Special REM Review – PAD Halloween

This is by far the worst special REM GungHo has ever released even if you include the various iterations of the initial Pink REM. Even if you ignore the poor value of the filler eggs, the Halloween-specific rolls are lackluster themselves. While most special REM monsters fade into obscurity soon after their introduction, I think this set is exceptionally poor. The two rarest eggs, Kali and BSonia, while useful, are uninspired rehashes of their originals. Vampire and Laila are unimpressive in the same way, but at least Alraune, Izanami and Thoth & Sopdet have some interesting dimensions. They aren’t enough to carry the REM or to justify spending your precious stones on, though.

The REM filler eggs don’t help things. The Archdemons are one of the worst pantheons in the game and the Wizards are some of the worst non-pantheon base-gold eggs. The Fairy Tale girls are fine for silvers, but have little to no practical uses. When Izanami and Thoth & Sopdet were first revealed, I was really excited because I thought I’d finally be able to tell the average Joe that rolling in a special REM was worth the risk, but even the quality of those two silvers eggs doesn’t justify wading through the rest. For whales, the filler is going to become MP no matter how good or bad it is, but for the average player I suggest holding onto your stones in hopes of something better. We should be getting a Player’s Choice Godfest soon and there’s still hope for an improved Christmas REM.

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8-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Kali – A+

Pros

• The same awakenings as LKali
• A tankier leader skill, similar to Egypt 2
• A reasonable DKali replacement for some teams
• A good leader pair with the original LKali

Cons

• The same awakenings as LKali
• 36x would’ve been too good?

Notes

As a leader, her tankiness reminds me of two other special REM rolls: Santa Sakuya and School Isis. Although the most apt comparison may be the Egypt 2s. Kali is better than all of them, meaning she should be able to clear almost all content. 25x is a bit low these days, but the ability to tank hits should never be underestimated. Unfortunately, I have no video evidence to back up my thoughts of her being able to clear the Ultimate Arena — JP hasn’t gotten this REM yet — but I do think she’s more than capable of doing so. I have no idea how consistent she’d be, though.

I think most people are thinking of using her as a sub, but make no mistake, she’s no DKali replacement. She’ll get the job done for those not fortunate enough to have already rolled one, but nothing can fully replace the utility of original. However, as you can’t buy the original — yet, anyways — I expect many will take the opportunity to purchase the next best thing. I’d argue they should be saving for an MP Dragon, but I can’t blame those that don’t as a guaranteed Kali is what many players need the most.

My biggest issue with her is the perceived value you get for her cost. I just don’t think she’s worth it since she isn’t that much better than LKali, if at all. I don’t want that opinion to obscure the facts, though, so ignoring that: Halloween Kali is an amazing monster. It’s up to you to determine whether she’s worth it for you or not. If she is and you can buy her, do it. Rolling for her is incredibly risky, though.

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7-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Blue Sonia – B-

Pros

• Two-turn haste
• 5,180 HP

Cons

• Basically the same old Blue Sonia

Notes

Blue Sonia is the most disappointing 7-star egg to date. While the Sonia board change with two-turn haste is extremely powerful, there’s simply no place for her in today’s meta. As a sub on water row teams, I think she’s matched, if not surpassed, by Mori Motonari. If nothing else, being off-color kills her value there. As a sub on dark row teams–wait, what dark row teams? Typhon has no use for her and it’s more than a stretch to call Pandora relevant in the face of all the other elite dark leaders. So basically, she has no real home.

As a leader, Sonia definitely breathes some life back into Blue Sonia teams, but it’s not nearly enough to make them relevant again. Even if that type of team does make a resurgence, I’d rather play an Awoken I&I + Ryuune team which is only restricted by element, not type.

