Alright, this game is apparently a big thing. From what I can glean it's an rpg of sorts, at least having a bunch of units which you can gather in teams and upgrade over time. That's fairly appealing, and the theme seems okay as well. On the other hand, I've heard of extensive waiting times, and (do please correct me if I'm wrong) you have to win a lottery to get in and it is as of yet utterly untranslated. So here's my question: is it worth the hassle? My armchair impression of it is, pardon the vernacular, one of a Facebook game with tits slapped on. Does it have enough else going for it to warrant the trouble?
Well if I had a good way of explaining it, I would explain it like this:
Starting back with where started your post, yes, the game does have a little bit of an RPG element to it at least in terms of leveling up ship girls and improving thier stats and upgrading them. Course it should be noted that combat is also RNG based as well. But most of the time, you can do well as long as you take the time to train and pick the right formations to gain the edge in the battle.
In term of wait time to getting accepted in the game. It's not difficult if you follow all the instructions in how to register and know when the lottery takes place. Then you shouldn't have much difficulty getting into the game as long as you follow the instructions and get into the lottery. Most players can easily get in within the first lottery. There's been a few occasions where it took them up to 3 lotteries for the players to get in.
But once you win the lottery, you are in for good and won't need to worry about it any more. If you want to get in my best advice would be to go over to the Kancolle Wikia for advice. Prefferably there two links will be most important for you in terms of helping you prepare for the lottery since you will need to get a VPN to access it. (It technically restricted to Japan players, but they know foreign players come in to play as well so they don't mind them)
http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorial:_How_to_Registerhttp://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Proxy_ConnectionThe game itself is not translated, but the Wikia does however have translations to almost all of the material. So you can depend on that to look up whatever you need to know. Thankfully the game is easy enough to navigate that after a few you get use to the interface, it almost become muscle memory so it shouldn't be a problem even if you don't know Japanese to learn most of the basics. (You might still need the Wikia to look up names and equipment, and tips on playing through stages, but that's about it.)
Now on to your main question: Is it worth it and does it have what anything else to offer? The short answer is yes, if you play long enough, you'll eventually see why it's worth the time as content becomes available. Also there's a lot of fan content and official content out there as well!
The long answer to this is this: The game mainly has you playing as an admiral as you maintain and work with ship girls that you train and collect a-la Pokemon style. Yet at the same time you're also needing to make sure you take good care of them as they battle the enemy fleets because they will get damaged and if they do get critically damaged and move to the next map without returning for repairs, then they'll sink, and unlike pokemon... they're gone... for good (Till you can find another one)
Building and repairing ship girls takes time depending on thier stats and level. Which can range from minutes to hours. But thankfully the game does make things easier for you with using expidtions (which other fleets in your team can do) can go to pick up important instant repairs and resources. And also you can do quests to help speed things up as you go. The game is helpful enough to give you items that can instantly repair your ships on a daily basis. So even if you didn't want to wait, you could use said item you get from quest or expedition to repair or build your ship girl right away.
This in turn mean you can ultimately choose how to play the game at your own pace. Which is good because you can decide how to pace out how much time you want to invest into it.
As for the game itself: The main part of the game, if you spend your time grinding and training can take at least a few months to get through. But there are a few reasons players continue to play after the main maps are completed. One reason that makes players keep playing after the main part of the game is because of the seasonal events maps that come every season. These event maps come out once a season and are based after naval events from WWII. And during these events you can earn rare equipment, new ship girls that are somewhat exclusive(for a few months to almost a year till they're re-released in the main game later to find if you weren't able to get them from said event.) PLayers usually will take the opportunity to stock up on resources and train for these to see if they can successfully win them.
Alternatively, people also continue to play to of course collect ship girls. Cause it is a collection game after all. And some shipgirl are easier to find than others thus you'll be revisiting maps till you get them. Or go through extensive construction till you make the rare ship girl you're seeking.
Finally, the game is very free-to-win. You don't necessarily need to spend money to really beat the game or win the events if you know what you're doing. So you don't have to invest in money to expand docks or add more space for more shipsgirls to stay if you choose not to. They give you a bit of a relief and comfort at most. In fact most items that you can purchase with real money, I would say are not worth it unless you're aiming to collect all the ship girls, or need to make more room to repair ship girls in larger numbers (you start with 2 repair docks by default) So again, it's entirely optional.
So yeah I think this game expands beyond the standard point of a typical browser game. Since they team put a whole lot of effort into the game, it's connection to actual ships from WWII, along with the character art and voices. And thanks to it getting it's attention back last year from twitter, it's popularity magnified to greater levels than even the devlopers anticipated, thus now it has a large following, with besides the game itself, there are lots of doujins, 6 offical manga, 3 light novels and an upcoming anime that should be coming out in the next few month.
I hope the information I provided you has given some insight on the game and how it has grown. If you feel you need more assistance, don't be afraid to ask.
