# THE ALCHEMIST CODE — user reviews > 50 indexed App Store user reviews of THE ALCHEMIST CODE by gumi Inc., rated 4.64/5 from 9,661 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-alchemist-code/id1263809665/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-alchemist-code/id1263809665.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 7,737 · 4★ 1,223 · 3★ 258 · 2★ 98 · 1★ 353 ## What do users think of THE ALCHEMIST CODE? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Years of fun - 🚀 Best game out there on Mobile - 👍 ITS AMAZING - 👍 This game allows for SO MUCH to happen, and for FREE?!? - 👍 Very Solid - 👍 This is by far my favorite game - 👍 This game is a masterpiece - 👍 Excellent quality. Excellent gameplay. - 👍 Fun game... but only when it's done right - 👍 The next great rpg - 👍 Pretty Good **Cons** - 🐛 Characters freeze up the battle - 😞 Frustrating game & losing hope - 💰 Gambling w/ real money - 🐛 Game unplayable - 🐛 The App Refuses to Work - 🐛 Constant Downloading/Crashing - 💰 Another Pay to Win - 🕰️ Year update: game going downhill - 🐛 Bad 1st Impression **Commonly reported bugs** - Characters freeze up the battle - Game unplayable - The App Refuses to Work - Constant Downloading/Crashing - Login screen freezes - Incompatible with older devices **Most requested features** - Can we have coupons that grant a higher chance for collab units? - Need help! - Please fix this - Dark mode option - Advanced analytics dashboard ## Newest reviews (12 of 50) ### 4/5 — By Far Favorite Game...But... *2020-05-02, version 6.0.0* This is by far my favorite game. It has an unbelievable amount of content. I love the stories, I love the free dailies, weeklies, and monthlies, I love the character building and the characters. I have been playing this game for a very long time. This would be one of the best ratings I ever gave a game if it weren’t such a memory hog. As of today it is taking up almost 8GB if memory , is there any way to off load some of this memory to be able to free up space on my phone? I afraid if I can’t I may have to delete the game. Please help. Thanks. ### 4/5 — Exelent Partnerships *2020-04-23, version 6.0.0* This game is very good for those who like strategy and have time to kill, this game also has ways of speeding through when you don’t want to feel like your grinding which is also excellent. Where this game does best is when there are partnerships with anime which we all know and love, or video game partnerships. In the past there was FF15, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, and even attack on Titan. These were incredible ideas and fun while they lasted. However, this is where the issues also arrive. These partnerships seem to be completely limited and there is no other way to obtain the characters other than to play long and hard during the events. After these events the characters that you want had better be yours or your done. This can leave a bitter feeling in your mouth and has caused me in the past to quit this game for months but I come back because of the new events which promise better characters, and the events have gotten easier to get at least one or two of the famous characters. Seven Deadly Sins Meliodas is my favorite. I hope they cycle back to the events or open up a way to unlock the others from past events. It would also be nice to see them update the older characters because the old event characters are almost outdated and outgunned by the newer ones. ### 2/5 — Amazing games!! WORST customer support. *2019-12-22, version 5.0.3* So we wont lie this basis of this story is I’m a fool and I forgot to link my account. So at the end of the day yes, this whole ordeal is in fact my fault but people make mistakes. So we got ride of my old iPad and I forgot to link my game long story short I wanted to play and realized I didn’t remember whatever bogus name I made my player name. So I send in a request and I get “Willie” I tell him everything, my team leaders name, who’s on my team, levels, enlightening statuses, send him RECEIPTS of past purchases because I save weird things like that. But nope... they can’t help unless you know your exact player name, 5 names off your friends list (wwhhhaatt?!!) or a grouping of random numbers they call a friend ID. I’m sorry, I know at the end of the day it’s my fault but I mean I had order numbers from my purchases?! You can’t look that information up? Find out to what account it when to and quiz me on what going on in their? You can look up accounts on past purchases at a JCPENNY and you’re telling me you can’t do that when your a company that literally creates games on even more advanced TECHNOLOGY than a RETAIL STORE. Super disappointed because your games are amazing. Oh well. Nothing like losing a loyal customer. ### 3/5 — Great game but problem *2019-07-20, version 4.1.0* Hi this is a great game I’ve played up to the first level in the chapter we’re you get a character but I didn’t play I would get on play for like 30 seconds and it would black out on me and it self exited so I crept getting back on and i once was in the middle of a fight and it blacked out but when I got back on the battle was finished