I don’t normally review mobile RPGs, mostly because I hate playing on a small screen and because a lot of them have less than savory practices with their premium currency. However, with Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space, I felt compelled to review it for two reasons. The first is that the story is written by none other than Masato Kato, the writer of Chrono Trigger.

That in itself is cause for me to pay attention since I know I am not alone in thinking that Chrono Trigger has one of the greatest JRPG storylines in gaming history. The second reason though, is that I can play Another Eden entirely on my PC, without even needing to use my phone or a mobile device. Truthfully, I’m going to side-track here just long enough to point out that if more mobile RPGs did this (such as Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius) I would play more of them.

This of course comes with a caveat that could immediately be considered a deal-breaker for some. Another Eden has microtransactions, premium currency, and uses a Gacha system. For those who are unaware, the Gacha system was popularized in Japanese mobile games and essentially is like those capsule machines we played as kids.

You put currency in, and it gives you a certain number of random characters of various rarities. Currently, there are rarities from one star to five stars. The premium currency allows you to draw either a single character or ten characters at a time for a slightly reduced price. The upside to this is that, unlike most mobile RPGs, the developers of Another Eden factored in a way for you to get currency in various ways.

There are login bonuses for each day you log in, though as far as I am aware, those login days do not have to be consecutive. There are also achievements and quests that give you rewards such as currency and useful items. Sometimes (similarly to other mobile games) the developers will even give you free summons, free tickets to summon certain rarities, etc.

Another Eden is already available in Japan and has been for a while. So, I was able to do a little research from people who had already played the Japanese version, and I found out something interesting. You can complete essentially everything the game has to offer with only characters the game gives you and characters you get using the currency you earn, rather than buy. There may be some grinding involved for levels or creative strategies, but it can be done.

This is a great thing because it means that people who don’t feel comfortable investing a large amount of money (or even any money at all) into a mobile game, aren’t pushed into it. It also seems that there aren’t any “limited time” events or content. They may roll out new content, but it won’t actively go away, at least not permanently.

I’m happy about that because it means that even if I leave the game for a month, I can come back and pick up where I left off. Yes, I’ll miss out on login bonuses, but I’ll get them, just at a slower pace. Every character you can unlock has side quests and side content too, so even if you get low rarity characters, they can still be useful.

Now, with the mobile game trappings aside, let’s talk about Another Eden’s story and its gameplay overall. In Another Eden, you play as Aldo (and his allies) as he attempts to save his sister Feinne, who has unknown powers and has been taken. Aldo must travel between multiple time periods, altering the past to save the future, and his sister. You explore various environments, fighting enemies, collecting items, and undergoing quests and side quests.

Items can be found either from chests or from sparkling areas on the ground, both in towns and in field environments. You can have a party of four characters, with two reserve characters. Those characters get XP from battles, the rest of your characters do not. However, you can also level characters with scrolls, which provide a certain amount of XP.

As a character levels, they acquire skill points that can be used in their own personal skill trees. As they progress through the trees they get both passive bonuses to stats and skills to use in battle. You can also purchase equipment in towns that will increase the stats and combat efficacy of characters. Purchasing equipment uses gold rather than the premium currency, so just like a typical RPG, if you need more gold you can fight enemies for loot to sell in order to get the equipment you need.

Combat is entirely turn-based, with strategy you would find in classic RPGs. Things like status ailments, debuffs, buffs, elemental weaknesses, all show up in combat. As you progress, your characters can also get special moves called “Another Force” attacks, which are powerful abilities similar to Limit Breaks from Final Fantasy.

The combat is easy to understand and feels a lot like older RPGs. In fact, this is where I admit something rather shocking. After a while, I forgot I was playing an RPG designed for mobile devices. The art style is beautiful, the gameplay is fun, the music is fantastic, and the voice acting is incredibly well done.

Despite what it may look like on the outside, Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space, feels more like a successor to Chrono Trigger for the modern age, than a mobile RPG. Yes, the trappings and mechanics familiar to mobile games are in there, but a lot of the more intrusive things you see in mobile games are absent. No ads, no pay-to-win tactics, just an RPG that gets regular content updates with a few mobile game mechanics added on.

The big downside I think for a lot of people, aside from the whole mobile game standards, is that there is limited controller support on PC. You can play with a keyboard and mouse, and honestly, you can play almost entirely with a mouse other than moving the character during exploration. There may be a way around this that I haven’t found yet though, so that is something to keep in mind.

Let’s get to the real talk here, shall we? If you are someone that has very little self-control and spends way too much on microtransactions, this game is probably not a good thing for you. Even though the microtransactions are optional, I can see people getting sucked in by cool characters and just finding themselves spending way too much.

However, if you (like me) could play a game on your phone entirely without spending money except on occasions when you just feel like something is worth supporting, this is a serviceable JRPG for you. The story is great, the characters are great, the art and music are well done, and overall the quality is definitely there. This is not some mobile cash-grab, this is a new RPG designed for mobile devices that you can play on PC.

There are a few bugs here and there, but there are regular patches to fix things as they are reported, so that is something to be aware of. Overall, I am pleasantly surprised by Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space. I went in with low expectations and it exceeded them completely.

A PC review copy of Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space was provided by WFS Inc. for this review.

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Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space

Free

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Great Storyline
• Regular Content Updates
• Beautiful Art Style
• No Pay-To-Win Mechanics
• Microtransactions are Optional

Cons

• Microtransactions Can be Harmful to Some People
• Limited Controller Support