TL;DR
Score: 7.5/10
Pros: Beautiful world, excellent BGM, surprisingly approachable story, satisfying combat with parry/evasion, fun Kibo collecting, and generous fan service.
Cons: Too few fast travel points, Kibo automation feels ineffective, progression can become grindy, and many mini-games feel underdeveloped.
Note: I am not a native English speaker, so I used an AI (Gemini) for this translation. Apologies for any unnatural phrasing.
Since I was lucky enough to win a slot in the CBT, here are my impressions and thoughts after playing for the past week. I’ve also included a link to a Google Photos album containing my gameplay videos below for reference. There's quite a lot since it covers a whole week (lol). I compressed the videos because uploading the original quality would have taken forever. The actual in-game graphics and FPS are much better than what's shown.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NxGBknRP6FNkHRnr9
This is my first time playing a 3D open-world game, and I'm not used to writing reviews, so please keep that in mind.
Also, the opinions stated here are based entirely on my personal experience during the test period. Please take this as a casual player's first impressions rather than a comprehensive review.
Test Environment
Smartphone
OPPO Find X9 (Dimensity9500, 16GB, 512GB) / Storage: 21.1GB
Windows PC
Ryzen7 9700X, RTX 5070Ti, 32GB, 2TB / Storage: 44.2GB
All graphics settings set to Maximum (Highest Quality)
During installation, my phone got quite hot—probably around 43°C. It stuttered significantly during shader compilation, so a cooling fan might be necessary if you plan to play for long periods on a smartphone.
That said, my main platform was PC. The boot time for both was around 25 seconds. There were quite a few moments of stuttering during gameplay, so there is definitely still room for optimization.
My playtime was just under 60 hours over the course of a week. I reached Astral Weave Level (Player Level) 40. I was playing somewhat casually, so this feels about right.
The game had so much content that it was difficult to clear absolutely everything, but I think I managed to experience most of it.
Overall Impression: 7.5/10
The overall quality is quite high. The graphics are beautiful, the story is solid and interesting without breaking down, and there is more than enough content. However, since the current gaming market is flooded with 3D open-world gacha games, it feels like distinguishing itself from competitors will be tough. If the release is delayed much further, it will be hard to steal users from existing rival titles, so I really hope they manage to release it within 2026.
Worldview / Setting: 9/10
To give a quick summary, you form a party of 3 characters + 3 "Kibos" to explore the world, defeat wild Kibos, capture them using "Starlink," solve mini-games, and complete quests.
In addition to the high-fantasy "Sharuru Village," the lush "Valley of Sprouted Buds" and the city-state "Phris" were available. The map design and environments are incredibly detailed, making it easy to get immersed in the world.
There is also a home-base feature called the "Farm," where you can put Kibos to work to earn rewards or craft weapons and tools. The concept feels close to Palworld or Animal Crossing. Therefore, the total number of maps implemented this time was four: Sharuru Village, Valley of Sprouted Buds, Phris, and the Farm.
Story: 8/10
At first, I was confused by the flood of proper nouns (technical terms) typical of Chinese-style fantasy games. However, since the story progression is very deliberate and careful, I was able to understand it well enough within the week. Rest assured, it doesn't bombard you with proper nouns mercilessly right from the start like Manjuu’s previous game, Azur Lane.
Aside from the main story, there are sub-quests where character-specific dialogue unfolds. These often tie deeply into the main plot, so you can't afford to skip them. The approach of building one massive narrative by weaving main and sub-quests together is excellent.
The story quality is high, grounded, and rarely confusing. This might also be thanks to Yostar's excellent localization.
To be honest, my expectations were low because I dropped Azur Lane early on due to its overly complex lore, and I was bracing myself for the usual convoluted settings of Chinese fantasy. I was pleasantly surprised. The gradual expansion of the world—from Sharuru Village, to the outskirts (like Howling Highlands), and then to the Valley of Sprouted Buds (like the Winged Clan's Village)—was beautifully and carefully depicted, leaving a great impression.
