameplay: The combat system is repeatedly described as simple, boring, and lacking depth, akin to generic mobile games. Players find the overall gameplay experience uninspired and tedious, with static character images and subpar graphics further detracting from enjoyment.

Inadequate language localization: Despite expectations, the game lacks promised translations for several languages, such as Spanish and Portuguese. It was primarily released in English and Asian languages, disappointing a segment of non-English speaking players.

Unfair gacha and restrictive progression: The gacha system is heavily criticized for predatory rates, high pity requirements, and an imbalance of 'guides' over desired characters. Players struggle with insufficient resources (EXP, gold), limited daily farming, and expensive upgrade costs, creating significant paywalls for progression.

Core Gameplay Loop and Monetization: The game is identified as an 18+ yaoi visual novel featuring a turn-based combat system. Character improvement is essential for story progression and unlocking erotic content, which is tied to 'sexy men' needing physical contact. It incorporates a typical gacha system for character acquisition and development.

Mature Content Access and Censorship: Players highlighted that the mobile version of Erolabs games typically offers uncensored 18+ content, often with a toggle option. There's a suggestion for an in-game setting to universally control censorship, as the 19+ version already includes a warning upon launch.

Confusing Early Game Experience: New players expressed difficulty understanding the game's systems and menus early on. One reviewer mentioned being overwhelmed or confused enough to force-close the game after only a short time, indicating potential issues with initial onboarding or UI clarity.

High Skill Upgrade Costs: Players noted significant gold requirements for upgrading character skills; for instance, a basic skill upgrade from level 1 to 2 costs 40,000 gold, and an ultimate skill upgrade costs 60,000 gold. This suggests a potentially steep or grindy progression curve.

Character Interaction Feature: The game includes a 'link' feature that allows players to chat with espers and guides. This feature aims to enhance character engagement and potentially deepen lore immersion by providing an additional avenue for interaction.

Frequent game instability issues: Players are experiencing critical technical problems including frequent freezes, crashes, and the game becoming unresponsive, especially during dialogue and loading screens. Network instability is also cited, consistently requiring game restarts to resolve these issues.

Expectation for PC performance: A player expressed an expectation that the Steam (PC) version of the game should offer better performance compared to its mobile counterpart. This feedback highlights player hopes for platform-specific optimization, though it is based on limited input.

Game has potential, needs fixes: Players have mixed feelings, acknowledging the game's good foundation and appealing aspects like world and characters, but also expressing significant disappointment with its current state. Many believe it could be a 10/10 with fixes, indicating a strong desire for improvements to address existing issues.

Steam version censored: A significant portion of players are highly dissatisfied with the censorship present in the Steam version of the game. Many refuse to play or recommend it due to this, actively advising others to avoid the Steam version if they desire an uncensored experience and suggesting alternative platforms like EROLABS.

Appeals to BL fans: The game strongly resonates with fans of the Boys' Love (BL) genre, particularly those familiar with subgenres like 'guideverse.' While recommended for BL enthusiasts, some feedback suggests it might not fulfill every aspect of the 'full BL experience' expected by all fans.

Demand uncensored content on Steam: Many players are disappointed that the Steam version is censored. They explicitly reference the uncensored version available on Erolabs and express a strong desire for Steam to offer uncensored content, a patch, or cross-platform account progression. Some even state they will stop playing if censorship is not addressed.

Game has potential, needs improvements: Players recognize the game's potential and express hope for future improvements across several areas, including bug fixes, combat effects, animations, and general quality of life. This indicates a belief in the game's future if current issues are addressed.

Prefer Steam, need account linking: Many players prefer the Steam platform for comfortable gameplay and are eager for a better experience there. There is a specific request for an Erolabs log-in option on the PC version to ensure account progression carries over between platforms.

Concerns about microtransactions: One reviewer is unsure about spending on microtransactions and hopes for more ways to earn in-game currency or 'pulls' without real money. This suggests potential issues with the game's monetization model for some players.

Desire specific content and collabs: Reviewers expressed excitement and anticipation for specific character cards or collaborations, such as Rix Vanus and Guildmate Nextdoor. This indicates interest in future content updates and specific character inclusions.