thankies Cosmos

just curious but did anyone new sign up as sailormama?

GRRRR so darn close to Spooky Micheru..i was 20 stars away..darn it

Wooooow, she's so cute! ♥

The sprites for her are so pretty!

Ugh...apron Makoto has the same crappy chance to miss ability as Venus. Oh well hopefully she will have a decent crown arcade power whenever that is finally opened...

Has anyone gotten apron makoto yet? This event is proving to be difficult for me...

I did. It took me a while to gain the last two necessary stars though.

Apron Mako ?In the Japanese version there is a Super Sailor Moon event .

Meh, we'll get there eventually.  The english version has had a significantly faster release schedule than the Japanese one.   Following a 2 week schedule with only two more sections of R to go and assuming an month long break after (probably when the Arcade will finally open for us) we could potentially start getting our first S story content around the start of the year.  Meanwhile Saturn only just appeared in the story for Japan in the last update (as a story character animation seemingly not playable yet per data miners).  So we could potentially catch up somewhere around the middle of next year...

if anyone on our English game list doesn't have me please feel free to add me.. i think i have some open slots left.

The event for getting Sailor V is up in the english version! FINALLY!

It runs from 11/29- 12/10. And it has mini episode cutscenes that seem to follow the story of Venus back when she was known as Sailor V!

I came sooo close to the Ami rerun that i really think i can get Sailor V!

Just before joining GC, I swore off Sailor Moon Drops. Much like all the other freemium “puzzle” games out there, it’s not a real puzzle game. It's a gambling game. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I slogged through it for a long time despite the massive time suck it takes to get lucky because, well it's Sailor Moon! Then one night I discovered that data miners had started to share all the shiny things from the game online. From a collector's mentality, I no longer felt the need to play..

But this is a *~Sailor V~* event for goodness sake!! So here I am on course 3 XD. I think the next plot point must be the London flashback ep...

I'm not intending to play much after this event BUT I have made it a policy since swearing off it a few weeks ago to still login once a day and send hearts. I see it as a duty to fellow fans! I’ve added all the active members from the table in the first post.

Good luck getting V-chan everyone~!

I'm so sad Super Sailor Moon, Uranus and Neptune, and Chibi Moon have to be won in events.... 

Meh if you think about it short of only playing actual Jigsaw puzzles there is an RNG luck factor to pretty much every computer/phone game (competing with yourself or the AI) that can effect your ability to win?  Fighting games, sports games, board games, etc...  I mean even think back to some of the first games like Nokia snake. Once you had eaten a bunch of apples it could drop the next one in a place you had no prayer of reaching with your length or it could drop it a tile in front of your face for an easy point...  RNG baby.

So while I won't argue that there is not most definitely a luck factor involved in any "puzzle" class game be it Tetris, Collapse, or especially a Match-3 game like Sailor Moon Drops.  I still think there is most definitely still a strategy element to the outcome of these games most of the time (outside of the timed levels on this game which frankly feel impossible to lose if you just keep swiping any matches.  Seriously has anyone EVER lost one of these without just putting your phone down in the middle of it?).  I mean for starters I only play once per day yet on average I seem to be able to complete most 5 stage events within 2 days without using any gems and at most 1-2 cat powerups while many others apparently struggle to finish before they expire.  Is my game just luckier every single time than these other people? 

To put it to a test while there is no event running and I have nothing to actually do in this game (except the new EVIL cake Makoto stage...that looks like it may be the Heartsnatchers version of the original Venus item stage from Hades, and Pluto item stage of almost equal suffering ) I decided to play a few somewhat harder levels of different types over and over again in two different ways.

Brain On - Played like I normally do studying the board and using actual planning/strategy. 

Brain Off - I still tried to complete the objective!  However I did so by making the first match I saw that worked toward that objective with no regard to difficulty of space or if it would potentially cost me from making other matches.   If there was a match 4/5 to be made that I saw I immediately took it but no attempt was made to try to line up the creation of these tiles.  Once created a special tile was often used as soon as possible instead of trying to position it.  Prisms were swiped first to create a combo if one was sitting there, after that in any direction that had a color also on a barrier I needed, if not then just swiped any direction.  Special power to be used immediately when it became available wherever it landed on the board with no attempt to position it.

