Valkyrie Elysium Review

With the success of Valkyrie Anatomia, one would think that this would be the perfect opportunity to bring back the Valkyrie Profile series. While many of us expected a tri-Ace developed Valkyrie Profile game, Square-Enix decided against the idea and instead handed the series over to a different developer. Soleil, a company known for making beat em up games was chosen to take over the development of the series in place of tri-Ace and as someone who considers themselves a fan of the Valkyrie Profile games, I found this decision to be completely asinine, given the fact that tri-Ace were the people who made the series so great to begin with, I knew going into this game that it was going to be a disaster. Now one might argue that tri-Ace was too busy working on Star Ocean The Divine Force to work on a new Valkyrie Profile but at the same time, Star Ocean The Divine Force is a Square-Enix game, much like Valkyrie Profile, so they could have worked on Valkyrie Profile 3 instead but Square-Enix being the blithering idiots they are, decided to release yet another Star Ocean game instead. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Star Ocean but the Valkyrie Profile series has always been the pinnacle of tri-Ace’s capabilities, so to see them not working on the latest entry is bitterly disappointing.

So with all that in mind, it’s important to expect something completely different with Valkyrie Elysium as it is a completely different game entirely from Valkyrie Profile. Valkyrie Elysium is not a JRPG like many would be led to believe, it is one of the most unapologetic 3D Beat Em Ups I’ve played in recent years, given the fact that the skill tree in this game is designed specifically to restrict the player’s growth, something that even Devil May Cry doesn’t do. The issue with the skill system ultimately comes down to the fact that to learn new skills, you not only need to learn previous skills but you also need a specific color of gem and those gems can only be acquired upon reaching certain points in the game’s story, therefore they are a barrier for players looking for growth.

The biggest let down with this is that one of the few things carried over from Valkyrie Profile is the crystals that rain from enemies when they are attacked. In the first game and Covenant Of The Plume, these crystals would be converted into bonus experience points as a reward for playing well. In Valkyrie Profile 2, these crystals would not only reward bonus experience but they were also a currency used to purchase sealstones which were very valuable items that players could use to turn battles in their favor. In Valkyrie Elysium however, the gems dropped from enemies can be found just about anywhere and are used as currency to learn new skills, as well as weapon upgrades. The issue is that when you acquire all the upgrades up to a certain point, many of these crystals become obsolete, requiring a different color of crystal and with limited upgrades to spend them on, as well as skills, they just kind of sit in your inventory collecting dust which is such a waste given the fact that the game clearly encourages you to play well to collect them, it completely eliminates any incentive to do so beyond a certain point. Sure, many other games have similar issues but given the fact that Valkyrie Elysium’s skills don’t take many crystals to learn, they’re easy enough to acquire to the point that there’s no reason to farm them, since you’ll have reached the cap… or at least near the cap by the end of the level regardless of how well you performed in battle. Restrictive skill systems is the most anti-tri-Ace thing you can do and this sickens me.

It’s obvious that the developers wanted to focus on the game’s combat above all else being a beat em up and all. The thing is though that while the combat looks visually appealing, I find it to be pretty mindless in execution. Now don’t get me wrong, there is value to be had in watching Valkyrie perform crazy attack strings and there’s quite a bit of flexibility to be had in regards to movesets. For one, you have the cancel combo system seen in the Dynasty Warriors games where you mash square and cancel into triangle for a finisher. Now you would think that you would use this a lot but I found myself using it very little late on in the game upon learning new skills. Once new skills become available, Valkyrie’s moveset becomes a lot bigger and with that you will unlock moves that are heavily abusable, one such move is the soul steal which guarantees that enemies will drop souls upon being hit by it. The lower the enemy’s health gauge, the more souls you will get. This allows players to abuse the einherjar system to rack up insane hit counts and restore the arts gauge faster.

It’s easy to rack up 999 hits with the help of your einherjar.

Speaking of einherjar, it appears that upon summoning them, you have absolutely no further control over them. Despite this however, you are able to learn new abilities for them, though the game never tells you how to actually use them. It turns out that upon summoning them, they will use whatever einherjar attack is set to them, then they follow up with their normal attack for the rest of the fight. I honestly find this to be a wasted mechanic as all you’re doing is summoning them, you’re not inputting commands like you can do in games like Chaos Legion, Castlevania Curse Of Darkness or Nights Of Azure. It would have been interesting to have the option to have them trigger their einherjar skills freely at the cost of soul gauge, similar to Chaos Legion’s assist moves but there’s nothing like that here. It just feels like a waste of an idea that accomplishes nothing besides making the game a hell of a lot easier. At first, prior to getting your second einherjar, the game can be rather tough and bosses will be quite challenging but all that disappears once you have a full roster of Einherjar with the soul steal skill, you’ll be watching your einherjar do all the work while you occasionally dive in and slash at them for souls to keep summoning einherjar to the field. It seems to me that the einherjar could have been removed entirely and the game would be more better off as a result, it’s tedious having to constantly summon them into battle, even though you can adjust the time they are out, you’ll still have to resummon them constantly in long fights, they might as well just remove the summoning mechanic entirely and have them all out on the battlefield by default like the original Valkyrie Profile games did.

Now the einherjar system might not seem like a huge issue at first as you could choose not to use them but the biggest problem with einherjar summoning is that it takes up one of the game’s vital buttons, R1. The problem with this is that R1 is the button commonly used to lock on to enemies in most beat em ups but in this game, players have to use R3 to lock on to enemies as well as reset the camera and this makes combat an absolute nightmare when you’re surrounded by multiple enemies. To make matters worse, there’s no minimap so you will often encounter stragglers somewhere off screen which you have to look for because the camera isn’t facing them. Of course this leads to you getting attacked from behind quite often as well. The problem with R3 is that in order to press it, you need to use your thumb, with R1 you can use your index finger, allowing you to change the camera angle without letting go of the face buttons. Anyone who has played a lot of beat em ups, particularly at a high skill level knows how crucial this is as having to constantly move the camera with the right analog stick just isn’t practical. Fortunately any frustrations brought about this issue tend to occur early on in the game as by the time you start accumulating einherjar, you become so powerful that you can heal yourself constantly by replenishing the arts gauge with einherjar attacks, though I imagine on higher difficulties that this would not be the case so it is still a problem throughout the entire game. Despite all this, the game heavily encourages you to use your einherjar as doing so leads to stat boosts after every mission, so even on higher difficulties, you’ll still want to abuse this mechanic as there really is no downside to doing so besides a brief downtime when summoning them into battle.

On top of Einherjar, you have divine arts which are essentially spells you can use at the expense of your arts gauge. Aside from the aformentioned heal spell, there are several other spells which each have different elemental properties, some of which are AOE spells, others are single target spells. The primary purpose of divine artes is to fill up a stagger gauge a significant amount, letting you freely combo enemies without them being able to move, though you can also increase the gauge slightly by having an einherjar summoned who has the same element as the spell that the enemy is weak to. Later on in the game, some of the spells can fill the screen and this can become somewhat of a visual impairment in the middle of a fight, especially when combined with the einherjar attacks, it can be hard to see what’s going on at times but fortunately all you need to worry about is soul steal spamming and so long as you keep soul chaining, you should be more-or-less fine on lower difficulties but on higher difficulties, this could be a real pain to deal with, as if the game’s lock on controls weren’t problematic enough.

In regards to defensive play, you have a guard and a evade button. Guarding allows you to parry enemy attacks and counter them, while evading gives you I frames during an enemy attack, very generous I frames I might add. Honestly I found little opportunity to make use of the guard or counter moves since so many fights have you fighting enemies that bombard you from all sides, with AOE attacks you have to avoid, it just feels easier to use the dodge since it gives you plenty of I frames and the pay off for guarding doesn’t seem to be worth the effort, at least on normal difficulty. Perhaps people will be able to find some use for it in the higher difficulties but it would be very tricky to pull off, especially when you consider how chaotic the fights are, props to anyone who can manage it though. Some skills allow you to automatically summon einherjar for free with no soul gauge cost by performing these maneuvers but why bother when soul steal makes souls so easy to come by? I suppose it removes the temporary downtime from summoning einherjar into battle but it didn’t really feel as if it was necessary for me to utilize any of the techniques required to automatically summon the einherjar. The one thing that does bother me though is the lack of an aerial dodge. While you do get a double dodge as an upgrade early on (which should be obtained immediately), the lack of an air dodge can make fighting in the air somewhat risky because it could mean landing into en enemy attack. Some enemies also like to grab you which can be really annoying as sometimes the game requires you to spin the left analog stick to escape.

Love at first fight…

There are numerous weapons to acquire throughout the game and each enemy has a weakness to a particular weapon, encouraging you to swap between them. I found myself using the Baleygr the most since it seemed to have great crowd control potential, particularly with its triangle move which was also great at harvesting gems. Each weapon has a proficiency rating which is tied to skill unlocks, you will have to use all of the weapons should you wish to unlock all the skills associated with them. Sadly though you cannot switch weapons mid combo which is a shame because that could have made combat a lot more interesting. You will also find potions from treasure chests to heal yourself but there is an inventory limit and using them decreases your score at the end of a stage, like in Devil May Cry. I found the heal spell to be good enough for the job personally but if you’re having a tough time, they can help. Ultimately if you’re looking for a fun challenge, Valkyrie Elysium will probably disappoint you greatly but if you don’t mind a mindless beat em up, the combat will deliver a moderately enjoyable experience.

Visually speaking, the landscapes look nice and all but I personally consider Valkyrie Elysium’s character design to be a huge downgrade from the character design in the Valkyrie Profile games. That being said however, I do think that the character designs are serviceable and aren’t terrible, I just think that they could be better and being a Valkyrie game, I’ve come to expect the visuals to be top of the line, so I can’t help but be disappointed in that regard, then again it’s all subjective really, some people may actually like the new character designs but they’re just not for me personally.

No shortage of trees and ruins in this game.

The music on the other hand doesn’t disappoint, if there’s one thing that this game does right, it’s the soundtrack, though I wouldn’t expect any less from Motoi Sakuraba at this point. While not his best work in my opinion, I do think that he does a fantastic job nonetheless. Interestingly enough, Valkyrie Elysium handles the battle music the same way that Nier Automata does, in the sense that the area music transitions into a combat variant of the same song and I think that this compliments the nature of the game’s more seamless combat well. I’d like to see more beat em up games do this in the future. It’s very different from the soundtracks that Motoi Sakuraba has done in the past but it does have a few similarities to his past work if you listen closely enough. Funnily enough, the game’s soundtrack probably the only thing that makes you feel like you’re playing a Valkyrie Profile game.

The story is without a doubt the worst part of this game as the characters are as bland as you can get. While it goes without saying that Valkyrie has the personality of a potato, the einherjar aren’t really all that better. I had a really hard time even remotely caring about any of the einherjar in this game, to me they were just sentient elemental attributes to attach to Valkyrie’s attacks. To be fair though, the game does have interactions between the einherjar and Valkyrie over the course of the journey but many of these conversations come across as awkward due to Valkyrie’s lack of personality. By the end, all the einherjar are pretty much singing from the same hymn sheet. The plot is pretty boring too, I mean all you’re told to do is purify souls and find these 4 gifts, that’s pretty much it, the plot doesn’t go anywhere else besides the obvious plot twist that harkens back to the first game which is executed in the most generic way possible. Just about everything in this game’s story feels generic and soulless to the point that there isn’t even a single soul to be engraved upon. Pretty much every location is a barren empty ruin with very few people residing in them and the few that are just happen to be in 1 place. The world feels so empty and mostly lifeless that I really don’t give a shit about saving it. Even Valkyrie Profile 2 had towns filled with plenty of NPC’s, this game has barely any of that. Also where are the rest of the Aesir? You’re not telling me that Odin and Valkyrie are the only gods on Valhalla surely. Where’s Freya? Where’s Thor? Where the fuck is Loki? None of these characters are here and this only serves to make the game feel even more lifeless.

Ok roll call, who the hell are you people again?

There are numerous side missions but pretty much all of them are forgettable and many amount to the same thing such as the einherjar quests which are more-or-less the same for each one. much like the story, they are criminally monotonous and only serve to extend what would otherwise be an extremely short game. Despite being a serviceable beat em up, Valkyrie Elysium is a half assed attempt to bring back the Valkyrie Profile series. Soleil were clearly given a mission that they weren’t prepared for and the only people to blame are Square-Enix for getting them to do it instead of tri-Ace. Square-Enix have essentially betrayed the entire Valkyrie Profile fanbase with this game and they should be ashamed of themselves for making this game a thing. As a Valkyrie game, Valkyrie Elysium is an abomination, as a standalone game however, would I recommend it? Well if you like mindless 3D beat em ups then it may be worth picking up for around twenty pounds but if you don’t care about mindless 3D beat em ups, give this game a pass.

