Should you play Love and Deepspace: Is LaDS your next gacha addiction?

Love and Deepspace is quickly rising up the charts as one of the top gacha games. Should you start playing Love and Deepspace? Is LaDS even for you? Find that out with our shallow dive into the game here.

LaDS released in Jan. 18, 2024 as a free-to-play otome game. Otome is the genre of video games aimed towards female players. The genre originated from Japan, hence the Japanese name. Otome games are mostly in the form of visual novels, so Love and Deepspace's 3D approach is a welcome sight for fans of the genre. However, it doesn't forget its roots as visual novel elements are embedded within various parts of the game.

The game is available on both iOS and Android, and frequently swaps between portrait and landscape orientations. The initial download is about 3GB, while the in-game download is a little over 12GB.

As of the time of writing, there are five main men, or Companions, in the game. They periodically add characters, with the most recent one being Caleb joining the rest of the Companions: Xavier, Zayne, Sylus, and Rafayel. All five have deep interactions, different outfits, and a lot of content that unlock as you progress your relationship with them or acquire "Memories" through the game's gacha system.

The game is fully-voiced in English, Japanese, and Chinese. As with the otome genre, LaDS places a lot of importance in its voice acting, so almost every interaction you have with the Companions can be experienced audibly. Moreover, the English voiceover has a bonus feature where you can tweak the main character's voice with several levers and filters to bring it closer to your real voice for extra immersion.

LaDS does have combat, during which the gameplay shifts to landscape. However, it's treated more as an "extra" part of the experience rather than the focus. The real meat of the game is in the various interactions you can have with the game's five (soon to be more) potential partners.

These interactions include fun getaways, intimate meetings, and a fully customizable photo mode where you can pose your Companion with the self-insert main character.

The combat is mandatory to level up your obtained Memories, but not necessarily to progress the main story. This facet is important since Companions are locked behind your main story progress. LaDS has an energy system, but it's quite generous regarding this mechanic.

As is the norm with these free-to-play gacha games, there are limited banners where you can pull for "memories." These memories are equipped prior to going into battle, but their real purpose is to bring an experience with the Companion.

These experiences range from voice notes to fully 3D, interactive moments between you and the Companion.

The game does heavily lean into the FOMO (fear of missing out). A lot of the memories only become available in Limited Banners, and in the game's one-year run, reruns have been practically non-existent. This is slightly abated by the fact that Love and Deepspace gives you a lot of pulls by simply playing the game, on top of the generous rewards you can get by just logging in.

If the otome game genre is one that appeals to you, and you have a device you can play it on, Love and Deepspace is at least worth a try. If you're daunted by the game's gacha system, the experience as a new player is lavish. You can get a lot of pulls and chances to get 5-star Memories as a newcomer. While this spoiling may not last very long, this allows you to get your bearings within the game, so you can start your first few weeks of LaDS gameplay without the gacha system bothering you.

Investing your pulls towards one or two Companions is also a viable way to play the game. So, if some of the five bachelors that the game offers is to your taste, also give the game a whirl.

Love and Deepspace is a game that knows its intended audience. If you feel like it's not for you, or you're averse to the gacha game genre as a whole, then it's okay to give the game a pass. The success of Love and Deepspace is bound to be the start of a resurgence in otome games. Due to this, you can expect many more to hit the gaming market in the near future.

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