The Results So Far:

Heartsnatchers Level 50 (Look for Luna):
Brain On - Won 7 out of 10 times
Brain Off - Won 2 out of 10 times

Heartsnatchers Level 20-1 (Break the Barriers):
Brain On - Won 7 out of 10 times (and was one tile away twice)
Brain Off - Won 1 out of 10 times

Seems like a pretty solid difference so far...sure sometimes pure luck can prevail or screw you over, but over all looking like overall there is quite a bit more to it than that most of the time.

For that matter I would also have to disagree with labeling it Freemium.  Which to me means you HAVE to pay to win/advance.  I mean compare this game to some of the other Match-3 games?  

Candy Crush - Limited lives, stingy on powerups, extra moves purchased almost solely with money.  Absurdly hard difficulty without using powerups at one point.  (Haven't played this in years so dunno if it changed at all)

Puzzle Quest (and variants like Marvel) - MASSIVE financial sink acquiring characters.  Some levels can only be completed if you have a certain character.  Competitive contests influenced by spending money to out do your opponent.  Seriously absurdly pay to win where free players have no prayer to do much of anything.

Frozen Free Fall - Very limited daily lives with an absurdly long timer.  Ability powerups are common daily rewards, but extra lives and powerups targeting one space are extremely rare so usually must be bought with money.   Levels get VERY difficult in later stages where powerups become a must.

Emoji Blitz - Plenty of lives and an fantastic short timer.  Overall a game that mostly can be enjoyed free except it has monthly special events which essentially require a special character to be able complete on time (or an absurd amount of free time to dedicate to the game).  Said character comes from an RNG pack that costs 200 diamonds to give you a CHANCE to get that character.  While you can at least get diamonds playing the game 200 is a heck of a lot to earn and again that is for only a chance to get a character...

Bejewled Blitz - If you want to make a leader board you absolutely have to use powerups.  You can earn some currency in game but that will run out rather quickly unless you go a good while saving up and not using powerups.  Honestly BB gets boring as there is no point to it besides leaderboard.

I just installed Fishdom...so have yet to see how that one works out with diamond and powerup usage.

Sailor Moon Drops - You might have had a case in the beginning when the only free gems were the handful you got at the start of the game, and pretty much the only way to get power-ups was to spend those gems, but I would say this game has undergone a major evolution over the past few months.  Power-ups have gotten much more plentiful especially with the trophy store and daily login rewards, and even free gems are now being passed out.  Sure its only a couple here and there in daily rewards (so maybe enough for a single Tux usage per month) but that last Christmas event had 50 gems available for 3-starring the levels.  That was actually not nearly as hard to do as I thought it would be.  If that wass not a one time then that is a potential big influx of in-game currency available for free.  

Besides difficulty wise I pretty much have yet to see anything come even remotely close to the brutal difficulty level of the other various match-3 games where it feels like the only way to win is to use items (The exception being essentially one stage per season which were all on an optional path so does not block your progress in advancing in the game. The previously mentioned Venus, Pluto, and possibly Makoto cake stages...although maybe the last one has an strategy I just have not figure out yet as I am not getting close.  And really I don't think these nasty stages even promoted much spending for item usage as even using items would not have guaranteed a victory by any means.)   Of course we still have about 2.5 seasons to go of the main story so maybe it will get that hard eventually though I hope not...  Still I gotta say even with the events to this point it feels like they are actually trying to make these things as winnable by as many people as they can with the difficulty arguably scaling down from what it was even a few months ago.

Plus lives are really plentiful in this game, again besides the standard 5 lives with a fairly reasonable timer, there are plenty awarded during events and logins and with the mailbox feature you can actually save them for when you need them instead of them halting your regeneration timer like in other games.  Even better you can get lives from other people with NO FORCED FACEBOOK FRIENDS!  You can actually just add random people from in the game itself and they stay only in the game.  How rare and incredible is that feature nowadays?  I mean it can't just be me where none (and certainly not 30) of my actual IRL friends want to play the same games as me (especially on a daily basis).  I despise having to add complete strangers to my FaceBook account who then proceed to spam my wall with their crossposts and which causes my phone to constantly popup notifications asking if I know someone they have as a friend.  I DON'T KNOW ANYONE IN CHINA SO STOP ASKING ME FACEBOOK!!!)   So seriously anyone who does not have a full friends list of active people giving them at least 10+ extra lives per day is not playing this game right.   So overall I tend to think that this is by far one of the most playable Match-3 games without ever having to spend a single dime (Though if you are like me you might feel compelled to make at least one small purchase just to support the developer after playing for awhile).

Does anyone know who and when the next character event is going to be?