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Story/Plot: Bad

Visuals: Satisfactory

Gameplay: Satisfactory

Music: Great

Lifespan: Very Short

Difficulty: Easy – Medium (Medium at the start, Easy by the end)

Would You Replay? No

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Overall: Satisfactory

 

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My Message To Square-Enix after finishing Valkyrie Elysium:

Video Review:

Need For Speed Heat Review

After playing through Need For Speed 2015, I never thought I’d do another review of a modern Need For Speed game but here I am reviewing yet another Need For Speed game. The question is, will Need For Speed Heat manage to live up to the greatness of the PS2 era Need For Speed games or is it yet another cash grab by EA? Before I talk about the game itself in more detail, I need to address the elephant in the room and that’s EA and their anti consumer practices.

What bothered me the most about Need For Speed 2015 was the always online DRM and how you needed a constant internet connection to play the game. Need For Speed Heat on the other hand does not require a constant internet connection, however there have been issues where actually connecting to EA’s servers can cause a bug that can potentially delete your progress so I highly recommend not playing online should you care about your save data. Regardless of this, I have to give them credit for removing the DRM and letting us actually play the game after the servers shut down.

As for the microtransactions, it seems that Need For Speed Heat is doing DLC car packs and a useless map that reveals all of the collectibles. Why anybody would buy a map that shows all of the collectibles I have no idea, just look it up on the internet people… jeeze. In any case, the car packs are not a new concept, they have been done in many games. What bothered me the most about how they handled car packs in the series was how they were implemented into Need For Speed Most Wanted 2012 where you didn’t buy cars, rather you found cars by exploring the map. So imagine exploring the map only to find a Mclaren F1 parked up, sounds great huh? Only problem is that to actually drive it, you have to pay money to EA. So essentially the game got your hopes up only to be crushed by the fact that it was paid DLC.

Need For Speed Heat has added black market missions which appear as a marker on the map and they essentially reward you with a car but to unlock them, you have to buy the car pack DLC. The good news is however that most of the cars in Need For Speed Heat can be purchased with in game money from the car dealership so you don’t have to deal with the disappointment of finding a car on the map only to be presented with the store page, therefore I can tolerate them this time around.

Speaking of the cars, there are tonnes of them available to you early on. Unlike earlier games where you would have to drive around in your starter car for a while, in Heat you only need to do a couple of races and you’ll have enough to buy a new car early on and I highly recommend doing so because if you decide to drive around in your starter car, you’re going to have a really hard time with some of the early races and this is where I get into one of the game’s biggest problems, the AI difficulty.

Now while I will say that basing the AI’s difficulty on their cars and giving each AI their own individual difficulty level is a good thing, the game doesn’t really do a good job of informing you of how difficult each race is going to be. Before you start a race, there is a number which represents how high level the cars you will race are, the problem is that this number is kind of misleading as you can start a race with a recommended car level of 200 and be racing an AI with a level 275 car and it can seem impossible to pass them simply because your car isn’t fast enough. This was quite frustrating to me as I didn’t feel like I had a chance to catch up whatsoever because the enemy AI is just way too fast. The good news is that by the end of the game you’ll be racing level 400 cars and 400 is the highest car level, you won’t have to deal with the ridiculous spikes in difficulty due to having an inferior car to the AI. If the game told the player the highest level car in the race as opposed to a recommended level, this could alleviate this issue. Sadly this is not the case as you only find out after the race what each individual car level each racer’s car is.

With all this aside, the racing itself isn’t all that bad. When you do race against evenly matched AI racers, it can be quite fun. By default, you can release the accelerator and press it again while turning to perform a drift. This is quite handy early on since many of the cars are quite slow so you need all the speed you can get, later on though you’ll need to use the handbrake to make those corners. There is a break too for those who need it though I found myself relying mostly on the drifting/handbraking mechanic for most of the game and while I found it to be quite satisfying to play this way, I still prefer Need For Speed Carbon’s handling mechanics since I find myself utilizing the brakes more in that game. In Heat the brakes aren’t really all that useful by comparison. It is a more arcady approach to handling that is easier for players not used to playing racing games though people who are used to the controls of earlier Need For Speed games may feel a bit puzzled at first.

One thing that does bother me however is the cops. This is where the game fails in just about every aspect. Cop chases in Need for Speed Most Wanted and Carbon were adrenaline pumping and empowering, part of that was due to the physics. You could crash into a roadblock and send cops flying up in the air which made you feel as if you were some unstoppable god in a race car. At the same time however, the cops were challenging and there was a constant tension throughout the pursuit as the cops employ tactics to box you in and slow you down which kept players on their toes. In Need For Speed Heat this isn’t the case at all, cops are nothing more than a nuisance that the player has to deal with during night time races and they aren’t really any fun to escape from. Early on they can be very frustrating as your car isn’t very fast but later on they can be easy enough to outrun so long as you aren’t playing on heat level 5.

While Heat level 5 cops in heat are difficult to escape from, I find that a lot of it comes down to luck and this is due to the damage system that has been added to the game. If you just happen to have wrecked your car before going into a heat level 5 police chase, you are screwed, there is no chance to get away. On the other hand if you have plenty of repair kits and are in a location filled with jumps, you can get away pretty easily. It’s all situational and feels unfair at times since the cops can appear at any time. It all depends on your location and the damage on your car. You can repair your car at fuel stations but you have limited repairs so don’t expect to be in any long chases like in Most Wanted or Carbon, you either escape early or get busted, that’s it. The cop AI isn’t as aggressive as they are in Most Wanted and Carbon but they don’t need to be since the damage system makes it easy for them to take you out just by weakening your car over time. Ramming into cops is a terrible idea as it causes damage to both you and the cops. The only reliable way to escape cops is by taking jumps and you better be heading in the direction the ramp is facing or you’ll have to turn around which may cause you to get caught. There are no pursuit breakers and no speedbreaker so good luck escaping from high heat pursuits.

Vehicle customization is back and it’s more-or-less the same as it was in 2015 which I can’t complain about since the vehicle customization was the only good thing 2015 had to offer and without the always online DRM, you can keep your customized vehicle designs for as long as you want. Each vehicle has a customization rating which states how much the car can be customized. Some cars offer a lot of customization options while others not so much though I’d say that the vast majority of the car selection in this game offers plenty of customization options. Sadly autosculpt is still absent from Heat which isn’t really a big deal but it’s worth noting. Also like 2015 there are no full body vinyls, in fact you can only put vinyls on each part of the car’s body so you essentially have to create the full body vinyls from scratch yourself. While this may not be an issue for me, it may be for some people. The good news is that if you have an online connection, you can download other people’s vinyl wraps to put on your car if you just want to slap on something quick. Performance wise, you can not only upgrade the parts themselves but you can also replace the entire engine which is an interesting feature that is new to Need For Speed Heat as not only does it adjust a car’s performance potential but it also changes the engine sound too.

Need For Speed Heat is set in Palm City which is based on Miami. It has several different locations spread out across the map offering a nice variety of locations to race in. Thankfully unlike the older Need For Speed games, there’s actually quite a lot to do in free roam as there are collectibles to find along with many other challenges spread across the map and completing them unlocks new cars and cosmetic upgrades. It’s a great way to take a break between races and encourage players to explore the whole map. Palm city looks gorgeous in dry weather, the problem is that it tends to rain way too often and there’s no way to toggle it which is a shame. Also one problem with the world is that there’s a lot of open fields that you can drive through but there’s no way to reset your car to the track so you have to somehow find your way back up a hill if you fall off which can be really annoying.

While Need For Speed 2015’s story was laughably bad, Need For Speed Heat’s story is serviceable. I think the acting is vastly superior in Heat than it was in 2015 and there is a more interesting plot this time around, revolving around the police as opposed to a rivalry between racers. I personally think that a rivalry would have been more engaging but sadly there really isn’t any tension between the racers themselves which is the biggest let down with the game’s story. The game needs a heel racer like Razor or Darius to make the player feel more driven to win against all odds. The issue with having the police as the sole antagonist is that the racing kinda takes a back seat in the story and just feels pointless as a result. Still, I do think that what they tried to do with the story worked and it was decent enough, though it was rather short.

There are a few side stories you can participate in, one of which revolves around legal racing, another revolves around drifting and there’s also a story that revolves around off road racing. I do like the fact that Heat encourages players to race off road as opposed to racing in road cars all the time. Even Need For Speed Underground 2’s SUV races didn’t really compel me to tune up a Hummer, it just felt like a minor diversion in that game whereas Need For Speed Heat makes it feel more meaningful to tune up and drive a SUV.

One of the few letdowns is the soundtrack, though I may be a little biased here since the music is all modern licensed music. I turned the music off when playing the game since it just isn’t my cup of tea. I could cope with some of the edgy punk rock/metal tracks from Most Wanted but this game’s music really wasn’t my thing. I think having licensed music in games isn’t really the best idea personally as I find that music made specifically for a game tends to be built more around enhancing the experience of the game whereas licensed music doesn’t really serve this purpose as it was made solely to be listened to.

This car was painful to make, I think I might have cut myself in the process

Need For Speed Heat was what I expected out of a good modern Need For Speed game, it’s nowhere near as good as the originals but is it worth playing? Well that depends on how thirsty you are for more arcade street racing games since this is pretty much the only one left and even then, there are signs that the “underground racing” setting has moved on but at least Need For Speed Heat manages to deliver a competent arcade racing experience. Chances are, this will be the last Need For Speed game to impress me for a very long time but at least it exists and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I’d say if you can find a cheap second hand copy, it’s worth a try. If you’re not interested in playing another arcade street racing game though then you may want to pass on it.

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Story/Plot: Satisfactory

Visuals: Great

Music: Forgettable

Gameplay: Satisfactory

Customization: Great

Licensed Cars? Yes

Lifespan: Quite Short

Difficulty: Varies from easy to hard depending on your vehicles level

Would You Replay? No

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Overall: Satisfactory

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Value: £20.00

Comparison – YS SEVEN, Memories Of Celceta, Lacrimosa Of Dana

While I can’t say that I know a lot about the YS series, I did dabble in a few of the games and the three games I finished were the modern style YS games in the sense that you control multiple characters as opposed to just Adol. While these games have gotten a lot of flak from die hard fans, I personally had a lot of fun with all three of them. Having tried a few of the older games, I’m glad that these changes happened because I absolutely despise the gameplay in some of the older games and I actually prefer having party members as opposed to just a single character for the entire game.

Now that I have played all three of the modern games, I feel the urge to do a comparison of the three so that you can get a good idea as to what each game’s strengths and weaknesses are as well as my personal thoughts on each one and which one is the best of the three. So for starters I want to talk about the earliest of the three games, YS SEVEN.

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YS SEVEN

YS 7

Playstation Portable, PC

YS SEVEN was the second game I played in the series and was the first game in the series to have multiple party members. This was a colossal change from earlier YS games and because of it, the game had to incorporate a lot of new features to accommodate this feature to the point that it became a completely different experience. In a way, that kinda makes YS SEVEN the Castlevania Symphony Of The Night of the YS series as it completely reinvented the formula and was the first game of its kind.

One thing I noticed immediately was the ability to charge up your sword to perform a stronger attack that fills the sp meter up faster, this is the only game of the three that has this feature as the other two games have the sword charge automatically whenever it is not used. Because you could charge the sword manually, this meant that you would often have the X button held down wherever you went just to make sure that your first hit on the enemy would be a strong attack. I can see why they automated this feature for that reason, however I can’t deny that the act of charging up your attacks was pretty satisfying in a way.

YS SEVEN introduced the three attack modes that players had to be aware of when fighting certain enemies to exploit weaknesses. Because of this, players will usually prefer a party that has one of each attack mode and since you have a maximum of 3 characters in your party at a time, you would need to make sure all of them have different attack modes. This is a problem in later entries as it essentially presents several false choices in the form of party compositions, where certain party compositions would be objectively inferior to others. In YS SEVEN however, this isn’t an issue as Adol can equip different weapon types, allowing him to use all three attack modes, making certain party compositions that would otherwise handicap the player a viable combination. The downside however is that YS SEVEN is the only game of the three to prohibit players from removing Adol from the party, meaning that you only get to choose 2 party members to tag alongside him.

The story of YS SEVEN is pretty straightforward and is arguably the most generic of the three, not that this is an issue. There are a few interesting twists here and there but the story mostly revolves around your typical macguffin hunt for most of the game. While this isn’t inherently an issue, it’s certainly nothing we haven’t seen before. If you’ve played any Zelda game or Tales Of Symphonia, you know what to expect. Go to the elemental dungeon, get the macguffin, go to the next elemental temple, rinse and repeat. It is literally chapter 3 of Valkyrie Profile 2 but for the entire game so if you hated chapter 3 in Valkyrie Profile 2, you will be bored to death by this game’s story. I personally didn’t mind this however as I personally play these games for the adventure, not the story, I enjoyed all the temples as they each had their own distinct characteristics that brought a lot of flavor to the experience though I did notice that I spent most of the game confined to dungeons as opposed to travelling outside.

