Gumi's Astata Taricus Runs Ranking Events TWICE — But the Reward Feature Still Doesn't Exist; Active Players Suspected to Be Around 3,000

A game launches a ranked event but forgets to build the reward system — and then does it TWICE. No, this isn't a joke. This is Gumi's SRPG Astata Taricus, and yes, it really happened.

Astata Taricus (full title アスタータタリクス, supposedly Latin for 'Aster flower') is another SRPG from Gumi's FgG studio. Its claim to fame is mashing together Fire Emblem: Three Houses' academy setting and branching routes with a Persona-style calendar and social stat system adapted for mobile in the vein of Heaven Burns Red — all wrapped in a single-player-style story experience available at launch.

On December 28, 2023, the game launched its long-teased 'Score Attack' event — a boss challenge where you earn points based on performance, with rewards split into milestone rewards, cumulative rewards, and ranking rewards. The ranking rewards were supposed to include gacha currency AND exclusive 'titles' based on your server-wide placement: the top 3 players would get unique titles like 'Unmatched Sword' and 'Invincible Sword,' ranks 4-5000 would get tiered titles, and everyone beyond rank 5001 would get the baseline 'Nameless Sword.' All players could flex their title on their profile page.

But when players opened the 'ranking rewards' screen, they found only gacha stones — no titles anywhere. The profile page had zero UI for equipping or displaying titles. Why? The answer was hilariously straightforward: the event announcement literally stated 'the title display feature is currently still in development. It will be usable after implementation in a future update. Please wait.'

In plain English: the ranked event went live, but the ranked rewards weren't built yet. Just grind for now. Even more scuffed — the event notes recommended using high magic-defense characters against the boss, while the same day's December roadmap revealed a new banner dropping January 1st featuring a character with 'high ATK, high magic DEF, and bonus damage against magic classes.' Translation: your current grinding might be completely pointless.

February 9, 2024 update: After the second Score Attack event ended, the title system was finally implemented via a version update, and second-event titles were distributed. But the FIRST event's titles? Still nowhere to be seen.

January 26, 2025 update: The game announced another Score Attack event with title rewards, and the announcement STILL reads 'the title feature will be implemented in an upcoming update.' In the first event, the lowest tier was 'rank 5001 and beyond' — OP played one casual match and landed around rank 3,100. By the second event, that threshold dropped to 'rank 2001 and beyond.' You do the math: active players likely halved again.

The comment section delivered peak entertainment. One user immediately recognized OP: 'Bro it's you again — you're the one who covered Astata's previous drama too.' OP has basically become the game's official disaster correspondent.

On the game's overall quality, one commenter summed it up bluntly: 'Braindead P2W — pay money to buff the enemies, classic.' Others pointed out that the monthly dev livestream on X (formerly Twitter) ended December's session with the host saying 'I hope we'll have content to share next month too' — because under producer Jun Imaizumi (nicknamed 'Feces Imaizumi' by the community), monthly revenue had been halving every month, hitting just ¥60M (~$400K USD) by December. Players suspected the project might get axed.

Old-timers also dragged Imaizumi's track record: 'Played their alchemy game and ninja game ages ago — great character art, but the production quality was trash.' And when character romance routes came up, players roasted how every female character got paired off with male NPCs in BL-coded relationships, with one commenter sighing that Imaizumi's entire career has been 'riding Fate/Type-Moon's coattails' — and that 'thank god this isn't a Chinese game or the drama forums would never sleep.'

To sum it all up: a ranked event ran twice without the rewards being built either time, active players allegedly crashed from 5,000 to 3,000, monthly revenue is in freefall, the producer is community-nicknamed after excrement, and the project's future looks grim. In the annals of gacha gaming disasters, this one is truly built different.