Getting pulled into the rhythm game trap
I really should have just listened to the music on YouTube and moved on. It started with a random post I saw on my feed—a video of Tondemo Wonders by Wonderlands x Showtime. The animation was so bright and chaotic that I couldn’t help but look it up. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was downloading Project Sekai on my phone. It’s been about a week now, and honestly, I’m still just as confused as I was on the first day. Everyone says it’s just a rhythm game, but there are so many menus and currencies that I feel like I need a master’s degree in resource management just to start a song.
The initial confusion of pulling cards
When I first got into it, I thought I’d just play through the songs and collect some stuff naturally. Then I found out about the ‘gacha’ system. I spent way too long trying to figure out which banner was actually worth my crystals. I saw some people talking about how they saved for months just for one specific character, and here I was, dumping everything I had on a Kamishiro Rui card because I thought he looked cool. I spent about 30,000 yen—which is roughly 250 dollars—trying to get a specific 4-star card, and I didn’t even get the one I wanted. It felt like I was throwing money into a black hole. Comparing this to other mobile games I’ve dabbled in, like those old P2E games where the strategy was just buying a 1,200 won starter item to get going, this feels way more emotionally draining.
Trying to keep up with the daily grind
There’s this pressure to finish the daily missions, but half the time I don’t even know where the mission tab is. I spent twenty minutes yesterday just clicking through folders looking for the event exchange shop. It’s supposed to be a relaxing game to play before bed, but I find myself getting annoyed because I can’t hit ‘Expert’ difficulty on half the tracks. I watch these players on social media who seem to have full teams of maxed-out cards, and I’m just here trying to figure out how to level up the cards I already have without accidentally selling them for materials I don’t even need yet. The UI is just so crowded.
Is it worth the constant screen time?
I’m not entirely sure why I’m still logging in every day. Maybe it’s just the music. Or maybe it’s the sunk cost of the crystals I’ve already burned through. I thought about buying the premium pass for about 1,000 yen, but then I remembered how frustrated I was when I didn’t get that Rui card. If I pay for a pass, am I going to be even more stressed about not hitting the daily login requirements? It feels like a loop where the game demands more time than I actually have, especially with the events running back-to-back. I’m currently stuck in that phase where I’m too invested to quit, but too overwhelmed to actually enjoy the game mechanics properly.
Trying to find my own pace
Maybe I should just stop looking at what other players are doing on the community forums. Everyone talks about ‘tiering’ or ‘farming,’ and it sounds like a second job. I think I’ll just play my favorite songs on ‘Normal’ mode and stop caring about the gacha results for a while. It’s hard to balance the desire to be good at the game with the reality that I’m just a casual player who likes the character designs. I’m still not sure if I’ll keep playing after next week, but for now, the music is still keeping me around, even if the menu buttons still make no sense to me.
That feeling of endlessly searching for menus is so relatable – I’ve had similar moments getting lost in complicated interfaces. It’s interesting how that pressure to ‘optimize’ bleeds into a game intended as a simple escape.