The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure Preview: A cute, but repetitive idler

The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure is on its way, and I recently had a chance to get a sneak peek at the upcoming mobile game. I’m familiar with much of the anime, to be honest, I had a blast watching it. Conversely, I’m not really much of an idle gamer - I get the appeal, and I have quite a few friends who really get into this kind of game.

It can be a lot of fun to watch a game play itself or to focus on that while waiting in a queue for another game. After all, Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail is out, and DPS queues can get really, really, painfully long. While I do think The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure is very neat, there are flaws worth discussing.

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What exactly is The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure?

If you're a fan of idle games and The Seven Deadly Sins anime, this one's for you to try out (Image via Netmarble)

The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure is exactly what it sounds like - an idle game, set in the world of the titular anime. You amass an army of powerful characters from the show and watch as they pummel bad guys in what looks to be an endless amount of stages. The actual gameplay loop is incredibly simple - you go through a stage, and your team stomps their way through enemies until you have slain enough to fight the Elite.

The Elite acts as the boss of that current stage. Once it’s defeated, you can move on to the next stage. Doing this unlocks more features, tutorials, and of course, ways to power up your team. You do this by tapping the red glowing orb, once it’s full. You will no doubt see plenty of familiar faces playing through the game, that’s for sure.

As this is an idler, you don’t actually have to do any fighting - your team does that for you. You can interact with the game, though. You can draw cards, which offer you a variety of useful currencies, and things of that nature. For example, Gold! You can use Gold to level up the Boar’s Hat Tavern. Leveling it up increases your Attack, Defense, and HP, and so it’s worth investing in.

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There’s so much to do in The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure

As you progress through stages, more content, like PVP will unlock (Image via Netmarble)

In addition to simply grinding through stages, you also have a wealth of other things to unlock, like the Tower of Trials, and Gold & Hero EXP Dungeons to explore. These give players other ways to gain resources and level up their heroes. However, once you’ve unlocked some of these things, you can only do them a few times a day - unless you want to watch ads.

Whether it’s PVP or other dungeons, these will automatically unlock as you grind through stages - some of them taking an incredibly long time to unlock. For example, the Tower of Trials unlocks on Stage 200. It really depends on how dedicated you are to playing The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure, though. I appreciate that there’s more to do than just watch your team idle through normal stages, at least.

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The division between “free” and “paid” diamonds persists in The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure

You can see which are free and which are paid - but I frankly didn't see any way to use Diamonds - only cash (Image via Netmarble)

One thing that’s always confused me about mobile games like The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure is that you receive plenty of Diamonds - a real money currency - for free, just for playing the game. There are plenty of limited-time Summon Banners in this game, which is perfectly fine.

That said, the problem comes when so many of them are paid-only - using real money, or paid Diamonds. You can see how many “real” Diamonds you have, and how many “free” ones you have. However, some of these - like the Rate Up Summon can use Diamonds once you reach Summoner Level 6. That means you have to summon hundreds of characters to reach that. Thousands, potentially.

I spent around 400 or so summoning tickets, and it only got me to Summon Level 3. In all that time, I only unlocked one Unique character - Black Claw Ren, and two legendaries Giant Girl Diane / Fairy Helbram.

I understand that games like this need to be monetized, but I’m not so sure I’m keen on the number of summons you need to do in order to awaken a character - to increase its stats. You have to get lucky enough to gather up plenty of that one character type.

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Visually, The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure has a cute look

The game certainly goes a long way to show off the unique art style of the anime characters (Image via Netmarble)

You’re mostly going to see the cute, chibi characters in The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure. Occasionally, you’ll also see great cutscenes, but those are pretty far and few between. You can also see your characters in all of their glory when you click on their card in the menu. I will say that the art for each and every one of them is incredible.

The audio is solid, but the visuals are where the game really shines. Sure, the stages are going to be kind of redundant, but this is an idle game, so it’s not like it’s something that’s going to hold your undivided attention. It will probably just sit on your desk while you’re doing something else, occasionally tapping the screen.

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In Conclusion

The game is certainly interesting so far if you're into the idler genre (Image via Netmarble)

I think The Seven Deadly Sins Idle Adventure is a perfectly fun idle game. It’s not really my favorite genre of mobile/gacha game, but I like the anime enough to be interested in coming back to it. I can see people being frustrated by how hard it is to unlock powerful characters, but that’s the nature of gacha.

This isn’t a game where you’re going to become powerful overnight - not unless you invest some serious cash. No, this is an idler. It’s a game you’re going to likely play over months, going through as many stages as you possibly can. I will say that in my time in the game, I haven’t reached a point yet where I’m too weak to progress.

The game does throw plenty of gold at you to increase your Tavern, and EXP items to increase the levels of your party members. If only it were just a little easier to get Legendary/Unique characters, I think it would feel a lot more rewarding. It's also worth noting that this was early access and much about the game could change as it comes closer to launch.