Next I want to bring up the skill system. In order to learn new moves, players have to equip certain weapons and by using those weapons, they will eventually learn the skill. After that, the skill must be used over and over again to further level it up. This encourages players to swap weapons and keep using old weapons to learn all the skills. This means using all 3 weapon types, encouraging players to change their party continuously. I personally see this system as a double edged sword. If you’ve played games like Final Fantasy IX, Atelier Iris 2 or Tales Of Vesperia then you’ll probably be familiar with this system and if you liked it in those games, you probably won’t mind it here as it encourages you to spend more time in the menu, those who hate having to bring up the menu too often may see this as busywork. I personally don’t mind it as I am used to playing games that implement this system.

There is a crafting system but it’s a pretty conventional one. It’s your typical, gather specific components to make the item crafting system, the one you see in most RPG’s these days. I don’t mind it though as it encourages me to gather components from enemies.

The cast of characters are a mixed bag. While Adol, Geis and Dogi are great, the rest of the cast are pretty bland and just serve as the representative of each elemental temple you go to and they barely ever play a major part in the story outside of their own scenarios.

While I did enjoy the music of YS SEVEN a lot, I found it to be the least memorable of the three games, I found the three most standout tracks from the game to be Mother Earth Altago, Sanctuary Of Meditation Breeze and Crossing Rage, those three tracks were amazing, though the rest of the tracks, didn’t stand out as much to me as the tracks in the other games personally but it’s still an amazing soundtrack nonetheless.

So that’s YS SEVEN, a fiercely unapologetically conventional Action RPG for better or for worse, if you go into it expecting that, you’ll be well catered for but there are no frills here. Difficulty wise, YS SEVEN isn’t too hard but it is probably the hardest of the three as you have limited healing items so you can’t just mindlessly mash buttons, you have to carefully avoid the enemy attacks and counter them when the opportunity presents itself to conserve your health.

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YS: Memories Of Celceta

YS 4 (Remake)

Playstation Vita, Playstation 4, PC

Next up we have YS Memories Of Celceta, a remake of YS IV and the last of the three games that I played. Memories Of Celceta made some noticeable improvements to the combat system from YS SEVEN, implementing the flash move system that rewarded players for avoiding the enemy’s attacks at the right time by making them temporarily invincible. The game also removed the manual charging and replaced it with an automatic charge so you no longer have to run around with the X button held down all the time. All of this made the combat feel a lot more involving and this increased the fun factor for me.

Unlike YS SEVEN where skills are learned from weapons, Memories Of Celceta’s skills are learned in a similar way to that of the Tales games in the sense that you learn new moves as you fight. It’s difficult to pinpoint what triggers this exactly though it seems that fighting stronger enemies makes it easier to learn new skills.

What did bother me about Memories Of Celceta were the underwater sections. In the other two games, the underwater sections had you sink to the bottom and you could fight as normal. In Memories Of Celceta they added swimming, sure this does make the game more realistic but is that really important in a game like this? Plus it makes combat an absolute nightmare since your attacks are so slow and limited while in water, yet there are enemies to fight underwater. It really boggles my mind why they made this design choice but thankfully this is the only game where this is ever an issue.

Unlike YS SEVEN where you had to gather specific items to craft new weapons, YS Memories Of Celceta features an equipment enhancement system, allowing players to synthesize their equipment with just about any component in their inventory. This allows for so many more possibilities and it is a lot more fun to use whatever components you like to enhance your weapons as opposed to just crafting new ones with specific materials, because it means that no material feels wasted. It is similar to that of Star Ocean 4 and 5’s weapon augmentation but it works a little differently in this game as there are no factors so to speak of, rather there are stats for a multitude of effects that are applied to the weapon which are increased by adding components. Of course there’s a limit to how many components you can add to a weapon so you can’t just stack all of your components onto a single weapon, you have to choose your components carefully and because of this, it’s a really involving process.

On top of this, you can even upgrade the key items needed to traverse certain areas in the game, giving them special properties. This was great as it gave you a reason to use them even if you didn’t need them at the time, whereas in the other games you would only swap between them when they were needed as they otherwise felt kinda meaningless. I never was a big fan of these items in the other games as they just felt like keys to access other areas so that you couldn’t just go wherever you wanted, essentially breaking the illusion of openness in the same way a Zelda or Metroid game would.

While the other two games had completely original stories, Memories Of Celceta is a retelling of YS IV’s story. I personally enjoyed the story of Memories Of Celceta a lot more that YS SEVEN’s as it was no longer just your typical macguffin hunt throughout. There were some interesting plot ideas in this one and I found it to be the most grounded of the three games overall. I really liked the premise of being sent into this huge forest to map out uncharted territory, it felt like I was on a real adventure as opposed to being on a quest to save the world, though naturally such a quest does present itself later on in the game. If you play JRPG’s for the adventure as opposed to a deeper, more complex narrative then you’ll be right at home with Memories Of Celceta’s story. I personally consider it to be the best of the three games overall.

Like all great party members… am I right?

The Characters on the other hand I didn’t care for one bit, sure you can’t go wrong with Adol but every other character didn’t really appeal to me at all. Now don’t get me wrong, the characters aren’t terrible, heck I’d actually go as far as to say that the female cast were the most interesting of the group but that’s not saying much. Duren is pretty much a clone of Dogi and while they do try to make him an interesting character, I can’t help but see him as an inferior version of Dogi, don’t get me wrong, he isn’t terrible but he also isn’t breaking down walls any time soon. The other male character, Ozma is so bland that I had to look up his name because I completely forgot about him. Karna pretty much fits the outgoing spirited girl role to a T but she never goes anywhere beyond that. Then there’s Calilica who is just some really annoying little bratty kid and finally Frieda who is a completely new character that didn’t appear in YS IV there’s not much to say about her besides the fact that she is essentially the cool big sis trope given sentience.

Memories Of Celceta’s soundtrack grew on me the more I played of it. While the music at the start didn’t capture my attention in the same way the other games did, the music later on more than made up for it. Burning Sword was great and all but it didn’t blow me away in the same way Mother Earth Altago and Sunshine Coastline did. Ultimately though I consider Memories Of Celceta’s soundtrack to be a colossal improvement from YS SEVEN’s, not that YS SEVEN’s soundtrack was bad, it certainly wasn’t, I just felt that Memories Of Celceta’s soundtrack was better overall. My personal favorites are Crater, The Morning After The Storm, Gust Of Wind and Forest Of Dawn.

I personally found Memories Of Celceta to be the easiest of the three games as you could carry as many potions as you want. Also the flash move system made bosses a lot more manageable. There are still some tough sections but nothing too bothersome. It should be noted though that you’ll occasionally encounter some powerful enemies on the field that are a higher level than you, which can be tough to take down if you don’t run away from them but besides that you shouldn’t have any problems. I recommend this game for people who aren’t very good at Action RPG’s as it’s a lot easier to pick up and play than the other two games.

I really enjoyed my time with Memories Of Celceta a lot more than I did with YS SEVEN overall, it brought a lot of gameplay improvements to the table and the story was a lot more interesting. The only major downside for me was the cast of characters, other than that I’d argue it’s one of the better of the three games.

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YS VIII: Lacrimosa Of Dana

YS 8

Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC

Finally we move on to YS VIII Lacrimosa Of Dana, this was my first YS experience and it’s the only game of the three that I have actually reviewed so expect to see a repeat of what I said in my review. As it is the most recent of the YS games so far, with the exception of YS IX Monstrum Nox which is only available in Japan as of now, the most noticeable change is the fully three dimensional camera. The draw distance is also quite impressive and does a good job at establishing a greater sense of scope when you’re exploring the island. This does wonders when it comes to keeping the player engaged in exploration.

The combat however is surprisingly not all that different from the other two games, though it does have the automatic charge up as opposed to manual charging of YS SEVEN. Put simply, it plays mostly the same as Memories Of Celceta but with the ability to jump and use aerial attacks which was absent from the previous two games for some reason. One thing to note however is that flash move is a lot harder to pull off in YS VIII than it was in Memories Of Celceta as you have to time your evasion perfectly. This makes pulling off a flash move feel more rewarding though the fact that it’s harder to pull off might be a turn off for some though I personally prefer it this way. In Memories Of Celceta you could perform a flash move during the attack which felt quite weird to me after having played YS VIII beforehand.

What I did like about YS VIII was the inclusion of raids, these involved protecting the village from hordes of enemies and were a lot of fun to do and could get quite chaotic, beast hunts on the other hand I wasn’t a fan of as I found that they could become a bit too chaotic and were more complicated than they needed to be.

One thing that I did notice about YS VIII in particular after playing the other two games is how linear many of its systems are. Learning new moves is as simple as leveling up in most cases, though there are a few exceptions. What did bother me however was the weapon forging system, unlike the previous games which had more in depth weapon crafting, YS VIII’s weapon crafting system is extremely linear as you can only have 1 weapon per character which can be reforged and upgraded up to 3 times. Reforging is essentially replacing it with a new weapon and you don’t really get to choose what you reforge your sword into, it just moves up to the next tier, there’s no new weapon types to choose from and no properties you can apply to your weapons. It’s just a really bland crafting system when compared to the other game’s systems.

The story of YS VIII is the complete opposite of YS SEVEN for better or worse. Sure the story is arguably more complicated but that doesn’t necessarily make it better. One thing is for sure though, the story will constantly keep you guessing and will make you want to keep playing to see what happens next. The problem with the story is Dana and literally everything related to her character, I can’t go into too much detail without spoiling the game but it involves time travel and it handles it very poorly to the point that you really have to willingly suspend your disbelief at times. I did enjoy the twist at the end though. All in all, it’s a bit messy but it will certainly keep you engaged for the journey.

Thankfully the cast of characters are very well rounded and likable, except for Dana. I really enjoyed Sahad’s character in particular, though the rest of the cast are just as likable and well written with the exception of Dana of course, who is the blandest character in the game. Even the non playable characters were more interesting than Dana. Interacting with these characters was a real treat as they all have great arcs, even if some of them are a bit generic, it was fun to learn about all of these characters and where they came from and see how they adapt to their new life as a castaway. It’s just a shame the game had to include Dana as a playable character and that they made her an important character, seriously I would take any of the characters from the other two games over her, she really felt like the black sheep of the group in this game.

I thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack of YS VIII a lot, there’s a good mixture of high energy and calming tracks and there are many standouts, my personal favorite would have to go to Next Step Toward The Unknown, that song couldn’t have played at a better time, I cannot even begin to express how much this track got me psyched up for what was to come. Other notable tracks are Woods Of Elevated Coral Reef, A Footprint In The Wet Sand, Overcome The Rocky Path and many more. Honestly this is hands down one of if not the best soundtrack of the decade.

Overall, YS VIII was one hell of an experience. It felt like they really put their all into this one. Difficulty wise I’d say that it’s kinda somewhere in between YS SEVEN and Memories Of Celceta. If you found Memories Of Celceta too easy, you might prefer this one, if you found YS SEVEN too hard, this one might be a bit easier. What makes YS VIII harder than Memories Of Celceta though is the bottle limit since you can only carry a limited amount of healing items, unlike YS SEVEN however, you can gather extra food items that can heal you should you need it so if you run out of potions, at least you have those to fall back on.

So what do I consider to be the best of these three games? Well let’s compare them and then I can tell you my personal favorite of the three.

While the combat systems of Memories Of Celceta and Lacrimosa Of Dana are more-or-less the same, Memories Of Celceta’s weapon upgrade system is vastly superior to Lacrimosa Of Dana’s, so I would say that Memories Of Celceta is the best of the 3 in terms of gameplay.

Gameplay – Memories Of Celceta

Story is always going to be subjective and I can totally see why someone would choose Lacrimosa Of Dana over the other two games but personally I would have to say that Memories Of Celceta’s story was better simply due to the fact that Lacrimosa Of Dana’s story, despite being greater in concept, went a bit too crazy with the whole time travel thing. While it may be smaller in scale, I think Memories Of Celceta’s story was handled better overall as it was tighter and didn’t drag for too long, that and it was more interesting than Seven’s story.

Story  – Memories Of Celceta

The characters in Lacrimosa Of Dana are vastly superior to the characters in the other two games. I find that the characters in the other two games weren’t half as memorable by comparison. Ozma is like a carbon copy of Mustafa, heck I’d argue he’s actually less interesting than Mustafa. I’d say that SEVEN’s cast is better than Memories Of Celceta’s cast overall but it saddens me that many of the characters in SEVEN were just there to represent their local temples and nothing more. Characters like Sahad, Laxia and Hummel on the other hand each have their own pasts explored and have distinguishable traits that make them memorable, that and they also receive a lot more character development by comparison.