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6-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Vampire – B+

Pros

• Relevant awakenings, including a skill bind resist
• Easy to skill up
• A sub for Batmobile Batman…

Cons

• None

Notes

There’s not much to complain about here, but there’s nothing amazing, either. The active is relevant, the awakenings are good and he has devil type to make him relevant on many dark teams. Sadly, Summer Claire is about as close to strictly better as you can get in this game. Granted, Claire is an 8-star or costs 300k MP, but considering that 6-stars aren’t all that easy to get either, I’m not sure that’s much of a distinction. That aside, a quality five-turn heartbreaker that also has a skill bind resist is a rarity in the game, making Vampire quite valuable.

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Alraune – B+

Pros

• One-turn haste
• Two skill bind resists
• The closest thing dark has to Awoken Amaterasu

Cons

• Is a luxury as her advantages over the farmable Aamir don’t justify the cost

Notes

Alraune is one of the better rolls in this REM, if only for the fact that she has properties that can’t be found elsewhere. Her closest analog would be Aamir and she’s better in almost every way. She doesn’t have a time extend, but the double skill bind resists make team building much easier and the haste means her active is always relevant. That being said, there is little demand for a bind clearer nowadays as most can be avoided though preparation. For players that don’t have the luxury of being able to play around them, Alraune definitely isn’t the solution; the previously mentioned Aamir or another farmable bind clearer is more practical considering the cost, making Alraune a simple luxury.

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Laila – C

Pros

• Relevant awakenings, including a skill bind resist

Cons

• A skill boost doesn’t make a Wizard girl relevant
• Six turns for six orbs is a horrible deal.

Notes

I don’t think there’s much to say here. History has shown that the original Wizard girls are fairly irrelevant and an element change and a few marginal upgrades aren’t enough to change that. I’d be more interested if she had a haste like the CyberDragons, but without it all I see is a waste of a sub slot.

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The following grades were copy and pasted from the Summer REM review and adjusted where necessary.

Mini DMeta – C

Pros

• DMeta’s upgraded leader skill is quite strong

Cons

• Take the normal DMeta, then take away her best awakenings

Notes

DMeta’s glory days seemed to be long past. With the awoken Egyptians and Indians, there wasn’t much incentive to deal with her HP condition for a paltry 16x return. Well, it appears all she needed was a 1.35x HP multiplier (1.82x when paired with another DMeta) to regain much of her lost relevancy. While it’s still questionable if managing life totals is worth the effort, it’s much, much easier to do so now and enables many endgame possibilities.

The being said, DMeta’s mini version is just horrible. They took the original’s five best awakenings and replaced them with two mediocre ones. While a TPA-based DMeta team sounds intriguing, doing so with your leaders contributing no skill boosts isn’t much incentive. As a sub, her active is still good, but without those awakenings DIzanami is usually a better damage shield option. While not on the level of Chester, this will be a very disappointing 6-star roll.

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Mini LMeta – C+

Pros

• Barely passable as a LMeta substitute, but there is still some some value in that

Cons

• No skill boosts

Notes

Mini LMeta suffers from similar problems as Mini DMeta, but where the bind resists are almost useless to DMeta they are critical for LMeta to fulfill her anti-bind utility role. The mini version won’t be replacing the original, but is a passable substitute.

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Mini RSonia – B+

Pros

• Uevo regained two of her better awakenings

Cons

• Just a RSonia alternative

Notes

Since I last reviewed Mini RSonia, all Sonia board changes were reduced to a 12-turn cooldown. While this is a significant change and makes it easier for teams to have her board change up on the first turn, it’s still too long to reasonably expect multiple uses in an average dungeon. What makes the 14-turn version superior is that the two-turn haste makes the rest of your team better; the 12-turn version does nothing beyond the board change. Mini RSonia is still good, but she definitely isn’t something you want to roll for specifically.

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5-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

It’s hard to believe what GungHo is doing with the 5-stars for this REM. In past special REMs, the 5-stars usually consisted of a single pantheon complemented by a mini or two. The summer REM changed this up a bit by eschewing the pantheon, but introduced new minis to make up the difference. This was a nice change because it meant that when you did roll one, even if it wasn’t necessarily what you wanted at least it wasn’t something you could get from the regular REM.