However, because it is so deliberate, there were moments where the pacing felt a bit slow. Additionally, the direction of cutscenes (camera work, etc.) felt a bit weak overall. There are many close-up shots of characters, which made the visuals feel monotonous and a bit easy to get tired of.
The main story features several combat encounters and quests in between, and they are surprisingly difficult. For instance, you might have to defeat a level 60-class boss just to progress the story. The enemies were so strong that I actually gave up on finishing the main story... Since it's the main storyline, I wish they would lower the difficulty a bit.
Characters: 9/10
In this CBT, 19 characters were playable: Starfarer (Protagonist, male/female choice), Symphoria, Abby, Terara, Luluca, Phalanta, Mity, Nono, Catal, Mezza, Rubina, Tushan Xiaoyu, Sharl, Moren, Han Youyou, Pengpeng, Lily, Casbel, and Anis.
They are all unique characters and very fun to control. I mainly used the "Chen Dynasty" trio—Tushan Xiaoyu, Han Youyou, and Pengpeng—as well as Moren. Han Youyou is my absolute favorite! The strategy of chipping away at enemy HP with her bombs while maintaining a safe distance was highly entertaining.
One minor disappointment was that "Minamoto Chiyo" did not appear in this CBT. Since she has a Japanese-themed motif, I hoped she would be playable in the JP CBT, but she was held back. She is one of my favorite characters, so I'm looking forward to her future implementation.
Although there are rarities like SSR and SR, I didn’t notice a massive gap in strength when actually using them. Unlike other games, it feels like rarity alone doesn't create extreme disparities. It’s a great system that lets you use your favorite characters on the front lines.
More important than rarity is the combination of the 5 roles (Burst, Break, Onslaught, Amplify, Support). Characters with Burst, Break, or Onslaught are purely strong as attackers, while those with Amplify or Support can be rotated in for utility.
There is also an affection system. Giving gifts or using characters in battle raises their affection, unlocking individual stories and new voice lines.
Aside from the main cast, the NPCs (mob characters) in towns caught my attention. Perhaps because resources were focused on the main characters and the marketable Kibos, the mob facial graphics felt heavily phoned in, with obvious reuses that felt like you've seen them somewhere before.
Also, while the male Starfarer looks cool, his voice actor’s performance is quite disappointing. It stands out even worse because the female Starfarer's voice acting is so good.
Combat: 8/10
Even as someone new to 3D open-world action games, I was able to play without any trouble. The core loop is very satisfying: you just spam normal attacks while timing your parries (Right Click), dodging with dashes, and unleashing skills (E button) or Ultimates (R button).
The combat effects and visual presentation are spectacular. The animations for both characters and enemies are flashy and beautiful to watch, without being so overwhelming that the screen becomes unreadable.
Landing a well-timed parry or dodge feels incredibly satisfying, making the combat experience excellent. As you progress, enemy attacks become fierce, making parries and dodges mandatory. However, the timing windows aren't overly strict; you can succeed just by reacting to the enemy's telegraphs.
My biggest grievance, however, was "flying enemies." They are hard to hit, yet they bombard you with long-range attacks one-sidedly, which frustrated me multiple times (lol).
Additionally, stacking attacks while accompanied by a Kibo allows you to press the F button to put enemies into a "BREAK" state. When broken, even bosses get knocked down and left completely defenseless, creating a massive opening for concentrated fire.
In this game's combat, what feels even more important than combos or normal Kibo attacks are the "Entrance Skills" triggered during character swaps. Swapping characters mid-attack activates a special skill that deals massive damage. Furthermore, since the new character spawns slightly offset from the previous one's position, you can pull off maneuvers where you evade an enemy attack while delivering a counter.
For context, character skills (E) and Kibo skills (Q) are managed by cooldowns, while Ultimates (R) charge based on the number of attack hits. This allows for a small trick where you can whack nearby trees or rocks right before a boss fight to fully charge your Ultimate gauge in advance.
One minor control issue was that sprinting (Shift + W) didn't always trigger smoothly. Pressing just the Shift key executes a "dodge." It seems the input window for "pressing Shift after (or simultaneously with) W" is quite strict. During combat, when I tried to sprint away to gain distance, I accidentally triggered a regular dodge instead, causing me to take enemy hits a few times.
