Gacha RPGs are a dime a dozen in the Play Store, so the ones that make an effort to stick out from the crowd, such as NEXON’s LYN: The Lightbringer, excel at garnering attention, and rightly so. This one has dynamic, team-based combat, beautiful graphics, and a long, engaging, and mature storyline to set it apart from the crowd. The game follows the story of Jean, a young man who became a vessel for light, on his quest to right the wrongs set into motion centuries ago during a war between the gods of dark and light.
The story is one of the big things that sets this game apart from others. While almost any gacha RPG will have some variation of the classic hero’s quest trope, this one goes hog wild with characterization, and just about all of the many recruitable characters you’ll win, purchase, or encounter in the story have their own backstory, personality, and even a role in the main story in many cases. The story itself is appropriately dark and examines a number of mature themes like war, death, and humanity.
A lot of people don’t play gacha games for the story, but the collectibles. Despite the vast amount of work required to bring each of the vibrant and beautifully animated characters to life, there are quite a few of them. They were created by famed illustrator Jeong Juno, who collaborated with NEXON to create the game. To be specific, they were all lovingly brought to life as cel-shaded 3D models based on Jeong’s original illustrations. His handiwork is evident all throughout the game world, but nowhere more so than the numerous valiant warriors who can be brought into your fold to fight by Jean’s side.
The combat system in this game is one of the more unique things about it. Players are given free reign over the movement and actions of a party of characters all at once, and will have to carefully manage each character. Key decisions like who will use a healing spell or item, who will lead the charge against a large enemy, and who will cover a retreat, as well as how all of those things will be done, all have to be made on a split-second basis. There are huge monsters in the game that serve as raid bosses, and will, in most cases, require multiple player parties working together in real time to take down. Naturally, players can fight one another, as well.
LYN: The Lightbringer is one of the most beautifully animated RPGs in the Play Store right now, and if you’re a fan of mobile RPGs, you’d be remiss to pass it up. It’s available for free, so as long as you’ve got enough free space and a decent device that’s capable of running the extremely detailed graphics, there’s no real reason not to give this game a shot. It’s trying to set a new bar for mobile RPGs by refusing to imitate console RPGs, while also refusing to succumb to the normal tropes of the mobile gaming scene. Should it become popular, we’ll likely see more high-quality, free-to-play RPGs hitting the Play Store in the near future.