The Halloween REM is actually regressing in this regard. In addition to the six minis that were in the Summer REM, they’re injecting the Archdemons and Wizards which are 12 total rolls that can already be obtained through the regular REM. While this won’t change the rate one rolls a 5-star, it does mean that when you do the chances of getting something poor is increased. As it stands, Mini Valk is the only great roll of the 5-stars and it just became much harder to get her.

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Archdemons – C

Notes

The Archdemons are arguably the worst pantheon in the game. It’s not so much that they’re bad, but rather there are so many other options that do what they do, but better. The Christmas REM got the Chinese and the School REM got the Heroes. This is a huge step down.

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Wizards – C

Notes

It’s like Chester is a requirement for special REMs.

I’m confused why GungHo would further dilute a poor REM with even more garbage. The only wizard that was ever relevant was Rei Sirius, but the heydays of the Rei System have long since passed. I guess Leeza had her day in the sun with old Anubis users, too. All of the orb generators have been supplanted by the CyberDragons and -Beasts. Wee Jas is fine, but his low stats and lack of offensive awakenings really hold him back. And Chester is, well, Chester.

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The following grades were copy and pasted from the Summer REM review and adjusted where necessary.

Mini Hera – C+

Pros

• A strong leader skill for farming
• Strong awakenings

Cons

• Otherwise useful monster ruined by a gravity
• Only a few high-synergy subs

Notes

Mini Hera is actually interesting, at least as a potential farming lead, and is a huge upgrade from the original Divine Queen Hera. I’m not a fan of HP-conditional leader skills, but her 3.5x ATK is fairly easy to maintain at 50% or higher HP and the 1.5x RCV boost is a nice bonus. While dark doesn’t really support devil-gods with TPAs, there are plenty of other quality devils to fill out a roster. I don’t think anyone is going to be happy rolling her, but if you already have some strong devils Hera could prove to be useful. Outside of that, though, Hera will do very little for you as her gravity makes her nigh unusable as a sub.

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Mini Hera-Up – C+

Pros

• Three fire orb enhances with an orb enhance active; don’t underestimate OE damage

Cons

• The original Hera-Up isn’t relevant, so it’s very unlikely that this derivative version will be either

Notes

Orb enhance awakenings have slowly been gaining relevancy, especially with the recent proliferation of the “match five orbs with at least one enhanced orb” leader skill clause. While the combination of three fire orb enhance awakenings and an orb enhance active are a potent damage combination, I’m skeptical of her usefulness for two reasons. First, the original hasn’t done much as leader or sub, making it unlikely that the mini version will either. Second, Awoken Horus just seems like an overall better choice, especially since you can use his orb enhance twice of often.

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Mini Lilith – C-

Pros

• None

Cons

• Devil TPAs aren’t a thing

Notes

When the Christmas REM rolled around last year, I was excited about Mini Lilith. My naive mind thought devil TPAs could be a thing. I could run a Beelzebub team with Dill Sirius and Persephone and everything would be great. Suffice to say, it was a horrible idea. In the end, a Lilith is still a Lilith, the main difference being this one is a troll REM gold egg while the others are farmable.

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Mini Valk – A+

Pros

• Triple TPAs + heartbreaker
• Uevo’s +300 ATK is a huge boost
• Amazing awakenings
• Now has god type

Cons

• Even with the upgrades, still faces stiff competition with Elia

Notes

Since Mini Valk got her uevo, Awoken Sakuya was released which made her value skyrocket. While Arena savants seem to prefer the dark Sakuya team for its consistency, most players are going to stick to the standard light-based team. In this case Mini Valk is a star performer. She’s also quite good on Kanna, Amaterasu and healer teams in general.