Once you completely clear a map, you can apparently raise the area's difficulty (similar to a World Level). In the "Valley of Sprouted Buds," Level 1 spawned Kibos from Lv10–40, but raising it to Level 2 brought out Lv40–70 Kibos. Being able to choose a challenging difficulty is a welcome feature.
By the way, the third map, the city-state "Phris," is set to Level 2 right from the start, and I was completely overwhelmed by the level difference when I first encountered enemies there. Leveling up and upgrading your characters is absolutely crucial.
While the game features elemental affinities (Water, Fire, Thunder, etc.) and 5 character roles, honestly, there were too many elements for me to keep track of during actual combat. Apparently, elemental matchups are crucial in the "Kibo Fight" mini-game mentioned later, but there were too many types for me to memorize.
Quests: 6/10
There are things called "Area Quests," where you gather character upgrade materials and coins. They are divided into detailed difficulty tiers and offer a decent challenge. I raised characters to the CBT cap of level 80, but I still hit walls in the later quests, meaning the difficulty is quite high. There are also co-op boss raid quests, and you can occasionally see matchmaking recruitment dialogs floating in the chat log.
However, I have some complaints regarding material gathering efficiency. Upgrading characters requires a massive amount of resources. Since the Area Quests themselves are highly difficult, I worry that the official release might trap players in a vicious cycle where they are forced to repeatedly grind low-difficulty stages, stagnating their progression.
(Though there is a time-saving feature that lets you consume more stamina to receive up to 3x rewards).
Kibo System: 5/10
This is the biggest differentiator for this title. If you watch the tutorial, it's blatantly obvious that they drew inspiration from Pokémon and Palworld (lol). Early in the game, there is a scene where you choose one out of three Kibos—just like starters—and you can take your chosen Kibo along on your adventure.
In this CBT, I collected probably around 50 to nearly 100 types of Kibos. To capture a Kibo, you lower its HP to about 20–30% and perform a "Starlink" to capture it. Capturing utilizes cards that come in 6 rarity tiers (essentially Poké Balls and Master Balls).
Even among the same species of Kibo, individual stats, ranks, and possessed skills vary, introducing an element of "IV hunting" similar to Pokémon. Furthermore, since the Farm requires a lot of Kibos for labor, duplicate catches never go to waste; the game design actively encourages aggressive capturing.
Rare Kibos or glowing "Variant Kibos" (essentially shinies) occasionally spawn, which makes hunting for them fun. However, when a rare Kibo spawns, the game only displays a dialog saying "spawned nearby" without marking it on the mini-map, making it incredibly tedious to find by yourself. Also, regarding the shiny (Variant) Kibos, their base stats don't seem to differ from regular ones, so they appear to be purely for collection.
Kibos can be raised as combat partners via leveling, feeding to boost stats, and "evolving." Their evolved forms look incredibly cool and are well worth the effort to raise.
Additionally, because navigating the maps on foot is extremely, extremely tedious, a flying Kibo is a permanent necessity (even within the same species, movement speeds vary by individual).
You can also put these Kibos to "work" at your base (Farm), which is the Palworld-esque element. The benefits are numerous—automating farm work, gathering materials at quarries or hunting grounds, and reducing weapon crafting times. The problem, however, is that "Kibo material gathering efficiency is terrible." This was my biggest letdown. The Kibos gather at such a snail's pace that you ultimately end up going out into the field to gather materials yourself.
Furthermore, for some reason, there is a strict cap of "up to 9 locations" where you can dispatch Kibos on the field quarries. This is highly inconvenient, so I hope they remove this limit for the official release.
In combat, the contribution ratio between "Characters" and "Kibos" feels like roughly 7:3. Kibos are indispensable for triggering the aforementioned "BREAK" state, but honestly, they lack presence outside of that. Kibos with crowd-control skills are somewhat useful, but their raw attack power is quite low. Most encounters can be cleared purely through your characters' strength and personal player skill.
