UlasanAnime.com – THE IDOLM@STER POP LINKS, or Popmas, is a new game under the IDOLM@STER brand and it is the first and only game that includes all five currently active brands of the franchise. The open beta is currently underway and will run for approximately four days, concluding after the weekend.
For a more detailed look, you can refer to this blog article which delves into various specifics. To reiterate, the open beta, along with some online streams and videos, are all that is currently available and are subject to change before the game’s launch later in 2021.
NHN PlayArt, the creator of Popmas, is also known for the currently active Disney Tsum Tsum game, which is available in English-speaking countries. Playing that game might give you an idea of what Popmas is like. NHN PlayArt has developed other games, many of which are rebranded versions for different IPs, and one relatively original title, #COMPASS, a 3v3 RTS game. It’s also worth noting that they have a history of several discontinued games.
One noteworthy point is that the lead producer for Popmas appears quite young. Kitajima Nao (KitaP/Kitajii), as revealed during the title announcement stream, conceived the idea when she first joined the company and was subsequently put in charge of its development relatively quickly.
Moving on to the open beta.
The time-limited beta is exclusively for Android devices and is accessible through the Google Play Store. A Japanese account is required unless you opt for sideloading from unofficial sources. Many phones are not compatible. On my Pixel 5, the game crashes frequently, though to its credit, none of these crashes have impacted my game’s progress. Most crashes occur when transitioning between different game components.
To better understand the game, it might be helpful to break it down into its sub-components.
- Album cover design
- Unit management
- Unit coaching
- Training
- Working
- Live/rank up lives (the tsumtsum portion of the game)
- Social component
- Main screen
The blog post I previously linked covers most of these aspects. I will focus on their interactions rather than explaining the mechanics in detail.
Each player is placed in brackets of 20. The top player in a bracket will have their favorite team’s album cover displayed on the ranking building in the main screen for all players in that bracket. Achieving the top rank requires the highest score. To attain the top score, players must excel in the tsumtsum gameplay, hitting the most notes with the right stackable bonuses (such as note size, loop, bonus scoring ticket, sparkle bonus multiplier, combo count, and link size). Additionally, having a high base value (your idol’s Vo/Da/Vi), achieved through leveling, level breaking, equipped microphones, and unit coaching, is crucial.
Players can send each other assistance in the form of stamina. Each player has a maximum of 10 stamina, which replenishes every 30 minutes. Ranking up grants an additional 5 stamina, which can overflow into the gift box. Training events for friends also appear on their screens, where you can potentially help boost the timer.
Training functions similarly to timer jobs or expeditions in other imas mobile games. Jobs are available in 3-hour increments, ranging from 3 to 12 hours. Selecting an idol with the matching attribute to the job increases the chance of obtaining good drops. The number of drops also appears to be more plentiful (indicated by slots) if you perform better in the tsum tsum game, which seems to be ranked from C to SSSSS.
Generally, drops come in various forms, primarily money (free currency), CP (coaching points), stickers (for album art), and colored balls of different rarity levels used in coaching. Training yields specific drops outlined for each training type, and the chances of obtaining SR drops increase with the right idols available.
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Coaching is essentially the other “game” within Popmas. It’s a grid-based puzzle game where players navigate through “rooms” by choosing their path. The available hops are limited, and each hop has a cost while providing a reward. This is how you power up your unit as a group, obtain rare microphone drops, and gain other minor benefits, such as partially unlocking idol potential or acquiring premium currency. The quality of nodes corresponds to rarer drop requirements (colored balls).
- Base stats are capped based on idol level but are the most cost-effective, typically requiring only CP to access. The best stat nodes require N balls.
- Sticker, microphone, and costume accessory nodes require N, R, or SR balls in varying quantities. The ribbon colors indicate their rarity. SR microphones add a total of 600 stats, making them very beneficial early on, but they all require 5 SR balls of a specific color.
- There are mission nodes that offer a time-limited (60-minute) mission to earn 5000 money for only 2500 CP.
- Stat-increasing nodes feature an idol and require balls and CP to increase the maximum coaching stat points (indicated by the circle in the bottom left).
- Premium currency nodes cost only 1000 CP and yield 1-5 pop coins.
- Red stars with an idol’s name represent XLB/idol level-up nodes, adding 2 points and consuming CP and R? balls. Each duplicate idol provides 10 points, making this less efficient unless you have an abundance of R balls.
After clearing a room, a new room is randomly generated. You could spend CP repeatedly to aim for premium drops, but each jump incurs a CP cost. The primary methods of acquiring CP are by completing lives and oshigoto, or by purchasing CP from the store using money (which has a daily cap, though this can be influenced by premium currency).
The specifics of the premium currency system are not fully known beyond its use for paying for nodes in coaching, gacha pulls, and stamina refills (100 stones for 10 refills). Pop stones, the premium currency, cannot be purchased during the beta. While there is an option in the store to buy items using pop stones, it is disabled for the beta.
Coaching is unit-specific; disbanding a unit results in the loss of all unit-specific boosts (stats and stat uncapping). It seems possible to recover coaching from disbanded units by regrouping the same idols, up to three disbands prior.
Gacha pulls currently cost 2500 stones for 10 draws, which guarantees one random “SR” outfit. You can also purchase single draws for 250 stones or “offer” a specific idol directly for 1500 stones. At this stage, it is more advantageous to save up 2500 stones and aim for duplicates, as idol level caps go up to 7? The current pool consists of only 15 characters.
A peculiar aspect is that each character comes with a skill, and when you obtain that character, you also acquire its skill. Similar to idols, skills can be leveled up and require XLBing. When forming a unit, skills function as equippable items with type restrictions. This is not immediately apparent but works within the game’s mechanics. It is unclear how skills can be leveled up without relying on the gacha.
Working appears to be a gameplay-free method to expend stamina, akin to oshigoto in MLTD. It provides a fraction of the rewards but is quick.
Both the live and work modes allow you to select between 1, 2, or 3 stamina per use. While you do not receive proportionally increased drops, you gain double or triple the experience and fans. If you choose a live, the selected song also levels up accordingly.
Most, if not all, of the pop stones obtained during the beta are from achievements acquired by progressing through the game. I am currently around rank 26 and have run out of stamina, prompting me to write this blog post. The game seems straightforward. There are certainly many opportunities to spend premium currency, which is understandable, but it is difficult to gauge the frequency of its acquisition. If you refrain from spending, the coaching game progresses slowly, and you will not obtain certain significant early-game perks.
It seems more logical to engage with the timer-based activities earlier rather than later, and to rank up to unlock more stamina. However, your training slots and unit management slots are tied to your producer level, so the initial 10 levels are expected to pass by relatively quickly.
Alternatively, you could simply take a chance and acquire a substantial amount of premium currency.