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Mini Yomi – C

Pros

• High ATK
• Two skill boosts

Cons

• Basically only contributes damage
• Poor leader skill

Notes

I could never make sense of Mini Yomi. Her original’s defining trait was the pair of time extends, but they were completely removed for the mini version. The result was just a mediocre TPA monster with a horribly outdated active skill. If they had made that light row a time extend then there might have been some value.

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Mini Luci – B-

Pros

• Triple time extends

Cons

• Time extends are much easier to come by nowadays
• Horrible active doesn’t complement the time extends

Notes

When Mini Lucifer was released, we had never seen a monster with triple time extends. No monster since then has repeated the feat, but that didn’t prevent Lucifer from losing much of his appeal in the meantime. GungHo has been handing out time extends like candy lately and while no single monster brings as many as Luci, they are so much better in other ways that a once niche, but usable sub is now too one-dimensional to justify a spot on your team.

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4-Star Silver Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Fairy Tale – B

Notes

The Fairy Tale girls aren’t horrible for silver eggs. A six-turn heartmaker is a solid active and the added three-turn bind clear makes it a great value. Their awakenings are also quite solid, bringing a nice mix of offense and utility. The skill bind resist is particularly valuable for people looking to make their first 100% skill bind teams. What would really put them over the top is being 100% bind resistant, but you can’t have everything on a silver egg, I guess. There’s also some hope that they’ll receive uevos in the future as the fairy tale being told through their art isn’t complete yet.

That being said, people have already had their fill of them in the regular REM. Making them the silver filler of this REM is just an insult. While the various minis from other REMs aren’t all that great either, they’re at least somewhat unique. The presence of the Fairy Tale girls really drags down the value of this REM, but at this point I guess one MP fodder is as good as another.

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Izanami – A

Pros

• Arguably the best roll in the REM
• The orb enhances are extremely relevant in dark and bring huge damage

Cons

• Competes directly with Dark Izanami

Notes

Izanami is easily in the same elite class of NA collab silver eggs along with Awilda and Mamiya. Her active is better than Awilda’s — a higher damage reduction for a lower cooldown — and she trades in a resist for a very welcome skill boost. However, where Awilda filled a role water desperately needed options for, dark already has what is arguably the best damage reducer in the game in Dark Izanami. While Dark Izanami is a better damage reducer, Halloween Izanami brings significantly more damage through her OEs. Those OEs will be put to good use on teams like Zaerog, Yomi and Yomi Dragon. With the amount of hastes on those teams, her shield will have a pretty good uptime.

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Thoth & Sopdet – A

Pros

• One of the best selections of awakenings ever seen on a silver egg
• A solid role player
• Will be used much like Mamiya already is on fire teams

Cons

• None

Notes

Thoth & Sopdet are my personal favorite egg of this REM. Their closest analog is Mamiya. Both monsters bring so much utility to the table and the dark resists reduce the reliance on latents of the same type. While Mamiya’s active is better as an orb changer, Thoth & Sopdet have better offensive awakenings to help offset the difference and it’s not like a heartmaker is bad. Silvers see very little use in the endgame, so even if they’ll only be roleplayers they’re still very valuable considering their rarity.

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Conclusion

It’s easy to sum up this REM in one word: disappointment. The only powerful monster, Kali, can be bought through the MP Shop which is a blessing as the players that covet her can buy her and be done with it. The silver eggs have some nice value, but with very little upside at the higher rarities it’s hard to recommend rolling for just silvers. From a value aspect, I’d avoid this REM like the plague.

Personally, I’m going to try for both silver eggs, but I’m hoping I won’t have to spend more than a pack to do so. I’m still waffling on buying Kali, but I’ll probably pass on her since I have plenty of dark leaders to work with and there’s really no point to her as a sub when you already have multiple Light and Dark Kalis. I’ll be taking this opportunity to save up for what hopefully amounts to a great Christmas REM.