Characters – Lacrimosa Of Dana

In terms of music, while all of them offer amazing soundtracks, I think that as great as YS SEVEN’s soundtrack was, many of the songs didn’t stick with me as much as the other two games did. Memories Of Celceta’s soundtrack had quite a lot of noteworthy tracks and honestly, part of me wanted to give Memories Of Celceta the win here but Lacrimosa Of Dana’s soundtrack gets the win simply because out of all three of the game’s soundtracks, I find the quality of the music more consistent throughout, that and the fact that Lacrimosa Of Dana has more of it than the other two games which is probably due to the fact that the game is longer. Put simply the music in Lacrimosa Of Dana never falters, whereas the other games have a few songs that I just didn’t care for.

Music – Lacrimosa Of Dana

By now, you can see that Lacrimosa Of Dana and Memories Of Celceta are both tied but which one do I personally enjoy the most? Well that would have to be Lacrimosa Of Dana. It was a close call between these two games as they both offer their own qualities but Lacrimosa Of Dana wins simply due to the fact that it is the visually superior game, that and the fact that they added the raid minigame. I know that it’s unfair to compare an older game to a newer game visually but it was the biggest reason why I prefered Lacrimosa Of Dana over Memories Of Celceta. Heck, the story of Lacrimosa Of Dana might have its problems but the story is far more ambitious than that of Memories Of Celceta’s story and is still thoroughly engaging so there really isn’t much between them in that department. Regardless on what I consider to be the best of the three games, I can safely say that I enjoyed all three of these games regardless, so just because YS SEVEN didn’t get a mention in any of the categories doesn’t mean that I think that it’s a bad game, it certainly isn’t. I just felt that the other two games were better personally.

Winner: YS VIII Lacrimosa Of Dana

YS VIII: Lacrimosa Of Dana Review

It pains me to admit that I never really got into the YS series back in the day. The whole idea of playing as a single character in an action RPG with overly simplified combat seemed a bit too archaic for me. Now I realize that the YS series is one of the pioneers of the action RPG genre and truth be told, I did want to give the series a chance but I just never knew where to start. It wasn’t until the release of YS VIII Lacrimosa Of Dana, that I decided to give the series a try.

It appears that YS VIII opted to follow in the footsteps of more modern action RPG’s such as the Tales and Star Ocean series as it features 3D camera controls as opposed to its top down/side view predecessors. It is also worth noting that recent YS entries have started incorporating a party system into the games and YS VIII is no exception. I personally appreciate these changes to the series as I believe having a more modern 3D look does wonders for the aesthetics and the party system offers multiple play styles to keep the gameplay fresh.

What makes YS VIII stand out from other RPGs of its kind is its premise. The story starts off with the protagonist Adol, who gets shipwrecked on an uncharted island filled with dangerous monsters. Along the way he is reunited with some of the ship’s passengers and crew but many of them have gone missing and it’s up to Adol to track them all down. As simple as it may appear on paper, the simplicity of this premise is quite refreshing as rather than throwing you into a deep and intricate save the world story right from the get go like most games do, YS VIII tells you to go out and explore the world in search of other castaways… and that’s pretty much it really, at least early on in the game.

While this might sound off-putting to those who seek a deeper, more intricate storyline in their games, the game moves at a very quick pace and you will soon realize that there is more to the island than meets the eye. Put simply, the story does get deeper and more intricate later on. That being said however, YS VIII feeds the story slowly to you and doesn’t exactly present its more intricate details particularly well in the game’s early sections but you’ll probably end up ignoring it anyways as the game’s premise is exciting enough for you to keep playing regardless.

God forbid I ever get stranded on an Island then…

I really find that playing the role of a castaway in the search of other castaways on an uncharted really gives off a feeling of adventure that not many modern JRPGs seem to offer nowadays. Back on the SNES, this was common as many JRPGs were lacking in the writing department and the characters you played as were simple and the plot usually revolved around hunting down macguffins in order to pan out game time. For this reason, it was important for developers to create a world that players would want to explore by designing interesting levels in order to keep the games from stagnating. I feel that most modern games focus way too much on their storytelling that they forget how important it is to design intricate dungeons.

The dungeons in YS VIII are some of the best I have seen in a long time, as are the locations themselves. I find that many of the dungeons put a heavy emphasis on verticality which makes them way more interesting to navigate compared to most JRPG dungeons these days. It is also worth noting that YS VIII doesn’t try to throw too many annoying gimmicks at the player, sure there are a few puzzles and there are sections which cannot be accessed until you acquire a certain item, but there isn’t too much of it to the point that it bogs the game down.

The YS games are also known to have had environmental hazards in the past but they are mostly absent in YS VIII. I personally see this as a good thing since I find that environmental hazards often get in the way during combat and serve no practical purpose. All they seem to do is annoy the player. I find that the verticality and the aesthetic design of YS VIII’s levels as well as the abundance of items to find more than makes up for the lack of gimmicks present in previous YS games.

Speaking of the aesthetics, generally speaking I’d say that they are pretty solid for a vita port. While the graphics may appear to be somewhat dated for PS4/PC standards, I’d say that the vibrant usage of color masks this really well. I’d also like to point out that while the visuals themselves may not be as detailed as they are in Star Ocean Integrity And Faithlessness, the field of view in this game is equally as impressive as that game which does wonders for the game’s exploration value which is a big deal considering how important exploring is in this game.

Check out that view…

The character designs appear to be very similar to that of the Legend Of Heroes Trails series and Tokyo Xanadu. So if you like the art style of those games, you’re probably going to enjoy YS VIII’s art style as it pretty much inherits the same style. YS VIII’s character models are celshaded, much like Tales Of Berseria/Zesteria, however the environments have a very vivid vibrancy compared to that of the Tales series and I find that this greatly contrasts with the celshaded design of the character models. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is for you to decide.

Ultimately, the main appeal to the YS series isn’t so much the story/visuals, rather it’s the fast paced gameplay that the series is known for. YS VIII takes the Action RPG genre to the next level, proving that Falcom’s long running series isn’t just a relic of the past. What makes the gameplay of YS so enjoyable is its simplicity and YS VIII does not stray away from this. That being said however, YS VIII improves the mechanics of the combat considerably, allowing for more flexibility in the combat system, giving other ARPG’s a run for their money.

Those who are looking for a more technical, combo-centric battle system may be disappointed by YS VIII as the combat doesn’t really offer any of that, in fact you can spam the same moves over and over again to get through pretty much every single battle, though this is nothing out of the ordinary for an ARPG. YS VIII chooses to instead focus on the defensive aspect of gameplay, rewarding players for avoiding enemy attacks and severely punishing players for getting hit.  Sure you can spam the same moves over and over but it won’t save you from getting hit.

Dodging attacks with perfect timing rewards players with flash move. This makes the player invincible for a short period of time allowing them to freely attack without worrying about getting hit. You can also parry attacks with a flash guard but it requires perfect timing to pull off, doing so makes all your attacks stronger for a short period of time. These features allow players to approach battles differently and rewards players for their dexterity in defensive play.

As far as aggressive play goes, players are able to map up to 4 special skills to each of the face buttons and they can be triggered by holding the R1 button and the corresponding face button, while regular attacks, dodges and jumping can all be performed by pressing their corresponding face buttons without R1. This allows for the game to have that little extra flexibility which is important as without it, the game would be pretty bare bones.

By attacking enemies, a skill gauge is accumulated, using special skills consumes the skill gauge requiring you to manage your usage of special skills carefully. On top of all this you have the extra gauge which is filled by using special skills, therefore it is recommended not to conserve your skill gauge unless you need to. Once your extra gauge is full, you can perform a finishing blow which can deal devastating damage to enemies.

It is important to remember that Adol is not on his own in this game, now he has AI partners to help him out. You can switch control of characters at any time with the press of a button and unlike Star Ocean, they will instantly swap to manual control and vice versa once they are switched. This alleviates one of the biggest issues of the Star Ocean series, switching characters could get you killed fast if the AI uses an attack during a switch.

Speaking of AI, the AI in YS VIII is hands down the most competent AI I have ever seen in an ARPG. You rarely ever have to worry about the AI taking damage in a fight as they will avoid attacks automatically and will receive considerably less damage than the player if they are attacked. Of course the player controlled character cannot do this but they are ultimately going to be stronger in terms of damage dealing to the point that you cannot really rely on the AI to fight for you as the AI tends to respond to the player’s actions, acting accordingly so if you pull out of a fight, so will they.

 

“YS VIII takes the Action RPG genre to the next level, proving that Falcom’s long running series isn’t just a relic of the past”

 

Put simply, if you lose a fight in YS VIII it is never the fault of the AI, it is always the player’s fault, as the AI never holds the player back, nor does it do all the player’s work for them. This is what I love the most about YS VIII, the fact that the game doesn’t force you to babysit a bunch of incompetent party members by constantly spamming healing items. For this reason, I think more ARPG’s should adopt this style of AI controlled characters.

All in all, YS VIII has a very simple, straightforward combat system and with no battle transitions to worry about, battles can end in a matter of seconds. This is very much a run and kill kind of game much like its predecessors, you never feel at a standstill and this does wonders for the game’s pacing as you are constantly on the move, quickly progressing through the game. This is what YS VIII excels at the most, therefore if you’re the type of person who wants to get from a to b as fast as possible, then this is definitely a game that is worth your time.

For the most part you’ll spend your time traversing the world in search of refugees. Some refugees grant you access to certain facilities while others just act as NPC’s to talk to in town. There is also a gift giving mechanic similar to that of Onimusha 2 which allows you to improve Adol’s relations with the other refugees. Doing so rewards the player with stat boosts for each character involved in the gift giving process. While it may not be as open ended as the gift giving mechanic of Onimusha 2, it’s still a nice enough distraction that can give you access to some extra scenes should you choose to partake in it.

There are also side quests to do which allow you to improve your relation with refugees and usually come with a reward. There’s a great variety of tasks on offer to keep the sidequests fresh and they never become bothersome for completionists. The only issue is that sidequests are missable so they must be done as soon as they are available should you need to complete everything the game has to offer. The game doesn’t feature too many of them though, therefore it’s never a slog to get through them.

YS VIII also offers a couple of combat related minigames in the form of raids and beast hunts. This is where the refugees you have gathered over the course of the game are put to good use as they provide various buffs to assist you in battle. In raids, players must defend the refuge from monster attacks, while beast hunts require players to lure out and hunt certain monsters. Both of these minigames can get pretty chaotic as there are usually tonnes of enemies on screen making for some pretty exciting battles. If you’re a fan of musou games, you’ll probably love these missions and if you’re a completionist then you better enjoy these diversions because it makes up the bulk of the game’s end game content.

Personally I’d argue that while raids are a lot of fun, beast hunts are a bit too chaotic and can kind of feel a bit too overwhelming at times due to having so many needless features such as having to take over territories, destroy nests etc. I think beast hunts could have been simplified a little to make them a bit more fun. Raids on the other hand are a lot of fun and are really exhilarating to experience. The goal of raids is to defend your fortifications and bait by pushing enemy groups away from them. The more fortifications you protect and the better your battle performance, the better your rewards. As for beast hunts, there are a lot more factors to be aware of and this can make getting high ratings pretty complicated. Also unlike raids, in beast hunts you have a limited amount of time to finish them and this can be somewhat irritating at times.

On top of all the other side content, there’s also the obligatory fishing minigame that every game has to have these days. It’s surprisingly pretty decent though.

Needless to say, the refugees you’ve gathered are essentially the only other characters besides the playable cast that you ever get to talk to for the most part. On top of all this there is only one settlement in the entire game which basically acts as the main hub. This could be a turn off for people looking for a more traditional JRPG experience where you visit multiple towns and cities to buy items and interact with NPC’s. That being said, many of the refugees are surprisingly interesting characters that you want to get to know and connect with.

Speaking of characters, the story of YS VIII revolves around two characters, Adol and Dana. Adol is pretty much the player’s persona in this game in the sense that he is more-or-less a silent protagonist, occasionally saying something after the player makes a choice. Based on his choices, he appears to be somewhat confident and well mannered. You could say that he is a typical heroic character, which makes sense considering the fact that this isn’t Adol’s first adventure and as a result, he shows a level of competence that is respected by the rest of the group. Despite all this, he still fits the protagonist trope of being a bright-eyed do gooder but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Dana on the other hand embodies pretty much every single issue I have with the game’s story, not to say that the story is bad or anything, rather the flaws in the narrative all tie in with Dana and how the role she plays affects the entire course of the game’s story. I don’t want to go too much into detail for the sake of spoilers but the game’s story takes a crazy turn during the second half where players may have to willingly suspend their disbelief should they wish to continue investing themselves in the game’s narrative. Put simply, the second half of the game leaves itself vulnerable to many potential plot holes due to the complications of what happens and as a result it can be difficult to accept how things play out as a result.