Human Luna for the English version
Haruka wearing a traditional outfit for the Japanese version (it has something to do with the new year I believe) 
Not quite sure when they start but usually the app puts a banner announcing it about 2-3 days before it starts so just keep checking it.

This is literally the 5th Haruka in Sailor Moon Drops. We haven't even had that many Usagis! Japan clearly has a favorite senshi...

Edit: In agreement with Xenox's post above, I really feel that this game is pretty fair. Just from playing it so much I've realized that it DOES actually involve quite a bit of skill/practice. It is much fairer than other puzzle games such as Candy Crush. I have honestly never spent a dime on this game and can tell you that every level is possible to win without using an item.

Edit: Just kidding we have also had exactly 5 Usagi/Sailormoon characters so she's tied with Haruka if we don't count Serenity and NQS

New Haruka x Michiru wallapaper 

The events right now are both really cute! The Japanese event gives you a wallpaper just for logging in and the Human Luna event in the English version has the Princess Kaguya storyline from the SailormoonS movie and manga side story.

I take back what I said about event difficulty...these past two Luna and Super Sailor Moon have been brutal featuring some very nasty luck heavy boards where you either need to have an extreme amount of patience with a willingness to try again and again and again or else burn through items/gems to get the level 5 versions.   I went the patience route for Luna finishing with only a couple days to go but the even harder SSM nope I burnt through a portion of my stockpile that I'd been hoarding to get the pain over with.

On a different note, holy crap is Super Sailor Moon annoying to play as...  Flashing the big bright butterfly pose after every single freaking move you make was really distracting/annoying IMHO.  Not sure if her L5 special is better than the regular SM L5 specials or not?  I think it might cover a bigger area but takes longer to charge...  Gonna take me awhile to level her up (of course the Level Up Events had to end before this) to try her on some more open boards to see what it can really do as too often her tile got shunted into a narrow corner against a wall on the event which made it hard to judge.

The level number 6 on the first world for SSM is the worst type of level in Drops..it forces you to try to make huge combos and if you don't get rid of a bad block each turn..A NEW ONE APPEARS!!! GRRRRRRR

I hate those! And a small question; is there any site out there that lists which events have happened so far? I know I missed Luna (agh), but I want to know the others. I'm totally getting super sailor moon though!

I do not know about a published list but off the top of my head looking at my character list I am pretty sure the order of the last events from the NA (English) version was:

Rei (School)
Ami (Dress)
Makoto (School)
Vampire Haruka
Witch Michiru
Makoto (Apron) *often referred to as Chef Makoto or that useless character...*
Sailor V
Santa Usagi + Santa Chibiusa
Luna
Super Sailor Moon

Before that we had the other girls school Uniforms (although I do not have Usagi?  So either there wasn't one for our version or it one of the very first events and has not been re-run?) and Princess Serenity.

I GOT HER! WHOOOP!

Only downside(?) is that there's no additional powerup for her. The only reason to press further to get the level to the max level of 5 is new poses.

But that's also the plus side. You don't have to worry about forever missing an additional powerup if you don't beat the whole event in time.

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

I GOT HER! WHOOOP!

Only downside(?) is that there's no additional powerup for her. The only reason to press further to get the level to the max level of 5 is new poses.

But that's also the plus side. You don't have to worry about forever missing an additional powerup if you don't beat the whole event in time.

Huh what do you mean there is no additional power-up?  I leveled her up to 2, and it says right on her that her area of effect increases if you level her up to 5? (Just like all the other Sailor Moons).  Actually I think I vaguely recall that to be true too as I think the first map rentals were level 2, and map 4-5 was the level 5 version which is maybe why some of those maps seemed slightly easier when they were supposed to be harder?

Plus I have to say if you do plan to use her you probably want rank 4 unlocked so you can get rid of the super annoying eye-catching butterfly flash after every move...

Really? Do you know how much bigger the area effect gets? It looked the same to me, and that's me still playing the event and using her trial level 5 version.

Well mine is still only level 2, and since I cleared the event I can no longer use a trial...  But from what I am reading in the wiki the level 2 is potentially 13 blocks in an arrow shape while the level 5 is potentially 19 blocks in a heart shape.  That would put it as the strongest move so far (compared to 17 blocks max for the other Sailor Moons)...but of course due to the shape of it you are not often going to hit quite that many.  The boards for this event in particular were filled with so many narrow places which of course that's where the special tile often landed...which made it a bit harder to get a sense of scale.

I've been stuck on level 180 for days!