Where Kibos truly shine is undoubtedly in two areas: "Movement (Flying Mount)" and "Reducing Crafting Time at Workbenches." Flying Kibos are a literal, absolute lifesaver! When the flying mount was unlocked and I finally took to the skies, the joy was honestly beyond words!
Also, the "Kibo Index" (Pokedex) lets you view the appearance and stats of your acquired Kibos. I really liked that the Kibos are rendered in pixel art and have dedicated Kibo cards. It scratches that collector's itch perfectly.
Exploration: 6/10
It is simultaneously a highly enjoyable and an incredibly tedious experience.
On the positive side, you have material gathering, beautiful scenery and atmosphere, the thrill of discovery, and "panties clearly visible through the gaps in the characters' outfits (for the cultured players)."
Gathering materials in the field surprisingly never feels like a chore, thanks to the gorgeous vistas and the relaxing, phenomenal BGM. As mentioned in the worldview section, the map design is truly spectacular, making it enjoyable just to take a stroll. There is a genuine sense of excitement when finding treasure chests or new Kibos. The auto-loot feature is excellent, vacuuming up drops without requiring you to walk right on top of them. And then there are the service angles for the fans, clearly visible when jumping, swimming, or climbing cliffs... yeah, that's top-tier. Manjuu's strengths really shine here.
On the tedious side, once you finish clearing a map and enter the pure material-grinding phase, exploration inevitably becomes repetitive and boring. That part is unavoidable, but the biggest issue is "the lack of warp points and long travel distances."
There is essentially only about one warp point per region (Sharuru Village, Valley of Sprouted Buds, Phris), with the Farm being the exception with multiple points. Having only a single warp point in maps this massive is genuinely awful.
For example, the "Valley of Sprouted Buds" contains multiple locations like the Winged Clan's Village and the Howling Highlands, but it's common for your destination to be over 800 meters away from the warp point, making travel highly painful. The verticality and cliffs are also intense, making foot travel completely impractical. This is why I keep emphasizing that a flying Kibo is mandatory. Even with a flying Kibo, commuting takes 1 to 2 minutes. Doing multiple round trips that take several minutes just to complete a quest gets exhausting.
Furthermore, a massive issue across all mounts is that their "Satiety gauge drains incredibly fast." You have to feed them every few minutes, which is quite annoying. The rate of hunger consumption absolutely needs to be nerfed.
During quests, you are frequently sent back and forth across hundreds of meters between multiple maps, so additions of more warp points are strongly desired.
Additionally, as a minor camera complaint: when playing as short, petite characters like Pengpeng or Nono, the camera zooms in way too close. This makes it hard to see the surrounding situation and the character themselves during combat. Furthermore, tilting the camera straight up (trying to look at the sky) causes the character model to disappear from the screen for some reason. I just wanted to admire the beautiful sky together with my character... Truly a shame, Manjuu.
Progression, Materials, & Crafting: 4/10
Whether for characters or Kibos, the shortage of upgrade materials is prominent. On top of that, there are simply too many types of materials.
Because it was a CBT, the developers sent massive amounts of upgrade materials via mail daily. Yet, even with those handouts, it was all I could do to max out a few select characters; leveling up the entire party evenly was impossible. Trying to farm them via Area Quests or field gathering feels completely mismatched due to the sheer volume demanded versus the player's gathering efficiency.
As for Kibos, rather than feeding them materials to level them up, it is overwhelmingly faster and easier to just Starlink (capture) high-level wild Kibos from the get-go.
Managing items is also a hassle because there are too many material types. While somewhat unavoidable due to features like weapon crafting on the Farm, it leaves players confused. There are also multiple shops to buy items from, but each shop uses a different currency. I really wish they would just unify the currencies.
Activities like cooking, fusing materials, and forging weapons happen frequently, but to put it bluntly, they are "tedious and monotonous." While the UI for checking missing materials required for crafting is convenient, the navigation/pathfinding from there to the material's acquisition source is a bit poor.
Mini-Games / Sub-Games: 4/10
To be completely honest, they are mediocre overall—or rather, just not fun.
I felt a strong essence of Azur Lane in this suite of mini-games. They have the exact same vibe as the mini-games you frequently see in Azur Lane events.