The second half of the game’s story plays out somewhat similarly to Richard Knaak’s War Of The Ancients trilogy in the sense that it focuses on events of the past but also ties in with events in the present. If you have read any of those books, you know exactly what I’m talking about, if you haven’t then I’ll let you all find out for yourself as I wouldn’t want to give too much away. I will say however that if you’ve been finding the story up to this point to be bland and uninteresting, the second half of the game might change your mind. With all of its flaws considered, the story does start to get more interesting in the second half and in some cases it gets better even.

As for Dana herself, I honestly cannot find anything to say about her character other than the fact that she is a mary sue who is gifted with powers that are vaguely explained. She also has a strange connection with Adol which is explained later on in the game. That’s about all I can say about her character. She’s pretty much a walking talking plot device. The problem with this is that the game clearly wants to make the player care about her character despite her not having any distinguishable traits. Sure she isn’t a completely unlikable character but even Adol manages to express more personality than she does and he is mostly a silent protagonist.

This made me feel a bit turned off from the latter half of the game but despite all of its shortcomings, I would say that the narrative is still enjoyable for what it is. I think it handles some interesting themes and aside from Dana, the cast of characters do their job well enough to maintain the player’s investment. Laxia develops surprisingly well, Hummel’s unpredictability keeps him interesting and while Ricotta isn’t the greatest of characters, at least she has a distinguished personality. None of them can hold a candle to Sahad though, Sahad’s personality is simply magnificent. It’s great to see such a cheerful, yet crude character with such a modest composure. Why can’t more games have characters like Sahad? He’s such a refreshing character. I do dislike how many of his lines were censored due to people whining about the so-called bad translation but it didn’t bother me enough to make me like the character any less though.

Regardless of your own personal take on the game’s story, one thing that will stick with you throughout the game is its soundtrack. Falcom are renowned for having great music in their games and YS VIII’s soundtrack doesn’t disappoint. There are a lot of high energy tracks here as is expected from a YS game but at the same time there are also some calmer tracks that offer a nice contrast. The music adds a lot of flavor to the game, particularly in its dungeons but that’s not all, I’d argue that the music is the main driving force of YS VIII as it synchronizes with the game’s pacing, helping to enhance the player’s adrenaline to provide a thrill factor.

Ultimately, while people expecting YS VIII to offer a strong narrative may be disappointed, those who do not may find themselves to be pleasantly surprised by the game’s story. Regardless of how you feel about the story, it’s important to remember that the crux of what ultimately makes YS VIII so enjoyable is the game’s combat. If you do not enjoy fast paced, simple and somewhat mindless action, then this game may not be your cup of tea. Those that do however are going to love YS VIII regardless of its flaws as it is one of the few modern action RPG’s to succeed at doing away with battle transitions, essentially perfecting what Star Ocean 5 and Tales Of Zesteria attempted to do.

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Story/Plot: Good

Visuals: Great

Gameplay: Excellent

Music: Excellent

Length: Decent Length

Difficulty: Medium

Would You Replay? Maybe

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Overall: Excellent

 

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Value: £40.00

Note for PC players: For those misfortunate enough to own a copy of YS VIII on PC who are intent on playing with a gamepad, I have bad news for you. You’re going to be fighting to toughest boss in the game right from the get go:

The Controller Configuration

Have fun with that…

Nier Automata Review

When people think of notorious game developers, a few names come to mind, Yoko Taro is one of them. Yoko Taro is quite possibly one of the most interesting gaming personalities of all time, a man who dares to present himself in an unorthodox manner and escape the confines of formal corporate etiquette. If you ask me, Yoko Taro is essentially what I would consider to be the perfect videogame producer.

However, looking at Yoko Taro as a game developer requires us to take a look at the many games he has developed. Now my personal knowledge on Yoko Taro’s games is limited but I have seen a pretty clear pattern in his design philosophy. It appears that Yoko Taro gives zero fucks about any of the potential repercussions that his crazy ideas may cause and rather than solving problems, many of Yoko Taro’s design choices often end up creating them.

When you look at Yoko Taro’s games on the surface, his games are crazy and over the top. I believe this to be the main draw to Yoko Taro’s games. His carefree attitude is certainly appealing, especially in the current climate where most gaming companies prefer to play it safe. Yoko Taro appears to believe that by doing the opposite of what other game developers try to do, he will succeed. He is partially right but at the same time this is a flawed mindset.

While it is important to experiment with new ideas, it is equally as important to prioritize certain ideas over others and cut away anything that isn’t congruent with the gameplay. Sadly Nier Automata prioritizes its narrative and illustration over its gameplay and tries to meld them into one in order to create an unusual experience, an experience in which I personally feel mixed on.

If Nier Automata has taught me anything it’s that ideas and concepts alone do not make a game. If we look at Nier Automata on the surface we see a massively ambitious project that blows our minds, so much so that this game is admittedly very difficult to critique but at the same time it’s very easy when you look closely at what the game actually is. Nier Automata is the equivalent of a dish that hadn’t been tasted, that’s not to say that the QA department were to blame, rather Yoko Taro’s dumped a lot of random ingredients into a blender expecting it to turn out great.

Now the good news is that Nier Automata is a game that manages to tickle everyone’s taste buds, hence why it became so popular. Methinks this was Yoko Taro’s plan from the start, create something so ridiculously absurd that people get blown away in amazement by how unorthodox the game is and with a plethora of ideas at his disposal, he was able to make a game that grabs the attention of the masses for it offers something for everyone. It worked, sure but that’s not to say that the game is a masterpiece, far from it actually.

As this is a review I am obligated to paint an accurate picture of the experience and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. In doing so I’m going to tear this game apart. Yeah you heard me, I’m not going to pretend that this game is a special snowflake because it’s not. Nier Automata is far from being a masterpiece like many make it out to be and this is due to one simple issue that plagues the entire game, it lacks a solid foundation.

Videogames requires a similar structure to that of a tree’s anatomy. You have the roots, the trunk and the branches. The roots are essentially what keeps the tree alive, without the roots there is no tree. As such the roots are the base of the foundation, they provide the tree with nutrients and water. Considering the fact that Nier Automata appears to be primarily a 3d beat-em-up I will use Devil May Cry 3 as an example. Devil May Cry 3’s foundation is not the attacks, nor is it the style gauge, the base of Devil May Cry 3’s foundation is the movement and the camera. You see, the entirety of Devil May Cry 3 is built with camera and movement in mind. Devil May Cry mainly uses a static camera angle and the gameplay is built with this in mind.

Many animals were harmed in the making of this review

Later on, many 3d beat-em-ups opted for a manually controlled camera so that players have control over the camera rather than feeling unable to feel in control. This came with a cost as it can be difficult to manage both the game and the camera simultaneously. Some games such as Chaos Legion made camera management easier, others such as God Hand opted to remove the camera controls entirely, this caused both games to differentiate from one another dramatically giving each game a completely different feel. As you can see, the camera plays a big part in these games as it is the focal point in which each game is built around. In other words, the camera acts as the foundation that governs the rules and systems built to accommodate it.

Why am I bringing this up? Because one of the biggest issues that plagues Nier Automata is the very thing that governs the foundation of all 3d beat-em-ups, the camera. The very first thing you are introduced to in Nier Automata is a shoot-em- up section. Wait, isn’t this supposed to be a 3d beat-em-up you ask? That’s the thing, Nier Automata doesn’t focus on being one specific genre exclusively, rather it tries to meld different styles of gameplay into one expecting to impress a huge audience with its diverse gameplay.

When you first begin, the game starts with a vertical camera with your flight unit able to move forward, back, left and right as enemies appear from the top of the screen for you to shoot down, sounds simple doesn’t it? Well don’t get too used to this as the next section presents you with a top down camera which plays more like a twin stick shooter. This introduces the use of the right analogue stick which was previously unusable in the previous section. In other words, the game has just changed its rules without warning and you now have to adapt to a completely different set of rules.

This can be disorientating as players need time to adapt to a set of rules before they are introduced to a new set of rules. Only through practice can players experience educated empowerment, the problem is that rather than having players feel like they are coming to grips with a system, Nier Automata changes the rules and forces players to come to grips with an entirely new system, thus the element of mastery is neglected for the sake of diversifying gameplay which can be infuriating to people who enjoy mastery in videogames and can be equally as frustrating to people who struggle to pick up on gameplay mechanics.

“If Nier Automata has taught me anything it’s that ideas and concepts alone do not make a game”

In Devil May Cry 3, aside from the occasional puzzle, the game consists of mostly beating the living shit out of bad guys with mostly close quarters combat, it focuses primarily on this close quarters combat and the very first mission involves primarily close quarters combat. Why? Because that is the core of Devil May Cry 3’s gameplay and the game wants to introduce the player to the game by giving them a fairly simple and straightforward training ground allowing players to experiment with Dante’s move set in order to learn the basics of the game’s combat. At first, it is natural that players are going to suck and as such you need to present the player with more of the same gameplay sections, occasionally adding something new to the mix in order for them to become better acquainted with the game’s mechanics which is the first step towards mastering the game.

If you transition to a completely different ruleset, you essentially compromise the entire process of mastery, this is the biggest issue with Nier Automata’s gameplay and it only gets worse from here on out. Nier Automata loves to experiment with a lot of different ideas… the problem is that Nier Automata is a commercial product designed to be a recreational activity. Such experimental ideas do not belong in the game, rather they belong in a note pad… or in a completely different game entirely.

Of course this also applies to the sections where you are grounded and engaged in close quarters combat. Most of the time you will have access to manual camera control but this is not always the case, some sections will have a static side view camera or a static top view camera. The game seamlessly transitions between each camera angle so this can often happen without warning, changing the way the controls work every single time.

The top down sections are by far the worst of the bunch as the camera is usually zoomed out way too far. Of course this isn’t the only time this happens as the side view camera angle can also be zoomed out way too far at times but I find this to be a lot more common with the top down sections. This can be quite irritating as it can be difficult to read the enemy’s moves when the camera is zoomed out too far. The game tries to make up for this by giving many of the enemies a red aura when they are attacking but it only happens for a split second and when there’s so many enemies on-screen at once it can be difficult to figure out which one was attacking you, let alone what their attack is going to be as it can be difficult to see which enemy you’re fighting.

Now I get what the game is trying to do, I really do. It’s trying to harken back to the old school style of gameplay, back when side scrolling and top down camera angles were common. The problem is that the gameplay of Nier Automata is not built with these camera angles in mind. The entire game is built with manual camera controls in mind and as such having multiple camera angles is kinda pointless as it doesn’t enhance the gameplay experience whatsoever, rather it hinders it.

If you want to make a side scrolling beat-em-up, that’s perfectly fine, look at what Odin Sphere Leifthrasir did, that game was built with a side view camera angle in mind. As such, rather than removing certain functions from the game, it incorporates functions that simply wouldn’t work in a game that uses manual camera controls such as the ability to hold down square and press up on the left analogue stick to perform aerial attacks. You can’t do this in Nier Automata as pressing up on the left analogue stick is used to move your character forward, granted games like Devil May Cry 3 added a directional input using its lock on system, something Nier Automata is sorely lacking.

This is where I want to get into the game’s combat system, specifically the 3d beat-em-up sections. Nier Automata’s combat system feels somewhat archaic, at least when compared to other 3d beat em ups like Devil May Cry 3. You are limited to one string of attacks per weapon and can equip 2 weapons at a time. You are also given a pod that shoots bullets and other ranged weapons. In addition to all this you are also able to dodge enemy attacks and counter them which is pretty satisfying to pull off.

One thing that bugs me however is that the short sword counter attack launches enemies into the air, this is cool until you encounter enemies that don’t stagger as instead of launching them into the air, you flail your sword around like an idiot, it gets really irritating how some enemies can be staggered while others can’t. In addition to all this, I encountered several hit point sponge enemies over the course of the game, the game gave me no indication as to which enemies were hp sponges and which weren’t which was annoying.

It appears that these enemies are monikered “gold enemies” and they’re really annoying to fight as they take way too long to kill them unless you hack them but doing so requires you to have a hacking ability which you don’t have access to when you first encounter them and you don’t get access to the hacking ability for ages. In which case why spawn these enemies there? They’re not even challenging, they’re just annoying and tedious, I killed one of them but I didn’t get anything special for doing so, perhaps there’s more to them but I don’t really care, the fact that they show up in a section of the game you need to pass through to progress through the main story is absolutely fucking ridiculous as you clearly aren’t supposed to kill them at that point… yet you can, the funny thing is, these enemies aren’t a higher level than any of the other enemies, so why do they have so much goddamn hit points!?

It was at this point where I realized just how limited the combat feels, yes the combat is really fun and satisfying at the start but it stagnates later on, particularly when you find out that shooting enemies at long-range with the pod is usually the best strategy for dealing with most enemies making melee combat kinda useless. In a way, Nier Automata feels a lot like Devil May Cry 2 but with faster, less janky combat as it gives you an automatic weapon right from the get go meaning you can hold it down and kill most enemies surprisingly quickly. Why waste time with the melee combat when ranged combat is safer and easier, sure it might not be the most efficient method in terms of damage dealing but after weighing everything up I’d say the game encourages you to use ranged weapons over melee weapons.