I just defeated the blueish looking night I’m Guessing sing because I just unlocked a character that was 5* so I ascendent it and now it just repeats the main song and the back ground is what I’m guessing is like sparks of fire and ash and it doesn’t stop it’s like the fire and ash part every time I log on so can you please fix this ### 3/5 — The App Refuses to Work *2019-06-09, version 4.0.0* I genuinely enjoyed the game (for the three days I was allowed to play it). It granted me a bunch of really nice 5* and the game play is really fun and engaging. But then it updated. Once it updated it locked me out of the app so any time I attempted to load into the game it immediately black screened and shut down. So I decided to delete and then redownload. Didn’t work and I ended up losing what progress I had made and the 10 or so 5* I worked for. It is incredibly annoying and I just wanted to enjoy the game itself. But it appears the update decided I’m not allowed to. If I didn’t encounter this issue the game out easily be a 5-star review but sadly it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my progress back. ### 2/5 — Rose tinted glasses *2019-05-25, version 3.1.3* So after playing TAC since a few months after its original global release I’ve seen Gumi do many things right, and many things wrong. More recently things were going in the correct direction considering the cost ($$$) to Enlighten many of the new and old units. However it would appear that this is not their prerogative as things have gone to a worst case scenario in the last month in consideration to the: poorly designed/one-sided banners, lack of customer feedback from Gumi, and non-interest of the games health. You would think that considering game health in the Japan version of the game that Gumi would take steps to avoid past mistakes, this is not the case. Having a 2,500 gem banner for a non-limited unit is ludicrous. I for one won’t be spending on the game because it will net me nothing at this point outside of heavy month long preparation for a single unit that Gumi will hinder with the next banner release. This saddens me because I would like to keep the game going considering all the friends I’ve made playing it and the fact that I enjoy it. Gumi has out priced itself, and I cannot support that. If I continue playing it will be as a free player only as the game can be enjoyed that way as well. Two stars for that reason alone. ### 3/5 — Constant Downloading/Crashing *2019-02-22, version 3.0.0* So, I think the game is great. It’s been pretty fun so far, it’s very generous to new players and you level up pretty quick. The only thing that’s been a huge deal breaker for me, is every time I try to progress any further into the story quests, it’s always prompting me to download more and more data. And when I try to go into settings and download everything at once so I don’t have to deal with the constant pop-ups, asking me to download more data to proceed into the game, it crashes on me. So I can’t download the whole thing. I tried to already through the main screen, before it loads you into the game. But it apparently didn’t download anything? Because I’m constantly getting asked to download more and more and it’s really annoying . Also, whenever I complete a new story quest, the screen just turns black and nothing loads. I have to constantly close the game completely and reopen it. Thus making it take EVEN LONGER to get anywhere with the story quests. PLEASE fix this. ### 2/5 — Another Pay to Win *2018-12-08, version 2.3.2* I would rather pay outright for a game than have to “collect” the best units by an rng system that requires real money to have a good chance at getting the desired outcome. This formula is old, tired, and overdone. I have played dozens and dozens of games in the App Store and most are disappointments. This had a lot of promise but instantly let me down. Games like Mercenary Saga, or Final Fantasy Tactics are lightyears better than this crap. Give your players the tools they need to truly enjoy the game to the fullest. Don’t pawn off a free to play game with in game app purchases. If you want to offer cosmetics then go for it, but not a currency you need to “summon” new units. This money sink rng system needs to finally die. ### 5/5 — Good, but... *2018-10-17, version 2.2.2* I’ve seen a lot of RPGs, both on consoles, handheld, and mobile. However, some of the more successful ones for mobile... 1. Have a company you may have heard of 2. Have a base for already/continuation of a series 3. Keeps all versions of game on the same level, regardless of country/server. Gumi has been heard of before with Brave Frontier, sure, and it has a large base for mobile RPGs, but... The Japanese Version is so much farther ahead than Global. That discrepancy makes me not really wanna spend time in the game, since Japanese players have a massive advantage while we wait for the content they already have. Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes, which makes a lot of money, kept all versions of the game on the same level, and they’re continuing that with Dragalia Lost. Personally, I love the style of this game. I’ve played a majority of Fire Emblem games, and I feel like this is the perfect game to play for the RPG genre if you like it. But please, Gumi, keep JP and Global on the same level. It can discourage a lot of Global players. ### 5/5 — Game is amazing *2018-10-12, version 2.2.2* If you are into SJRPGs you have come to the right game. The depths of this game make it impossible to not to enjoy. The graphics are great, the battles are great, and it is just an overall enjoyable game. I did have an issue but the developers customer service had it handled in a few days. Download this if you need something new and enjoy strategy rpgs! Issue I had: I cannot log into the game. The touch to start doesnt work on the home screen, on iphone 6. I have been trying to log in for days. Please fix. Update: This games customer service is on point! I have been communicating back and forth to fix a glitch i found that prevented me from logging into the game properly. They resolved the issue within a few days and kept communications coming. They have the best customer service support. ### 2/5 — Too expensive and time consuming *2018-08-02, version 2.1.0* I admit this game could be awesome if it wasn’t such a money pit of a game and you can get nice things from the events but students and people with jobs don’t have 8-10 hours a day to get all the items from the events how do you expect people to have a job to pay for the summon and weapon events and still have enough time to get items from playing unless they are paying for the items in the shop without playing but then what’s the point of playing just to have somewhere to throw your money away this game has left me so depleted and defeated it pains me to try to come online to a game and see all I am missing out on cause I don’t have the time after work to do it all but trying to make the money I already spent worth it I think this game has changed me into a f2p player it’s the last time I will be played by one of these games ### 5/5 — Excellent quality. Excellent gameplay. *2018-07-26, version 2.1.0* Update: The current bundles have rainbow shards and rainbow diagrams. I don’t know if this was a thing before or if someone read my review and made it happen. My one disappointment has been rectified. Hopefully players will be able to obtain these items through means other than bundles, but it’s a blessing to have if you need them. Enhanced equipment and mastering jobs is essential for the characters in this game. I did favor FF Brave Exvius as old school Final Fantasy games are what I grew up on. Even though that game is very good, the gameplay and every aspect of this game feels superior. I definitely recommend both, and even as F2P you can definitely complete content. This game is a definite must for all who enjoy the tactics RPG genre. Original: If you like games like final fantasy tactics then you will love this game. I only wish they had generic materials you could amass to use in place of limited unit specific gear shards. So for those missing a few shards for one last equipment piece for a limited unit are not completely in the mud. Overall this game is top notch! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Frustrating game & losing hope *2022-02-22, version 10.6.0* Long-time player, here. I love the story of Babel and the many sub-stories they offer. I also like most of their collaborations they bring over, though those units tend to have a short play "shelf life." There's no way to upgrade or strengthen collaboration units once the game upgrades the main units, so past collaboration units get left behind. If a player ends up spending money on the units during the collaboration run, that investment is essentially wasted. My current frustration with the game is that there was a recent update to the entire platform that has broken several parts of the game. Certain characters have lost access to quests they once had, and other play areas have been broken. I've tried addressing this with Gumi support, but I'm hitting a brick wall - harder than usual. As the game is right now, I cannot recommend downloading or playing this game until they've repaired what has been broken. ### 1/5 — Promising yet overshadowed by objectification of female characters *2020-06-26, version 6.2.0* I wanted to enjoy this game. Upon going through the first scene the story appeared to have merit, and this is coming from someone who has been gaming for over 20 years who has gotten to the point where story quality is what I look for most. However, just as many other games on the App Store, this game resorted to the objectification of women and portraying ridiculous geometry of women’s chests as their dominant feature versus their character, abilities, etc. This was unnecessary, as the story quality was clearly promising. However, this completely turned me off as a male gamer because the whole gamer population needs to be respected rather than only focusing on teenage male gamers, who by no means are the representative faces of the gamer population (women play games too). I strongly stand against this game until it appeals to players in a progressive and respectful way. ### 1/5 — Attack on titan crossover