Not long ago, I was sent a press release announcing Murasaki7, a freemium mobile game recently released into early access on Google Play, and it looked vaguely interesting. I decided to give it a shot and see how long it takes to hit a paywall. Despite my best attempt to give it a chance, though, it’s a remarkably unimpressive piece of freemium trash that would be incredibly predatory if not for how overwhelmingly dull it is. The story is generic, the mechanics are tedious and balanced so far toward monetization that it’s practically a joke, and Murasaki7‘s early access status means dealing with bugs and missing audio. This game and others like it are bereft of entertainment value and have no reason to exist.

To give you an idea of just how grindy and unrewarding Murasaki7 becomes, consider the fact that there’s an early access promotion going on now that gives you 2,000 of its gem currency for free. Gems are the top-tier currency used to drive players to pay real money, but I didn’t know that and you can burn through that amount buying four “premium recruits.” Keep in mind that this all occurs before you have any idea what gems or any other currency is worth. After obtaining one 6-star character and three 4-star characters who are eventually rendered so hilariously useless that one has to wonder what makes them so “premium,” I steamrolled a bunch of stages because of how overpowered they were. I didn’t buy equipment with my gems because I was expected enemies to drop it. They don’t, and that’s a problem considering how rare gems are.

My premium recruits stopped being able to earn three stars on stages by the end of the first chapter. Murasaki7’s combat works as a match-3 game, only the colors correspond to your characters and allow them to attack. If you have a team full of red characters and make 18 matches in a row that are non-red colors, you’ll end the turn without inflicting any damage. And since the characters you obtain spending gems are random, you can see how players are not-so-gently guided toward spending large sums acquiring a balanced team so that the match-3 gameplay actually works. All so you can beat waves of enemies in story mode with an occasional cutscene thrown in every 5-10 levels. It’s embarrassingly thin.

You can watch ads for rewards, but they don’t always work and ads are awful anyway. Watching a video for another bottom-feeding freemium game while trying to eke out the tiniest bit of progress in the one you’re playing is the point where you either have to stop playing or reconsider the life choices that have led you to that moment. There’s no amount of strategy that’ll make up for a bad team, and I know this because I’ve cleared most of the board on multiple occasions and still failed to defeat a single wave of enemies. Unless you’re willing to devote your entire life to grinding a low-quality character’s level up and spending cash to make them usable, Murasaki7 isn’t the game for you. It’s a game for nobody.

Here’s a fun math lesson: 550 gems can be purchased for 20 dollars and a premium recruit costs 500 gems. That means that for 20 dollars, you can have a shot at a character who starts to feel limited by the end of chapter 1. The only ways I can see to make gems are to log in regularly (and that’s a pitiful amount) or clear a chapter with 3 stars on all stages. At least, I’m assuming that’s how you unlock a chapter’s gems because of the way the final level of the first chapter uses spongey enemies who refuse to allow me to gain the two stars I’m missing. And that’s for a tenth of the gems required to obtain one new character who might not even be useful. Murasaki7 doesn’t even pretend to be balanced in your favor.

The store selling 550 gems is nefarious enough on its own; the developers’ reason for doing this is to leave enough gems over every time you pay that you feel like you’re leaving something of value behind when you try to stop. Developers who monetize psychology are the worst of the worst.

Don’t spend money on Murasaki7. Don’t even download it for free. Most freemium games will string you along for a few hours before their paywall shows up, but this one practically demands your cash upfront and rewards you with a 1/10 gaming experience that’s either too easy or impossibly hard. For the price of one recruit (often even less), you could buy any one of a million real games that offer significantly more value. You’ll even own that game and be able to replay it without needing to spend additional money. Murasaki7 isn’t free—or fun—in any sense of the word.

Free app review: Murasaki7 is freemium trash first appeared on Killa Penguin