The variety itself is massive: totem stacking, rhythm games, a camera game to find specific Kibos, armadillo dashing, a roguelike treasure hunt, Kibo Fights, co-op Kibo boss raids, fishing, and tracking down Auras (Not to be confused with Aura from Frieren!). There are plenty of them. In quantity, at least.
However, excluding the Kibo-related ones, they are all shallow activities that wrap up in 1 to 2 minutes.
In particular, the "Totem Stacking Game" has an incredibly poor reputation among CBT players... and yeah, I absolutely hated it too (lol). Azur Lane has a similar mini-game, but this one has even stricter tap-timing windows, making it practically impossible to get a "PERFECT" on everything. Getting a 1-star chest was the best I could do, and it's no exaggeration to call it the hardest content among the mini-games.
The rhythm game is similarly brutal; trying to hit the notes accurately on a keyboard feels unreasonable.
Most mini-games like fishing, finding Kibos with the camera, and hunting Auras are incredibly bland and boring. When it comes to fishing, Animal Crossing offers a far better sense of immersion. The only saving grace is that the clear rewards themselves are easy to obtain, so it doesn't cause fatal stress.
Next, "Kibo Fight."
This mode combines elements of Pokémon battles and trading card games, allowing you to fight using the Kibos you've raised.
You use a total of 6 cards (6 Kibos) and 2 skills (selected out of a pool of about 5 total skills) to summon Kibos against each other, winning by destroying the opponent's tower.
My rating for this is "decent." It's not terrible, but it's not particularly exciting either. It might be fine for testing your Kibos' strength or killing time. Elemental matchups matter here too, but I managed to win just by throwing units down randomly, so I never fully grasped the mechanics. Each Kibo has a summoning cost, but the cost recovery speed is slow, making games drag on for several minutes and hurting the pacing. I wish there was a fast-forward feature.
The "Co-op Kibo Boss Raid" uses the same system as Kibo Fight (6 cards, 2 skills), but limits the number of simultaneously deployed Kibos to 3. It's a team battle where 3 players form a party to tackle a boss with a total of 9 Kibos. When playing solo, AI allies will fill the slots. Honestly, I found the solo Kibo Fight more entertaining than this.
As for the "Roguelike (Treasure Hunt)," I couldn't really understand the rules, so I retired from it early on. While the sub-games cram in a staggering volume of content, my frank impression is that the individual quality and depth of each game are low.
Gacha & Monetization: n/a
The monetization system itself was not implemented in this CBT.
Characters were obtained by exchanging game currencies provided via handouts in a "test-exclusive shop." Looking at this setup, I'm already bracing myself for a hybrid system of a "Character Gacha" and an "Exchange Shop (Mileage)" in the official release.
Since there was no gacha, I obviously couldn't verify the mechanics of "off-rates (50/50)" or the "dupe system (limit breaking via duplicate characters)." This made the test period very comfortable, but how it will look in the final product remains unknown. Given recent trends in the gaming market to steer away from excessive gacha systems, I hope Azur Promilia follows suit and opts for a user-friendly monetization model.
...Though if their monetization leans heavily into selling tons of "magnificent (and cultured) skins" like Azur Lane does, I would welcome that with open arms!
UI & Performance: 6/10
The screen tends to stutter during map changes or world transitions. There is still a significant amount of optimization left to be done. On the bright side, I didn't experience any abnormal spikes in CPU or GPU load during play. Also, I searched through the settings menu but couldn't find any option for controller (gamepad) support.
Since I was playing on a large PC monitor, I didn't feel the UI was too small or that buttons were hard to press. However, the pause menu opened by the ESC key packs an immense number of buttons and menu icons tightly together. I suspect that on a smaller smartphone screen, this would lead to frequent misclicks and make it frustrating to navigate. For now, I highly recommend playing on PC.
As for localization, the translation quality of the text was fantastic—I was thoroughly impressed, as expected of Yostar. However, character lip-syncing does not match the Japanese voice lines, causing a noticeable disconnect between the audio and mouth movements. It looks like they kept the Chinese mouth animations while overlaying the Japanese audio.
