Gacha Life

The word 'gatcha' can bring to mind games that encourage players to spend loads of real money for the chance to gamble on rare characters, but Gacha Life is a refreshing spin on the genre that favors personal creativity over slots-style mechanics. That's because none of the characters are locked behind gacha draws. Instead, the core experience is all about making your own characters with their own personalities. While a currency called gems can be bought with real money, it's not a requirement. And Gacha Life is very good about showering players with gems just for playing.

The appeal here is mostly to younger players. The anchoring experience is essentially a game of dress-up dolls, allowing you to take all the clothes and accessories you've unlocked and then using them to develop your own characters. From there, you can create you own skits and performances to share with other users. The result is an experience that's more like a living sandbox than a game. A number of different props allow you to create surprisingly sophisticated scenes, and the Skit mode is accompanied by a Friendship mode that lets you talk to the game's players, give them gifts, and improve your relationships with them.

Rounding out the experience is a series of eight minigames. While short and relatively simple, they give plenty of reason to keep coming back to the game on a regular basis. They're all easy enough for children to understand, with a focus on games that emphasize short-term memory and reflexes. They also provide you with gems you can use to unlock more energy and items.

Pros:

• Tons of options for customizing your characters
• Surprisingly robust skit creator
• Suitable for kids aged 9 and up

Cons:

• Simplicity won't appeal to older kids and adults