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The story
Over on 5ch’s Newsspeed VIP board, posters were chatting about the latest in mobile gaming. The main topic was the contrasting fortunes of Monster Strike and Puzzle & Dragons: with its 13th-anniversary flagship livestream coming up that same day, Monster Strike looked set to top the trending charts, while word came in that Puzzle & Dragons’ TV show and anime, running for 8 years, was quietly coming to an end. Theories on Monster Strike’s staying power included its “broad age range” and “generous free handouts that let you play without paying,” and posters also swapped notes on what they were playing, from Suikoden: Fantasy (NTE) to Dokkan Battle and Mahjong Soul.
What people said
(っ´ω`c) Can open-world games like NTE even run well on a low-spec phone?
If it's a heavy game, that might be pretty rough.
(っ´ω`c) What were you gonna get?
(っ´ω`c) What device are you playing on?
I play on a 7th-gen iPad Pro, or PC.
(っ´ω`) Compromise and go with shrimp fry then?
(っ´ω`c) Whoa! An iPad Pro, huh — that's some serious specs. Guess you'd need hardware at least that high for open-world games to run decently.
Then again, NTE might actually be well-optimized, so there's a slim chance it could work. But it's just a maybe, so don't get your hopes up.
(っ´ω`c) Apparently it's currently in active development.
(っ´ω`c) Yeah… were you playing it too?
(っ´ω`c) I really want to try an open-world game… Mugendai (lit. "Infinity").
Mugendai looks like it's gonna be ridiculously fun. I'm hyped for it too — also the female protagonist is stupidly cute.
(´･ω･`) I heard it was just an idle game so I never touched it, and I was smirking at Pomii-kun for playing it.
(っ´ω`c) I was definitely having fun with it back when I played, so it's fine. It's fine.
(っ´ω`c) Aren't you playing any mobile games?
(っ´ω`c) Monster Strike, huh. I've played it before but quit pretty fast.
For one, its age range is wide. It's not like Uma Musume or idol games that target "weak men" (jakusha dansei, internet slang for socially/economically marginalized men), or FGO for light otaku — the breadth of its playerbase is just different. It's closer to Pokémon.
Because it's such a huge, high-revenue title, they can hand out tons of free stuff, so you can play multiplayer without spending a dime — that's why the player count is absurdly high.
By the way, today's their 13th-anniversary flagship stream, so it'll probably top the trends. Meanwhile, Puzzle & Dragons' last TV variety show and anime, after 8 years, quietly wraps up today.
(っ´ω`c) Dream big, huh.
(っ´ω`c) Never played Puzzle & Dragons. Is Monster Strike really that fun?
(っ´ω`c) I'm not really into auto-battle games. Are you playing it?
Nope, not playing it.
(っ´ω`c) Oh nice, congrats! How many pulls did that take?
(っ´ω`c) That's sad…
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Monster Strike is a title that Mixi (now MIXI) began distributing in 2013, making 2026 its 13th year. It’s a regular on domestic sales rankings, known for its wide reach down to so-called “casual” players thanks to free gacha giveaways and easy multiplayer access. Puzzle & Dragons, on the other hand, is a title GungHo launched in 2012 that has run a long-running anime and variety show on networks like TV Tokyo, but according to posts in the thread, that show is quietly coming to an end after 8 years. The two titles are often compared as pillars of the early days of Japan’s domestic mobile-game industry, but views from the thread like “they draw different audiences” or “it’s popular because you can play for free” are just individual users’ impressions, not backed by official sales data or user numbers — worth keeping in mind.
Note: This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsspeed VIP) thread “(っ´ω`c) Mobile Games Thread.”
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