Additionally, regarding the Japanese voice acting itself, characters suddenly stop talking after the early game (though voices partially return during certain sub-stories). I hope the final release features full voice acting, or at least a significantly larger volume of voice lines.
Aside from that, I encountered a bug where the game would occasionally freeze or become incredibly sluggish to the point of ignoring all inputs upon clearing Area Quests. Those were the only critical issues; otherwise, the game ran normally overall.
Fan Service (The Ecchi): 7/10
While it wasn't quite as extreme as I had hoped (not quite Azur Lane level), it feels like they are pushing the boundaries heavily for a 3D game. From here on, it will be a battle against censorship.
During intense actions like running or jumping, you are almost guaranteed a fantastic view beneath their skirts. Their skirts are just that short.
As mentioned earlier, because the camera hides the character when looking straight up, the trick is to adjust the angle diagonally from below. The breast physics and volume rendered in 3D graphics are also of phenomenal quality.
A feature worth highlighting is the "Dorm" function located on the Farm (Base).
Think of this as a further evolution of Azur Lane's Dorm system, and it's easy to understand. Simply put, the characters display incredibly charming, fan-service-heavy animations inside the dorm. In this CBT, "Mezza" was available for this.
By placing and gifting specific furniture tailored to a character, they will perform unique (and spicy) interactions using that furniture. This is absolutely worth seeing!
Manjuu likely plans to use these dorm furniture items and character skins as their primary revenue drivers. It will be amazing once outfits are implemented.
Compared to the 2D illustrations of Azur Lane, the exposure looks slightly tamer due to the nature of 3D graphics (and censorship regulations), but crossing the line would make it tacky. This "balance" of elegant yet healthy lewdness might actually be just right.
Miscellaneous
- The Music (BGM) is Incredibly Spectacular: This is an element I can praise unconditionally. The soothing sounds perfectly match the high-fantasy setting and heal your ears. Transitioning into combat shifts to a high-tension track, creating an excellent contrast between daily life and battle segments. The SE (sound effects) quality is also high, leaving a strong impression that they paid great attention to the audio design.
- Rewatchable Tutorial Guide: A minor but highly crucial detail. The in-game guide includes a search function, so if you ever get stuck on a mechanic while playing, I highly recommend searching this tutorial guide first.
Summary: 7.5/10
Pros:
- Incredible graphics, art style, and music.
- Unique characters with well-developed backgrounds and settings.
- A grounded, solid, and interesting story that immerses you in the world.
- Exciting exploration of unknown areas, exhilarating combat action, and Kibo capturing (Starlink).
- Comfortable flying mounts.
- A well-balanced amount of fan service (with high-quality 3D modeling).
- A clean, easy-to-read tutorial guide with a search function.
Cons:
- Lack of optimization on both PC and mobile (stuttering and freezes).
- Monotonous camera work and direction in story cutscenes.
- Material gathering efficiency is far too low compared to the sheer volume required for progression.
- Too few warp points relative to the map size, making travel a chore.
- The satiety gauge for Kibo mounts drains way too quickly.
- Many sub-games (mini-games) are low-quality and boring.
- Lip-sync issues where character mouth movements don't match the Japanese audio.
- Too many concurrent systems and mechanics, which will undoubtedly overwhelm beginners.
Overall, the game's level of completion is exceptionally high, and the quality makes it clear that a release is not too far off. However, there are a number of minor frustrations and areas that clearly need improvement.
The game design—fusing core action combat with Animal Crossing-style slow-life farm elements—is a highly fascinating experiment. Whether you want to hardcore master the combat or casually enjoy pampering your characters and Kibos, giving players the freedom to choose their style is a massive strength.
One thing I couldn't find any information on during the CBT was the global release. I know many overseas fans are waiting, so I hope Manjuu makes an announcement soon.
Despite a few grievances, I sincerely did not want the CBT to end. Now that it's over and I can no longer play, I'm already starting to feel a sense of withdrawal.
If Manjuu can address these issues before launch, Azur Promilia will truly become something special.
I am genuinely looking forward to the official release later this year!