is timed endgame content used to gain new players *2019-06-30, version 4.0.1* The game advertised The AoT collaboration and intrigued me enough to download and give it a shot. Shortly after I realized the game was a fairly shallow gacha that expects you to shell out cash if you want to get a single character you might want. I automatically give 1 star to any gacha that will start you with significantly less currency than needed to perform 1 multi summon. Call it entitlement or whatever you want, but when other Gachas like Dokkan, Brave souls, one piece, and Naruto can give out several multi summons to new players on prime banners I think others should give at least one. It helps the player get into the game and figure out if they want to stick with it or not. In my mind it also shows how stingy the parent company is. It should be against the App Store TOS to advertise a limited time end game/p2p content to get players to download your free game. ### 1/5 — Game unplayable *2019-06-23, version 4.0.1* The game does not start. Every time (and I’ve tried multiple times) I complete the tutorial and spin for a free 5star character, I get taken back to the title screen where it says tap to continue. Once I tap, I get taken to a black screen animated with flames or light particles, but nothing happens. I can wait 15 minutes and the actual game won’t start. I saw other people mention this on a Facebook ad almost a month ago but to this day no solution. It’s a shame, I can tell I wanted to play this given how many times I attempted to make it work— I actually have too many mobile games downloaded but wanted to give this one a chance too. Also a big Attack on Titan fan. I guess I’ll never know? ### 1/5 — Dear Gumi *2019-02-01, version 2.3.3* Dear Gumi, Why would you even have Ushi Gaming Channel, Imite, and Miko Gaming players to a Gumi account to showcase the new units where they are free to try with in the game? What’s the purpose of having free unit to try within the game? They can just showcase base on that. But no, these players get a privilege to a Gumi account with all the max level units to showcase them and get compensated with free Gems which average about 10k – 20k per week. It’s very unless. This seems unfair to F2P players and other whale players (using real money). Especially, F2P players where it is impossible to accumulate/save that amount of Gems within a week. If you would just update your system to where the new unit appears in the unit groups with the name like example “Temporarily Roxanne”. This way, all players can try it and see for themselves and also get to equip their gear to see how useful they are. ### 1/5 — Year update: game going downhill *2018-11-10, version 2.3.0* Long story short, the accelerated release schedule (trying to catch up to the Japan version, essentially) is really a problem now. Slowly developing your characters is now meaningless, and only jumping on the latest thing right away gets through content (which requires whale money). I have loved this game for a year now, buying the monthly pact fairly regularly. They keep smashing more collaboration and limited OP units at us at a faster and faster pace, which has destroyed the game balance. I’m sad to see it go, but it’s no longer fun for me. Just feels like a chore to do daily brainless stuff, and knowing it won’t make a difference down the road makes it completely unsatisfying. ### 1/5 — Enjoyable Game, Bad Business Practice *2018-07-05, version 2.1.0* I have played the game as F2P since the start. Slowly, I have been amassing my characters, building them up while enjoying the gameplay. I reached the point where I can tackle EX/late game content fairly reasonably. I also have been able to get a decent share of limited event characters, which happily scratches my collector’s itch. Things were going pretty well, even to the 2.0 update. However, as of recent, Gumi has been making changes to the way they run the business of this game that are disappointing in my opinion. From the FFXV collaboration, the banners have been changed from the JP version’s run of the event. Instead of a guaranteed character after a certain amount of gems invested, it is only a chance for that same character with no guarantees. I understand that JP and Global are different in terms of context and audience. Yet continuing to put limited and more powerful characters behind higher gem investments is greedy, in my opinion. I do not expect everyone to be able to collect all the characters, but I do think that those who are putting in time, effort, and resources should not be rewarded with nothing to show for it. There are many others who share these thoughts and more. Look into any of the Discord, Reddit and other communities. These practices are tiring. ### 1/5 — Needs improvement *2018-01-17, version 1.1.1* Difficult to complete elite quests without the right units or jobs. You need to pay more to collect duplicates and upgrade your units. You’re looking at collecting 375 copies of the same units just to max your units. It’s get especially hard to get the third job for 5* units. Even some 5* unit have the worst jobs ever. Camera issues where a