Alice Gear Aegis CS Concerto of Simulatrix

is out, and with the sheer number of weapons and gear pieces available for its twenty-two playable characters, you might be wondering which items to buy first. Luckily, the game’s gear system only looks complicated at first, and we’ve come up with a capsule guide to help you find the best gear in Alice Gear Aegis CS.

Every playable Actress in Alice Gear Aegis CS has four pieces of gear to wear:

• Firearm Gear – One of 4 types of ranged weapon: rifle, SMG, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle
• Clash Gear – A melee weapon, either a greatsword, sword and shield, spear, or hammer
• Torso Gear – Gear worn on the arms and shoulders of the Actress
• Legs Gear – Gear worn on the legs and waist of the Actress

There’s a range of items available, and many variations in multiple elements. Most pieces of gear in the game can be worn by any Actress, with some notable exceptions, for the best gear.

Though there’s a lot of gear available in the pool, for the most part you want to focus on getting both unique gear sets for every Actress. Unique gear, i.e. pieces that are patterned on the “canonical” equipment worn by the Actress in question, are built for that specific actress, and unlock unique abilities. Each Actress has two gear sets. A cheaper, “low-tier” set that’s generally a customized variation of the common gear, and a genuinely unique “high-tier” gear set made just for them. Low-tier gear can be shared between different Actresses, while high-tier gear can only be worn by the specific Actress. You can identify unique gear pieces by looking at them in the Gear Shop. If the gear icon has a small picture of the Actresses’ face on it, that’s their unique gear.

In general, high-tier unique gear is the best gear in Alice Gear Aegis CS, and unless you’re getting very deep into trying to build a setup that’s uniquely your own, you should focus your efforts on acquiring the unique gear sets above others. Those pieces have the highest stats and unlock unique abilities that suit the Actresses’ fighting style. Getting unique gear early on simplifies your choices, and cuts down on the amount of grinding you’ll need to do to unlock everything. Another bonus of purchasing unique gear sets is that they unlock character-specific poses in the “Preview” function, the better to enjoy the design or set up for some screenshots.

To further improve your efficiency grinding, use your first run of a story to purchase an Actresses’ low-tier gear, then upgrade to their high-tier gear by the end of the story. If you don’t spend money on costumes or accessories, you should have enough left over to purchase the low-tier gear of a new Actress, giving you a head start on your next story run. By the time you’ve gotten all the best gear in Alice Gear Aegis CS, you’ll have plenty of coins left over to buy costumes and accessories for your favorite characters. Alice Gear Aegis CS is available on the PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. Check out Siliconera’s official review of the Switch edition.

Josh Tolentino is Senior Staff Writer at Siliconera. He previously helped run Japanator, prior to its merger with Siliconera. He's also got bylines at Destructoid, GameCritics, The Escapist, and far too many posts on Twitter.