STARSEED: Asnia Trigger | |||
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Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger takes you to a battleground where seven factions fight for the future of a world where humanity is almost extinct. Read our review to see what the game does well, what it doesn’t do well, and if it’s worth getting for yourself.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Review Overview
What is STARSEED: Asnia Trigger?
Humanity has been leveraging eight highly advanced Artificial Intelligence "Themes" to progress the so called ‘Asnia Project.’ However, upon contact with a new peculiar substance known as the Starseed, one of the more powerful AI, Redshift, went rogue. The Seven themes now must band together to fight the war that the Redshift has started.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger features:
⚫︎ Progression-based resource allocation
⚫︎ Formation-based combat with deployable units
⚫︎ Character gacha system
⚫︎ Team synergy and buffs based on unit composition
⚫︎ Character upgrades through gear, exclusive equipment, etc.
⚫︎ Various PvP and PvE modes
⚫︎ Daily and weekly rewards
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about STARSEED: Asnia Trigger's gameplay and story.
Digital Storefronts | |||||
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App Store | Google Play | ||||
Price | Free-to-play |
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Pros & Cons
Pros | Cons |
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Great Voice Acting Where It’s Present
Simple, Straightforward Plot
Tons of Early Currency
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Gacha-Heavy Progression
Core Gameplay is Just Watching It
Audio So Average, You’ll Forget It’s There
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STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Overall Score - 68/100
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger is a decent mobile game with great audiovisuals and plenty of lore and miscellaneous content. None of these aspects are particularly groundbreaking, however. Its core gameplay also leaves much to be desired, and the methods it uses to push players toward pulling in its gacha system are less than admirable. Many of the game’s aspects can be described as “having potential,” but not much more. And that’s quite a shame.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Story - 8/10
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s plot is straightforward, and if you’re familiar with this type of story, you can probably predict about 90% of what will happen. However, the game is aware of its simplicity and doesn’t attempt to overreach. What really elevates the story score from a 7 to an 8 is the sheer volume of narrative content, including character, faction, and event stories. This abundance of content helps flesh out the game’s world, even if it occasionally feels like it’s done by brute force.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Gameplay - 6/10
Despite featuring multiple mechanics aimed at adding depth, STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s gameplay ultimately boils down to the same basic loop as many of its peers: power up your characters, place them in optimal positions on the field, and watch them fight from a distance. Fortunately, the first of its rotating events shows promise, potentially giving the game new life every month or so.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Visuals - 8/10
If I were to describe STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s visuals in two words, they would be “missed opportunity.” A lot of work went into the models, artwork, animations, and UI, obviously. But despite their beauty, everything feels just one step away from greatness. For instance, the combat, boring as it may be, could have been more engaging with dynamic camera angles. It would also be more visually appealing if the game used chibi models (like those in the guild lobby and minigames) for combat and reserved the full-body models for story cutscenes and character profiles.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Audio - 7/10
The most notable aspect of STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s audio is its voice acting, which is well-executed and nearly omnipresent throughout the main story. I say nearly because there are random lines that, oddly, lack voice acting. They’re also almost entirely absent from side stories aside from quips.. Beyond that, the sound effects are unremarkable, and the background music is so uninspiring that you might prefer listening to your own tunes while playing.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Value for Money - 5/10
While STARSEED: Asnia Trigger offers relatively decent gacha rates (by today’s standards), it uses duplicate characters in a way that feels frustrating: promotions. A character’s maximum level is tied to their rarity, which can only be improved through promotions, creating a pay-to-win system that becomes more pronounced as players reach endgame sections. Promotions are even required to unlock equipment slots and other strengthening opportunities. Additionally, the shop prices are quite steep.
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Review: A Visual Feast with a Pricey Appetite
Soccer Spirits is my favorite mobile game of all time. I still go back to it every now and then, years after the development team moved on to other projects but left the servers open for fans (I’m assuming because the devs and publishers are attached to it too). Made by BigBall and published by Com2uS, it’s a game that’s still special to me, so I feel almost obligated to try out new releases from the latter considering BigBall is already gone.
Now, STARSEED: Asnia Trigger is only published by Com2uS, but its actual developers, MOJITO GAMES (now JoyCity), also made Game of Dice; another game I really, really liked.
Anyway, that brings us to STARSEED: Asnia Trigger, a game I probably would’ve missed if Com2uS wasn’t involved. It’s an RPG with minimal hands-on gameplay in lieu of an almost eyebrow-raising amount of extra content.
The Story Is Straightforward but Effective
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger's backstory goes like this: Humanity has been leveraging eight highly advanced Artificial Intelligence called the "Themes" to progress the so called "Asnia Project," a massive undertaking meant to progress humanity centuries into the future. However, upon contact with a new peculiar substance known as the Starseed, one of the more powerful AI, Redshift, went rogue and ordered for the complete elimination of humanity. The remaining seven Themes now must band together to fight the war that the Redshift has started.
Now, a game’s main story is rarely considered “extra content.” But given how STARSEED: Asnia Trigger handles the story after Chapter 1, you’d think it was anything but a main feature.
It’s not that there isn’t a story past the first chapter. There’s actually quite a lot—if you take the time to go to the Story menu, that is. That’s because after Chapter 1, all main stages no longer contain story cutscenes; instead, they unlock them piecemeal in a separate section. And if you took the time to read through every single cutscene in the main story alone, you’d probably spend an extra half-hour doing so for every chapter. The only question is: is it actually any good?