unit is in range of a skill or attack but it’s difficult to select them even when turning the camera around. All stats are not shown. There are fears that ups dark res but this stat is never shown. There are other stats like “guts” which I have no idea what it does. It also doesn’t get shown. Difficult to tell who’s turn is next. Needs to show attack modifiers for each skills. AI needs a lot of work. They will never attack and move. Support units will always use support skill on self. Arena, units will move close to each other only to be killed by one aoe skill. Does not target chest when nearby. Always target the ground instead of the unit. Mages plainly are relevant. Can’t tell when it’s their turn to use their skill. Charge takes too long. Low defense stat, easily killed by any range units. Multiplayer is very slow. There should be an auto button or at least a fast forward button enabled. ### 1/5 — Fun game ruined by INCOMPETENCE *2018-01-16, version 1.1.1* Not going to lie, I am/was addicted to this game. But I have never seen this level of greed and incompetence before, even in other GUMI games. Their rewards for special events like New Years was laughable, they released super difficult events months early (as compared to the JP version), then apparently got their servers hacked and took away everyone’s free gems if they had a certain amount. Not to mention they have been falsely advertising gem packages with first-time bonuses even if you have bought them before (you will receive the non-bonus amount). I will honestly probably keep playing because the gameplay is nice, but I will think twice before spending any more money. GUMI if you are listening, hire someone with COMMON SENSE to make decisions that affect the player base. Everyone is angry, and they WILL leave your game very quickly. It’s only a matter of time. ### 2/5 — Gambling w/ real money *2020-09-20, version 7.0.0* Don’t ever buy any gems. There are opportunities to get characters and gears that you may want but it is going to cost you plenty of gems and they are not cheap and it’s still based on chance. You can sometimes get ok characters by pure luck. I have been playing for about 3 years and there are literally dozens of characters that are locked to me, these are some of the best characters in the game too. No surprise. The best way to beat the system is to save all your gems and try for the best chance to get a character that you want. You might have to save a few months or a whole year. But, good luck trying to max out the character that is another challenge after you finally get that one good character. The character is so underpowered it is basically useless. Play the game have fun but don’t buy any gems it is legal child gambling. You are always buying a chance to get something and most of the time you will be disappointed. Save yourself frustration, false hope, and your hard earned money. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Years of fun *2023-02-07, version 10.8* I have been playing this game for years when I felt the urge to play a game similar to a Final Fantasy tactics style games. From the constant events, characters, story and multiple difficulties. I enjoyed every single aspect of the game. I am sad to see. A friend of mine and myself I’ve been playing this game since it came to global and we have not missed a day he’s. I am sad that this game is going to get shut down globally because of war of the visions. This game is vastly superior and the rest of you also know this is a better game because you took all the ideas from this game and put it into war of the visions. ### 5/5 — Best game out there on Mobile *2023-02-07, version 10.8* So I have been playing this game for years and I can definitely admit that it is (to me) the best mobile game out there. It has plenty of heroes for you to choose from and you can make all of them pretty much invincible (I love being OP), it has tons of content that gets updated often as well. You can literally play this game all day if you wanted. Now the bad stuff, I would tell anyone to never do the gem rolls unless your doing it for the items, the rolls have a really bad chance attached to them and you will almost always never get what you want. There are heroes that are special where you can only get one shard a day and most of these are the best so it will take a long time to build them up. The mobs you fight are complete cheaters I hate the fact that they pretty much have unlimited skills and you have a limit and it’s a low limit at that. I have lost plenty of quest To healers ( not dying just ended up quitting do you time) just because I run out of skills and they spam heals. Other than that the guys/gals that made this game deserve an Oscar it’s awesome seriously. ### 5/5 — Characters freeze up the battle *2022-06-20, version 10.6.8* Hey, I love this game btw, but like I’m currently facing this issue where a character I own, Meilikki, would often bug the game when I use her in battle, which is a problem considering I put a lot into her, and to know that a character. I just don’t know what to do, every time I use her in battle, the battle freezes up when it’s her