Now you could argue that Devil May Cry 3 gives you handguns and that you can shoot enemies to death. Though this may be true, it clearly isn’t encouraged as shooting requires you to rapidly tap the square button and they deal very little damage per shot, it’s so much easier to hit things with a sword as not only does it deal considerably more damage but it also helps build the style gauge which gives you access to more red orbs letting you learn more moves faster. It puzzles me how a 12-year-old game manages to have more flexibility in its combat system than Nier Automata. It’s as if the developers were desperate to release the game ASAP with a passable combat system. To the developer’s credit, the combat is easy to pick up and play, dodging feels very responsive and the overall combat feels smooth, so much so that it makes a mockery out of Yoko Taro’s previous games in this department which is nothing to write home about but commendable nonetheless.

Going by Yoko Taro’s track record, I’d say that this game’s combat system would have been a train wreck if it wasn’t for Platinum games which just goes to show how little confidence I have in Yoko Taro’s games. The Drakengard game’s combat systems were painfully slow and janky that I couldn’t be bothered to finish any of them, granted I never played the first Nier though I heard a lot of complaints about the game and based on my experiences with the Drakengard games, this doesn’t surprise me. If you ask me, Platinum games saved this game from being yet another janky mess.

Of course this is only the first layer of the game’s combat system as it is technically two games in one, well sort of. The shoot-em-up segments make up the second layer of the game’s combat system, much like in Odin Sphere, I really wasn’t too keen on having them in this game either. To the game’s credit these sections aren’t particularly all that bad but they just seem to be thrown in there for the sake of it. Unlike most shoot-em-ups where enemies drop power ups and you improve your ship, Nier Automata doesn’t do this which kinda makes these sections feel tacked on and thus an ordeal to get through.

I can’t exactly complain about these sections though, much like the beat-em-up sections you have more-or-less the same abilities, dodging is still great, you can melee attack to deflect projectiles and shoot powerful lasers at enemies. If I was to summarize my overall experience with these sections, I’d say that they’re the top down low-budget equivalent Zone Of The Enders. In other words I think these sections are ok but not particularly rewarding or enjoyable to get through, at least in my opinion. I would have rather they focused on enhancing the beat-em-up style gameplay than shove this in there because I bought this game to hack n slash robots on the ground, not shoot things in the air.

Then we get into the hacking minigame. To be honest while these sections are simplistic, the fact that they keep the camera static the whole time makes these sections the best part of the gameplay hands down. Much like the standard shoot-em-up sections however, these sections also feel like a needless ordeal to get through most of the time and you will want to get back in the action ASAP. Still I cannot complain about these sections, it’s like a budget indie title some amateur made in game maker, how can you possibly fuck it up? All you need to do is shoot cylinders, circles and arrows, you can’t possibly fuck this up. Do you want a fucking medal game?

Combat aside, Nier Automata offers a reasonable amount of character growth and personalization through the use of plug in chips. Over the course of the game you will acquire plug in chips which can be added to your pod. Each plug in chip has different effects that can be applied to all elements of gameplay. They can also be enhanced by combining multiple chips together in order to improve them. I honestly found this to be a nice addition to the game and sort of makes up for the lack of options in combat. As such you could argue that Nier Automata is actually an Action RPG and to be honest you wouldn’t be completely wrong as the game does have a leveling system and RNG… but after the last blog I made, I’m going to treat this game as a 3d beat-em-up. I do think the character management is good enough to give this game some credit as an ARPG but with only a single controllable character, it’s expected that the game can do more than most ARPGs and as such it feels unfair to compare it with other games in the genre.

Still, I think what Nier Automata lacks in the gameplay department is flavor. The framework is there… mainly because that’s all they had time to do by the end because they didn’t bother to focus on one particular element. This means the game feels sterile as a result, you get a playable, yet empty experience which could have been so much more had the developers focused on one element of gameplay rather than trying to do everything at once. As such, the lack of focus is the core of the problem. The potential is there but the material on offer feels archaic, dull and boring which is extremely disappointing coming from Platinum games. If you ask me, I’d say that Yoko Taro’s involvement is the main reason why the gameplay never reached its full potential, he demanded too much from the game and Platinum did their best to make it work.

By now you can probably see a trend in this review. So far I have only touched on the gameplay and for good reason, it’s all over the fucking place! That means I have to review every single combat section separately because they’re all different even though my opinion on every single one of them is the same, they all feel half-assed. Now I’m not saying that the gameplay is terrible, it definitely isn’t, heck the game can actually be quite fun to play for quite a while, the gameplay is definitely not a major issue, if I said it was then I’d be a hypocrite for giving other games the pass and not this. I’m just disappointed that they didn’t go all the way with this game considering the amount of hype that was built up for it.

The sad thing is, Nier Automata clearly had the budget, it just lacked common sense in its direction and I know that this might sound like I hate Yoko Taro but the truth is I don’t, I really want to like his games, I really do. I support everything he stands for in gaming, he’s one of the few people involved with Square-Enix that is genuine and for that I cannot bring myself to hate the guy. I feel his games however seem to follow a clear pattern. Yes they’re all weird and wacky, nothing wrong with that, I get it, heck I can even appreciate it. However there are certain things about his games that rub me the wrong way, particularly in the gameplay department. As such if gameplay is the only thing you’re interested in, Yoko Taro’s games definitely aren’t for you, you are wasting your time and money playing them as there are better games out there for people like you, go play them instead.

So as a game, Nier Automata could have been so much better but is it a good experience nonetheless? That’s a tough question. You see Nier Automata is one of those games that’s either going to click with you or it isn’t. Nier Automata’s narrative concept is pretty unique. The world has been taken over by machines and mankind has deployed androids known as Yorha to deal with them. Sure we’ve seen conflict between human and machine in other media countless times but what truly makes this interesting is Nier Automata’s choice to replace humans with androids.

Such an ambitious narrative concept is going to require a lot of creativity in the narrative department as androids are artificial lifeforms that use artificial intelligence. There are only two ways to approach such a concept, either make the android characters completely devoid of emotion and focus primarily on building a strong, interesting world with plenty of abstract storytelling, or find a way to encourage players to willingly suspend their disbelief in order to establish strong connectivity with the characters. Nier Automata focuses mostly on the latter.

The problem is that the characters in Nier Automata are pretty bland. This is usually expected with such a narrative concept as it is normal for androids to lack emotion but when you clearly focus your game’s story on connectivity with characters, you need your characters to have strong emotions in order for them to be interesting enough to connect to. The main character 2B has a cardboard personality. She’s a serious, duty-bound Android who is stoic and blunt. Then you have 9S who joins 2B on her mission who is kinda laid back but does develop later on in the game.

When a game feels the need to be literal when describing the personality of a character, you know the writing’s fucked.

Unfortunately the character development in Nier Automata feels forced. This is mainly due to the game’s lackluster dialogue. The build up is there but it feels very shallow. Once again, this all comes down to a lack of focus. A lot of the game’s narrative is focused on the game’s premise and its themes rather than the characters. If the game was going for a more abstract style of storytelling it could probably get away with this but sadly this is not the case as Nier Automata clearly focuses on connectivity. For a game focused on connectivity to work it needs strong characters to act as a foundation for the rest of the story. If the characters are weak, the pillars holding the story together begin to crack and if the pillars crumble, the rest of the story goes down with it. This is the unfortunate fate of Nier Automata’s story.

To enjoy Nier Automata’s story to its fullest, you not only have to willingly suspend your disbelief but you also have to read a lot of the game’s texts and engage in many of the game’s sidequests. While this does not save the main story from being a complete let down, it at least allows you to appreciate the world a little bit more. I can honestly say that I had way more fun doing sidequests in this game than I did playing through the main story as the sidequests are pretty well designed. Sure there are plenty of fetch quests but they each come with their own little side story. Some missions are more interesting than others but I can definitely say that these are some of the best sidequests I’ve seen in a game hands down.

Where Nier Automata truly shines is in its exploration. If you’re looking for a true adventure game, this is it. The world of Nier Automata doesn’t feel empty and barren like most open world games nor does it feel strictly linear, instead the game gives you freedom to explore within limits. Personally I’d argue that this is by far the best approach to open exploration. If you see it you can most likely reach it and the game makes it easy to move around the world for the most part making exploration simple and fun. Of course there are plenty of treasure chests and items laid about for players to scavenge to reward players for exploring the game’s world.

Visually I’d say that the game is kinda a mixed bag for me personally. I’m not personally fond of the post apocalyptic urban setting as it brings about a pretty grim aesthetic that emphasizes a colour scheme that is comprised of greys and browns, which can be pretty bland to look at if you ask me. The vast majority of the game takes place in areas that look this way which is a bit of a downer for me but outside of these areas, there are some gorgeous looking areas to explore. I do think the developers overdid it with the lighting at some parts but I don’t think it’s a major issue. For this reason, I found the best parts of the game were the early sections before acquiring the first ending. Those of you unfamiliar with Yoko Taro’s games probably don’t know what I mean by this but Drakengard and Nier both have multiple endings. As you play through the game you will eventually reach an ending where the credits play but the game isn’t over and you are told to keep playing on for more content.

After the first ending, I started to lose interest in the game as I had already explored the majority of the game’s map and the value of exploration was no longer present in the game. To be honest, despite the fact that the first ending left me with lots of questions, I felt that it was the best possible time to end the game. You could argue that the game is worth purchasing for the first section alone but considering the full package, I’d say that Nier Automata overstays its welcome much like everything post disk 1 in Legend Of Dragoon.

One thing that didn’t disappoint me was the soundtrack. While I’m not usually fond of vocals, I found that they accompanied many of the tracks pretty well. The music helps encourage the exploration, something a lot of open world games fail to do because they tend to shuffle the music randomly rather than keep the same track for each area. I really like how a semi-open world is accompanied with a soundtrack that perfectly fits each section. Not only that but the music changes depending on whether or not you are in battle to get you pumped up for the action. I think a lot of games can learn a lot from Nier Automata for this reason. In terms of open exploration, I’d argue it’s one of the best if not the best game I have ever played.

Though Nier Automata does have some redeeming qualities, I’d argue that the overall experience of the game is hit-or-miss. When this game was first released I had to pay £44.99 which is an absolutely outrageous price for such a game. I definitely didn’t get my money’s worth out of it but I probably would have if I spent £39.99. This is why I come across as somewhat harsh and bitter in this review because not only am I having to pay more for videogames these days but I feel that many of the games released this generation (and the previous) fail to meet the standards set by games that were released 10 years ago and Nier Automata is one of them.

As such I cannot say that I was as impressed or as blown away by this game like the masses were but can I recommend this game? Well I’d say if the price is right, pick it up, just don’t spend £44.99 on this game, it just isn’t worth it. I base my entire judgement on value for money and time as when a game has the audacity to charge more, I expect more. I don’t give a shit about inflation, I expect games to improve as time goes by, sadly this clearly isn’t the case.

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Story/Plot: Satisfactory

Visuals: Great

Music: Excellent

Gameplay: Great

Lifespan: Decent length

Difficulty: Easy

Would You Replay? No

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Overall: Great

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Value: £40.00

Odin Sphere/Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Review

Imagine A Valkyrie Profile beat em up game where you get to play 5 different characters each with their own perspective in the story. Sounds cool right? Well the guys at Vanillaware seemed to think so and decided to create a game that would do just that… well maybe not exactly that but they came very close. That game was Odin Sphere released in 2007… a year after the release of Valkyrie Profile 2… surely that’s not a coincidence.

Now when I heard that there was a remaster of Odin Sphere in the works, I didn’t really think much of it. You see during its time of release I was in the middle of playing the original Odin Sphere and I was originally going to review that game by itself. Thank god I didn’t because Odin Sphere on the PS2 was a piece of shit. Now you might be wondering how bad it could possibly be?

How about you watch this video and make your own judgement:

So after watching the video you can clearly see that this game has a lot of issues. Let me explain. First of all, the most obvious issue is the fact that you have 1 attack button. What this means is that you are literally mashing the square button the entire time. Sure you can use the directional buttons to mix things up but they really don’t blend in well with the main combo attack that can be used by simply pressing square over and over again. As such there is no way to string together combos. All you are doing is mashing square over and over again.

But don’t just think you can just sit there and mash the square button constantly. Just like in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, Odin Sphere has a special gauge designed to punish spamming… when in reality all it does is leave the player incapable of doing anything for a few seconds. In other words it is completely pointless and only exists to give an illusion that the game is actually encouraging players to use a wide variety of attacks when it clearly isn’t the case.