Surprisingly, yes. No spoilers, but the plot is simple, and most twists are predictable. However, STARSEED: Asnia Trigger doesn’t try to overreach and fail; instead, it sticks to what it can achieve, even using subtle foreshadowing without forcing the narrative.
The end result is uncomplicated and, yeah, seemingly average, with some rushed pacing and plenty of convenient developments. But I don’t think a story has to be as deep as a critically-acclaimed novel to work; it just needs to know what it’s trying to be and deliver. STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s main story, even with all the fluff and cringey moments, does exactly that.
A Game of Watching
Let’s ignore all the extra content for a moment and focus on the core gameplay: combat.
Simply put, you place up to five characters on a 3x3 grid, decide which lanes get buffs, and let the AI do the rest. That’s it. Sure, there are nuances, like matching elements to exploit weaknesses or using skills manually (though you can also leave that to Auto-Play), but even that doesn’t exactly scream “exciting.” Although, it does mean it’s easy to learn, even with its basic onboarding process.
To make things worse, the game doesn’t even use dynamic camera angles to make combat a bit more fun to watch except for its skill cutscenes.
Now, I wanted to ignore the other modes because those are actually pretty fun. There’s an unexpectedly and even unnecessarily detailed social media feature, a ton of decently entertaining character stories, and the seasonal “Seaside Run” minigame is shockingly addictive.
Tons of Content
Aside from the main stages, STARSEED: Asnia Trigger has a ton of other content. There’s a social media simulator with the in-game characters, a Tower mode where you can see how high you can climb against your friends, material-farming Simulators, seasonal and permanent minigames, character dispatches, faction stories, PvP, guild activities, raids—you name it, this game probably has it.
Except a Tower Defense mode. But hey, that might just come soon!
If there weren’t limits on how many times you can play certain modes, you could easily spend hours on your first day and still not see everything this game has to offer. And, of course, every bit of content comes with rewards of varying amounts.
The Voice Acting is the Only Good Audio
When I started the game and heard the solid voice acting for the main characters in the visual novel-like dialogues and animated cutscenes, I thought STARSEED: Asnia Trigger might have a fully voice-acted main story like some of its higher-budget peers. I was right—partly, at least. Oddly enough, some unvoiced lines sporadically appear, almost like they were added after recording finished. It’s jarring, but tolerable at least.
Unfortunately, the audio experience only goes downhill from there. The background music? Completely forgettable. Sound effects? Bland and uninspired. Even interacting with the game’s interface gets old fast because of how stock everything sounds.
Progression Brought to You by the Gacha
Characters in STARSEED: Asnia Trigger can be strengthened in various ways, with leveling being the simplest. However, unlike most games, the resources you need to level up are time-gated. The game doles these out in increasing amounts depending on your main campaign progress.
This setup has a few problems. First, it encourages players to spend currency to get items that accelerate resource accumulation. Second, you can’t just grind to compensate for not spending because of this time-based hard cap. And most importantly, it pressures you to log in every twelve hours, which is roughly when your storage maxes out.
The bigger issue comes later with the promotion system, which relies on character duplicates, and mainly functions by increasing a character’s max level. But you don’t just need duplicates of the character you want. You also need additional lower-rarity characters as fodder for intermediate promotions. This setup encourages constant pulling, even if you’re lucky enough to get several duplicates of your favorite character.
Sure, there’s a level sync feature that lets lower-promotion characters match the level of higher-promotion ones. But that’s barely a cause for celebration, as promotion also unlocks crucial features like certain equipment slots and the option to optimize a character’s stats (essentially just giving them a more substantial stat bonus). Basically, the game nudges you toward pulling as often as possible, as much as possible.
Is STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Worth It?
Only if You Treat It as a Side Game
Despite how nice STARSEED: Asnia Trigger’s visuals are, and even through the rose-tinted glasses I use to look at Com2uS releases, I would advise any player willing to give STARSEED: Asnia Trigger a shot to treat it as a side game. Don’t spend too much, if any, money on it, as you’d quickly find that any modest investment would fall far short of what you’d actually need.
Of course, if you regularly spend several hundred dollars on mobile games each season, feel free to ignore this advice and carry on, because STARSEED: Asnia Trigger does substantially reward big spenders.
Digital Storefronts | |||||
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App Store | Google Play | ||||
Price | Free-to-play |
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger FAQ
How many SSR characters does STARSEED: Asnia Trigger have?
STARSEED: Asnia Trigger launched with 34 SSR characters, including their limited character Sia.
Who is the best character to reroll for in STARSEED: Asnia Trigger?
The best character to reroll for in STARSEED: Asnia Trigger is definitely Sia. Not only is she very strong in both PvE and PvP modes, she is also relatively easy to obtain from her event banner.
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STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Product Information
Title | STARSEED: ASNIA TRIGGER |
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Release Date | October 31, 2024 |
Developer | MOJITOGAMES |
Publisher | Com2uS |
Supported Platforms | Mobile(iOS, Android) |
Genre | RPG, Strategy, Gacha, Anime |
Number of Players | Single-Player(1) |
Rating | IARC 16 |
Official Website | STARSEED: Asnia Trigger Official Website |
Soccer spirits enjoyer? Based