turn. I’ve tried restarting the game, logging out of the battle etc. I hope this problem is addressed soon because the event is limited and I want to master her job. ### 5/5 — ITS AMAZING *2022-02-10, version 10.6.0* It’s an amazing game with strategy and graphics, plus anime in general but I feel like the game should have a thing where you can reset characters by reset I mean get the money, exp, items, all of it back from them when they reach back to level 1 when reset for the ones you don’t use that much or never touched before because I feel like people made mistakes/accident upgrading or putting money in those characters we don’t use. Another reason is when we first start the game we have to use the characters we start with and weeks later of playing we get new & stronger characters so we would want to use the items & money from our old characters and transfer into the OP characters to make them even better. Again I feel like they should put a thing where you can reset characters back to 1, overall is a great game thank you for creating this!! ### 5/5 — Can we have coupons that grant a higher chance for collab units? *2021-09-15, version 10.0.0* I played this for a while in 2019. I left 2020 and got back in early 2021. I’m quite disappointed I missed the Shield Hero collar but no biggie. I really wanted Rimuru though and I missed that chance because I can’t buy gems and thus couldn’t make enough Summons. If you could make a voucher for the rare summon that gave us pure F2P players a chance at collab units that would be amazing! ### 5/5 — This game allows for SO MUCH to happen, and for FREE?!? *2021-04-08, version 9.0.2* I have played SO MANY games over these years, and there is NOT ONE that is THIS GOOD, AND *FREE*. I don’t even do reviews but I had to let this company know I will play this game the rest of my life 1. Compared to other games, even final fantasy tactics mobile, the grinding is understandable AND IT HAS IN-GAME TUTORIALS. There’s even a compendium online for unit-building and gear searching 2. Gameplay is exactly what you’d expect from a game with strategic elements such as being able to move after attacking, charge time for magic stacks, counter-attacks, etc 3. SO MUCH CONTENT! Character voices, art gallery, music, 5+ story modes, and I’m done with this mouthful of a review. Much deserved tho! ### 5/5 — Need help! *2021-01-02, version 8.1.0* I’ve played this game for years now and love it. I started over about 90 or so days ago and didn’t link this one to Facebook and now when I go to log in at the menu where is says (touch screen) it says connecting and never starts the game up. It lets me write message or redownload but I don’t wanna lose my memory . I got the event characters I wanted a bit back and will quit all together if I have to start over. Please help or 5 stars go down to 1 ### 5/5 — Very Solid *2020-09-17, version 7.0.0* As a long time and returning player I thought it was time to make a review for newer players. Overall the game wins my heart with its excellent usage of game mechanics. The starter bonuses are amazing for new players to max a unit and use that unit to clear most of the content in the game. Some aspects of the game can appear pay to win but you do get enough gems from story content to pull for new units to overcome obstacles. Through playing this game for years and recently starting anew, the game is in my eyes one of the best tactical rpgs out there for mobile ### 5/5 — This game is a masterpiece *2019-10-04, version 4.2.2* So I started just after the final fantasy collab and I knew about this game from the Smosh games video they sponsored. I wasn’t that interested but one day I decided I’ll just download it cause I didn’t really have anything that was fun on my phone. I got the game and started and didn’t really care about the story. If I could go back I would read everything but just never did. I used the mercenary system and found a character I really liked but didn’t have. I worked to get him and once I did I started leveling him up. I used to play almost everyday while I was at lunch or if I was just waiting for something. I can’t play as much now but I do hop in and grind to get some stuff a little. The leveling system is smart and every character has their own stories with their own abilities. ### 5/5 — Game I so wish I could play! *2019-06-08, version 4.0.0* I think it’s hilarious that Gumi made this app unaccessible to a large community by requiring 2GB of RAM to play version 4.0 for the GL version when this wasn’t an issue in the JP version. There has been no communication from GL on timetables other than responses to complaints saying to “get a more powerful device to play the game,” because I have so much money to blow on new devices. I left a 5* review intentionally to make this more likely to stay up and be read by someone who is closer to the situation than I. The complete lack of communication on top of the capitalist responses to complaints is what makes this situation so jarring and it makes me doubt how much I’ll play this app again if, not when, it goes back down to the 1GB RAM minimum. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*