This my friends is what the game likes to call the POW meter. It is a meter that is consumed every single time you use an attack or a guard action and it recovered by either walking around or simply doing nothing. You can also recover it by absorbing phozons off of dead enemies but doing so requires you to perform an animation which leaves you vulnerable. Once the POW meter is depleted the game not only prevents you from attacking but it also inflicts the dizzy status ailment immobilizing you leaving you vulnerable to being attacked. Talk about adding salt to the wound.

The attack animations are quite detailed but unfortunately the frames used to perform some of these attacks can leave you wide open to be attacked whereas the frames used for certain enemy attacks can be extremely quick, in fact one particular enemy can hurt you before the actual attack animation is executed. This can be really frustrating as you feel crippled compared to pretty much every other enemy in the game. To make things worse, certain bosses tend to heal themselves or be healed by other enemies. This can be extremely frustrating as when they are healed their health bar is restored to full. Add to this the fact that these healer enemies respawn and you have a really tedious and annoying boss fight to deal with.

Oh and don’t think that boss fights are few and far between. Each stage has not only a single main boss but also has several minibosses for you to fight, these minibosses are just as difficult as the actual boss fights, sometimes more. You will often find yourself stuck on a boss only to beat it and eventually run straight into another boss fight. This can be infuriating to deal with and can make each stage a painful slog to play.

Odin Sphere is a game that focuses heavily on its alchemy system which is surprisingly pretty complicated for those who don’t know what they’re doing. Basically potions have different effects when mixed with mandragoras but they also have a numerical value. This numerical value is a variable that decides what potion you brew with each material.

Each material has several different combinations based on its number. These combinations are only tied to even numbers however, odd numbers will have no effect with any ingredient and only single digit numbers affect the outcome of the potion so if your numerical value is 10/20 you will still get the same result as you would get with a 0 but it will release extra phozons as a result. You can multiply the numerical value by adding more ingredients to the material, the value the material is multiplied depends on the item. The results of the potion vary based on the numerical value and the type of mandragora used to create the potion.

And don’t think that the alchemy system is just a novelty. Expect to brew dozens of potions and be sure to keep stocked up on them but don’t forget to use them when the time is right. Potions can save you a lot of hassle, this is true in both the original game and the remaster but especially true in the original. There are offensive potions such as napalm allowing you to deal a large chunk of damage to an enemy and healing potions which are surprisingly quite rare since the main ingredient for it is hard to come by. This is somewhat problematic as healing potions tend to be your main source of healing early on and you’ll likely end up backtracking to acquire more of them.

In the original Odin Sphere, phozons had to be absorbed manually using the R1 button. In Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Phozons are absorbed automatically but you can still manually absorb them if you want to.

In addition to all this there are potions that protect/heal certain status ailments, these are also vital as well since to add insult to injury, status ailments can be devastating in this game. The poison status effect will sap your hp to 1 very quickly so using an antidote quickly will save you a lot of food/potions, the burn status is also quite strong too with a similar effect which can be stopped by using a cooler. Then there’s quite possibly the most annoying status ailments. These are freeze and dizzy.

Freeze does what you think it does, it freezes you in place leaving you completely vulnerable for an attack which can be devastating in this game. Dizzy stuns you for a short period of time just like running out of POW which can be a real pain. Pretty much every single status ailment can turn the tide of battle in the enemy’s favor very quickly especially the freeze/dizzy status ailment as being inflicted by those ailments often leads to the player’s death since they are vulnerable to any attack and enemies won’t hesitate to take advantage of your misfortune.

Goddamnit…

Hopefully I’ve illustrated to you just how frustrating the original Odin Sphere is which is why I recommend against playing it. I say this because there is a “classic mode” option in the remaster of the game which is exactly what you think it is. It’s the original game in HD. If you don’t want to put yourself through this torment then please for the love of god don’t play classic mode, it will break you… no I’m serious, it will break you… mentally.

Now that that’s out of the way, let us talk about the remaster itself. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is not just a mere HD re-release like most re-releases tend to be these days. Story and cutscenes aside, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a completely different game to the original. They have completely wiped the slate clean and started from scratch, essentially recreating the entire game from the ground up. It’s incredible to see how so much has changed with this re-release it literally feels like a whole new experience altogether. In other words, fans of the previous game will find a lot of new content here even though the game’s story is still pretty much the same as it was in the original.

The question is, does this 9 year game still hold up today or was it best left in the dust? Now I’ll admit, I was eager to get this game simply due to the fact that the original game had so much potential underneath despite all its flaws and I seriously mean that. Odin Sphere is one of those games that I really tried to like despite my infuriating experience. I wanted to keep playing the game to experience more simply because I didn’t want to give up on it.

On paper, Odin Sphere had a lot going for it. A simple yet engaging story with multiple perspectives and a great soundtrack composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto accompanied with bright and colorful visuals in order to create a lush atmosphere that would have captivated me had it not been for the abysmal gameplay. Thankfully, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir not only fixes many of the issues that plagued the original game but it also brings more to the table.

For starters using regular attacks no longer consumes POW, instead there are new items called phozon prisms which contain psypher skills. These abilities consume either POW or PP when used, the latter being a replacement for the phozon gauge which has been removed. In addition, running out of POW does not make you dizzy either which was a big nuisance in the original game. I like how they found a good use for the POW gauge rather than just removing it entirely, it merely adds an extra layer of depth and flexibility to the game and that is never a bad thing.

In addition to the new psypher skills, there are also new regular attacks to experiment with allowing for even more flexibility. There is also an added dodge button which can be quite handy at avoiding attacks quickly. You can dodge both on ground and in the air but on the ground you can dodge limitlessly making it a great way to quickly maneuver around each stage as well as a great way to avoid getting hit. Dodging doesn’t make you invincible but it can let you slip away from attacks easily. Dodging is really smooth and easy to execute so it’s a good idea to take advantage of it as often as possible.

Guarding no longer consumes POW and all characters are given the ability to guard making it a more viable option to protect yourself against enemy attacks. Guards can only take so many hits but they let you avoid attacks in situations where movement is limited, They can also help you deal with annoying projectile attacks and often put you in a better position to counter your enemy making it a more viable option than dodging in some cases though if you get hit from behind then your guard will break so be careful.

Moving the left analog stick in each direction while guarding allows you to perform the additional standard attacks I spoke of allowing you to weave in and out of a guard easily allowing for more passive aggressive play. Psypher skills can be set to the circle button or used from the menu, it’s great how players have the option between seamlessly performing their psypher skills and pausing the game to select a psypher skill. Up to 4 moves can be assigned to the circle button and its associated directional inputs so they can be used in a pinch.

Each psypher skill you acquire can also be upgraded using phozons collected from enemies in order to enhance their effects which adds a little bit of personalization to the game allowing you to customize your experience making Odin Sphere feel more like an RPG than its predecessor. In addition to psypher skills, as you level up you will acquire ability points which can be spent on passive abilities for even further customization. All I can say is that it’s about time this game had some great character management as the original was sorely lacking in it despite being considered an RPG by many.

In the original game you would either absorb phozons from dead enemies to level up your psypher level (attack damage) or you would plant seeds which would absorb phozons in order to obtain food items which would heal you and level up your hit points. This essentially means that you had 2 levels to manage. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir merges both levels into one so that you don’t have to worry about your food to psypher ratio which was kind of annoying as your hit points level would often be lower than your psypher level simply due to the fact that it was so tedious to level up a character’s hit points because of how long it took to grow seeds.

So to rectify this issue, both levels merged to become a single level which increases all your stats. In addition they added the ability to stack seeds in order to save the player from having to constantly go back and forth between menus to plant multiple seeds. Another problem with the original is that if you absorbed phozons it would cost part of your psypher gauge in order to release them. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir adds the ability to release phozons by holding R1 + Square. The top right hand corner of the screen shows the total number of phozons you have and you can use them as not only a form of currency in the upgrade screen but also to feed seeds so they will grow into food.

In the original Odin Sphere there were restaurants which would cook meals for you giving you a huge chunk of hit point exp. This was vital if you wanted to get through the game smoothly and as such you would often have to backtrack to different levels to farm ingredients including mandragoras and seeds, it was tedious. In addition, specific coins were also required to pay for the meal. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir splits this system in half by adding a new touring restaurant that appears in rest areas on the map. This means that players can eat food on the go rather than having to constantly enter and exit the level to get access to the restaurants.

Unlike the restaurants however, the touring restaurant doesn’t require any money, rather you are required to bring the ingredients necessary to cook the dish. The restaurants themselves however only take specific types of coin but do not require ingredients. This allows players to level up a lot easier in a way that befits them as opposed to being a mandatory chore. Those who wish to gather the right materials for a meal can level up their food level at the touring restaurant. On the other hand, those who do not want to have to search for specific materials in each level can use the regular restaurants. Ideally you will want to utilize both for the maximum exp gains. You can also buy takeaway food that can be used in battle but the exp gains are lower than other dishes.

This is great for people who enjoy invested empowerment as it constantly throws exp rewards at you… but you have to earn them. Ingredients can be purchased from shops but they can be expensive, special coins are often obtained from treasure chests littered around each stage. You can also be rewarded with more/higher quality special coins by getting a higher rank for beating each fight zone meaning that if you play well, you will be able to level up higher. In addition as there is only one leveling system in this game, food doesn’t just level up your hit points it levels up all of your stats. This is a pretty big deal.

How does she remain so dainty after eating so much food?

One of the more interesting challenges that comes with playing Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is managing your resources in a way that best suits the situation. As important as it is to eat food, it is also very important to keep stocked up on potions. There are a lot of new potions this time round, many of the spells from the original have been transformed into consumable potions which kinda makes more sense when you consider the fact that many of the characters shared the same spells. Now that the psypher skills are more-or-less unique to each character, it makes sense to get rid of those shared magic attacks and to instead use them as consumable damage dealing items.

If the original Odin Sphere has taught me anything it’s don’t be conservative with potions. Potions can really deal a lot of hurt towards enemies and can really help turn a bad situation around for you as well as to buy you some time. Things can get pretty chaotic at times to the point that even the psypher skills don’t provide strong enough crowd control. Damage dealing potions act as an extension to your psypher skills allowing you to really build up the hits and can be really handy for crowd control, especially when you’re trying to position enemies up for an attack. This can be really handy against bosses too as they can take a good chunk of a bosses health away.

Crafting potions is a lot easier than before. Rather than relying on the numerical value to decide the outcome, the numerical value is now used to determine the strength of the potion as well as other factors. Crafting different types of potions is as simple as adding up to 3 of the same type of mandragora to a material. The type of potion you make depends on how many of the same type of mandragora you put in. Each mandragora has different potion recipes  linked to it, you can find them out by collecting them over the course of the game but they’re easy enough to figure out. I would also like to note that potions will no longer generate phozons when crafted which means that you can no longer abuse the value system for phozons.

Just about any item can affect the value of a potion. Other items such as seeds, accessories and even junk have their own recipes connected to them so you will want to try all kinds of items to find out what results you can come up with. To make things easier, there is an option to stack multiple ingredients as you make a potion. This not only speeds up the process but it allows you to preview the results of a crafted potion without having to actually make it. This makes potion crafting a lot easier to grasp than it was in the original and it only takes a few minutes of experimenting to find every single combination. You can also craft some really overpowered potions early on if you want to so you can still break the game… though it will come at a cost of course.

When it comes to surviving in Odin Sphere, preparation is key. You’re going to spend quite a while doing simple yet somewhat time-consuming character management. While this is not everyone’s cup of tea it’s important to realize that Odin Sphere isn’t just a mindless beat em up, it’s also an RPG. While the core gameplay really focuses on the beat em up action, you are expected to manage your character’s stats and inventory often. Thankfully Odin Sphere makes this easier as it cuts away all the tedium so you will spend far less time planting and crafting than in the original.

Those looking for more of a challenge may be disappointed by the fact that many of these new mechanics added to the game seem dumbed down when compared to the original. Fear not, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir acknowledges these changes and offers even more challenges to the player in order to balance things out. Bosses have a lot more hit points this time round and rather than having a single health bar, their health is presented in multiple chunks. In other words you have several health bars to deplete. The good thing about this is that bosses will no longer be able to heal their health to maximum if you have taken out a chunk of their health.

If you somehow managed to beat the original Odin Sphere you probably have all of the basics figured out but don’t think you’ll be able to use the same strategies as before. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir introduces new enemies, many of which are bosses. These bosses can be brutal… so much so that they put the original game’s bosses to shame though I won’t deny that many of them can be really fun to fight. Returning enemies also come new and improved with new abilities to keep you on your toes. You will have to be more careful when fighting these bosses this time round and be prepared to eat food or use potions often, you’re going to need them. All in all the standard enemies and the bosses offer a satisfying level of challenge and death is never too punishing, you can also retry a fight right from the beginning at any time retaining any items you used.

The stage map is a lot more intricate this time round. The original Odin Sphere’s stage map consisted of battle stages, boss stages and rest stages. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir mixes things up adding brand new stage layouts each with their own unique environments which is a pretty big deal considering the fact that the original Odin Sphere re-used the same environments for each stage which became quite stale over time and appeared to be somewhat lazy. I don’t know whether this was to do with budget issues or not but this was a pretty big problem considering the fact that the original Odin Sphere’s art design was the game’s biggest selling point. The new environments are just as stunning as they were in the original and they really help to flesh out each location to give them more of an identity.

Some passages are too small for the character to fit through. These pink plants allow you to transform into a miniature version of your character in order for you to access small passages, keep an eye out for them.

In addition to all this, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir adds a brand new soundtrack to accompany these new environments. Fear not, the original music is still there, it’s just not as common as it was in the original. Many of the original ambient tracks now play in the rest stages, the battle music remains the same for the most part as does the boss music. The cutscenes remain completely unchanged from the original and have the exact same music playing in each one. I really enjoy the new soundtrack that has been added into this game, some of the new tracks are even better than the original’s, that’s not to say the original soundtrack is bad, quite the contrary actually but the new tracks are just as phenomenal as the old ones, which isn’t surprising considering the fact that Hitoshi Sakimoto returns to take charge of the team working on the music.

That just about covers all of the new additions to Odin Sphere Leifthrasir but aside from all the improved mechanics and additions, how does the rest of the game hold up? While the gameplay of the original Odin Sphere may have been abysmal, the story itself wasn’t half bad. Like Valkyrie Profile, Odin Sphere’s setting takes a lot of inspiration from norse mythology although Odin Sphere goes a little crazy with it. there are several nations, each with their own ideals and methods. The character’s you control are often affiliated with each nation and has to deal with the many conflicts each nation is involved in.

Each book starts at a completely different point in the game’s timeline from a different perspective. Interestingly enough the first book starts half way through the story and finishes right near the end… but once you finish the rest of the books, the events leading prior to the first book become clear. It’s a smart and interesting way to tell the game’s story by putting you straight into the action right from the get go rather than drowning the player in exposition. In doing so, the story manages to bait the player’s curiosity, beckoning them to uncover more.

Despite all this the plot itself feels rather simplistic though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I find that the story’s execution is the driving force that keeps players coming back for more. I like how rather than telling you what’s going on directly, the game illustrates the situation and presents the player with written notes which explain the story in more detail which can quickly be skimmed through or even skipped should the player wish. These can be viewed at any time in the bookshelf on the book selection screen and in the original they could be found in the prophecies section of the notes.

There is also the timeline which allows you to watch all the cutscenes you’ve unlocked without having to play through the books again. The timeline lists all the cutscenes from each book in chronological order, allowing the player keep track of where they are in the story. I found this feature to be extremely useful because not only does it help you piece together the story but it also helps alleviate confusion when progressing through each book.

It’s interesting to see the events of each book intertwine and how each character views one another. I always love the ability to experience multiple perspectives in a game’s story and I can appreciate how Odin Sphere manages to execute this concept so well. While it may not be on the same scale as Warcraft 3, having 5 different characters to play individually is something I believe that more games need to explore.

The original Odin Sphere was undoubtedly wasted potential. I think the game suffered from a severe lack of budget. Even with its vibrant visuals, interesting story and gorgeous soundtrack, the game itself felt patched together at the last minute. Given more time, I’m sure the developers would have been able to deliver a solid experience. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir proves this. It is a remarkable turnaround for what was once a complete and utter failure of a game.

I think we can all learn a lot from both Odin Sphere and Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. Gameplay is the root of all videogames and while the focus may still be shifted towards the visual and audio department, we cannot forget that these are games to play, not games to look at. Polished shit is still shit and I can’t recommend shit to anyone. Odin Sphere is probably one of the most painful experiences I have ever had in gaming to date. This is why I had to review this both this game and the original simultaneously because Odin Sphere Leifthrasir proves that stripping away flawed mechanics and replacing them with something better can turn shit into diamonds.

Now I could give this game a higher rating but there are still a few things that annoy me about Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. For starters, using items in the middle of battle is still an issue. The animations still take way too long and I’d rather they were just cut out completely or at least sped up several frames. Even with the gourmet ring, eating food still takes way too long. Why can’t players simply use items on the move rather than just standing there? It really doesn’t blend in well with the gameplay at all and often leaves you open to be attacked which is a nuisance.

One of the additions that didn’t impress me were the shoot-em-up sections with Mercedes. I get that they were trying to mix things up but these sections are frustrating as hell. For starters you are unable to use items and you can only evade backwards not forwards. Also if you die you merely get sent down to the floor below. Fortunately these sections are completely optional to complete though they tease the player by knocking them down to the next section when they die rather than letting them retry which is a pain since you have to use items to heal yourself since you will have 1hp left afterwards.

Fortunately you are able to retry these sections as the stage map now allows you to warp between stages so you can backtrack easily. This still doesn’t make these SHMUP sections any less painful though. If they allowed the player to dodge forward instead of back then these sections could have been more enjoyable. Sadly this was not the case. While you are often able to choose between multiple stages on the map, these “optional” stages are compulsory to partake in though you aren’t required to finish them.

Another issue that may turn players away from this game is the inventory management. While it has improved considerably from the original Odin Sphere, it is still an issue. The original Odin Sphere gave you bags which had to be picked up and placed in your inventory. You then needed to create a separate bag slot from the inventory by selecting the bag. This was a pain to do if your inventory was full as you had to drop an item, pick up the bag, create a bag slot and pick the item you dropped back up off the floor.

Thankfully Odin Sphere Leifthrasir fixes this issue by automatically increasing your storage capacity which cuts out all the needless inventory management you had to do. There is also a storage chest which can store numerous items too. The problem is that these storage chests are only in rest areas. While I can’t exactly fault the game for this I can see it being a problem to people who detest inventory management as you will often find yourself with limited space. Plus it is important to save your best items for the bosses so you won’t want to use them in standard fights. Why would you want to when you can use your powerful psypher skills?

In any case I would argue that aside from these minor issues, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is definitely worth playing for both newcomers and returning fans. I would also recommend this game to people who were disappointed by the original Odin Sphere. It’s just sad that my first time playing this game was single-handedly crushed by the abysmal gameplay of the original. For those who haven’t played the original and are interested in these types of games, never play the original, it’s just not worth your time or money but if you own a PS4 or a Vita then you owe it to yourself to experience Odin Sphere in all its glory by picking up Odin Sphere Leifthrasir.

Can you please stop eating? It’s making me hungry…

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Story/Plot: Great

Visuals: Excellent

Gameplay: Excellent

Music: Excellent

Lifespan: Quite Long

Difficulty: Hard

Would You Replay? Maybe

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Overall: Excellent

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Value: £40.00

Exist Archive: The Other Side Of The Sky Review

In case you’re wondering what I’ve been busy doing in the past few weeks, I’ve been playing Exist Archive The Other Side Of The Sky, a game developed by tri-Ace. This game is a Japanese import I have been eager to pick up since it was announced last year. Exist Archive presents itself as the spiritual successor to the Valkyrie Profile series, a series which spawned the legendary Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, my favorite game of all time and naturally I have waited for a sequel (or in this case a pseudo sequel) to this wonderful game for years. So does Exist Archive manage to deliver the same amount of quality that Valkyrie Profile 2 managed to capture?

Well I’m going to get straight to the point and put it bluntly. The answer is unsurprisingly no, it doesn’t. So how much quality does this game deliver to us, the player? Well that’s what we’re going to look into right now aren’t we.

Now before I start I want to make all of you aware that comparing Exist Archive to Valkyrie Profile 2 is just plain unfair. How could I possibly compare such games? I mean, Valkyrie Profile 2 is a masterpiece, how could that game be topped? Oh and I’m not saying that as a close minded idiot who is blinded by nostalgia, I’m saying it as a rational individual who is well aware as to how quality is measured up and I will tell you one thing. Exist Archive doesn’t seem to realize that sometimes, less is more but believe me, if I told you I didn’t get my money’s worth out of it, I’d be lying. Exist Archive is an excellent attempt at not only reviving what seemed to be a dead franchise but also refining it to a degree. It’s one of those games that tries it’s damn hardest to squeeze all the juice it can from what little it has.

Mmm… juicy goodness

However we have to remember that tri-Ace are not independent developer’s like they used to be, they are a subsidiary now. Not only that but all of their games with the exception of maybe Judas Code has been published under other companies, like most game development teams so forgive me for having very little sympathy when I say that Exist Archive could have done a lot better.

Or could it? This is a tough question isn’t it. We now find ourselves in a whole new territory as Japanese publisher Spike Chunsoft has taken the reigns. Now I don’t know very much about Spike Chunsoft (which is probably for the best since most publishers I know are just plain savages towards consumers) aside from the fact that they’ve published handheld games such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

 

“It’s one of those games that tries it’s damn hardest to squeeze all the juice it can from what little it has”

 

However with this new, lesser known publisher at the helm, it is very difficult to set our expectations high for lesser known publishers tend to be financially unstable. As a result, to expect a localization for this game is absolute fucking bonkers so I bought it off of Play Asia anyways so that I could take a gander for myself and write this review in hopes that I could re-live the experiences of the Valkyrie Profile series once more.

So before I get on with the more intricate points in the review, I want to briefly cover the story. Now first of all, I don’t understand a single word of Japanese and although some of the cutscenes manages to make me chuckle somehow, I still don’t really get what’s going on. However this is not to the game’s detriment rather it is my own detriment. As such I can’t really recommend this game as a whole to those who cannot speak the language.

The story revolves around a bunch of dead school kids (and a few older folks) who find themselves in a weird fantasy afterlife where they must survive the harsh wilderness infested with monsters designed to look like cutesy chibi plushies (well… some of them), only to find out that they have unwillingly awakened the power of an evil god who seeks to use their existence in this world for his own benefit. Make of that what you will but I cannot deny that it’s quite an original concept for a JRPG storyline, a somewhat ambitious one you could say.

Nevertheless, I find the execution of the early game plot to be somewhat repetitive as it revolves around a recurring plot device known as existence crystals and you will have to collect them in order to move on with the plot. Even though the plot is pretty bog standard and repetitive early on, there are plenty of scenes involving character interaction throughout the game to keep things fresh. Much like in the original Valkyrie Profile, Exist Archive doesn’t focus too much on its over-arching plot but unlike Valkyrie Profile there is plenty of character interaction to be had and you can learn more about the characters over the course of the game.

Now there is a bit of abstract in the game’s story. It seems they took a page from Valkyrie Profile 2’s book which is admirable. There are optional existence crystals you can interact with in dungeons for some extra dialogue revolving around what appears to be flashbacks of the other characters. A rather innovative and ambitious attempt at developing the characters for sure though as to how well it does, I cannot say. It is nice that they’re there though and they appear on your collections screen.

Existence Crystals are essentially the JRPG equivalent of audio logs though to be honest I think it’s mostly used as a replacement for Valkyrie Profile 2’s einherjar. They are all fully voiced through the PS4’s controller, possibly to emphasize the fact that they are flashbacks in which the characters are experiencing which is a nice touch. These scenes don’t seem to be half-baked and even though they didn’t really need to be in the game to begin with, it’s really fun to backtrack to previously explored areas to collect them all.

In any case, regardless of my feelings of the game’s story as a whole, I’m going to abstain from making any judgments on it due to my complete and utter lack of understanding of the Japanese language. I do apologize if this bothers you but at least you know whether or not it’s worth importing or not if you don’t understand Japanese.

Visually the game is quite stunning, once again they have taken a page from Valkyrie Profile 2’s book with this one. The level of detail in many of the locations is staggering. The backdrops are also incredible to look at. The enemy designs are quite unusual. One of the enemies looks like Solo from the new Strider, another enemy looks like Ardjet from Zone Of The Enders. There are quite a few enemy designs despite many people’s complaints. Some are better looking than others.

Exist Archive suffers from what I like to call Final Fantasy II syndrome, no I’m not talking about the repeated usage of spells to make them stronger and level up, I’m talking about the shameless re-usage of enemies. Like one minute you’re in a boss fight against an enemy, the next minute that boss fight becomes a regular enemy in future encounters, usually re-skinned.

In fact I was shaking in fear once I saw the enemy that looked like Solo in a regular battle as that guy kicked my sorry ass when I fought him the first time. Then I kicked his ass and I wondered how he had gotten so weak. Needless to say, he was just a re-used asset. Well Tales Of Phantasia did it too and I didn’t complain so I don’t think it’s too much of an issue.

The biggest problem with Exist Archive’s visuals are the character models. Though to be honest we are digging knee-deep into the realm of controversy when we talk about this. A lot of people shunned this game at launch for its Xbox Live Avatar compatibility. I don’t know why people showed such disdain at this somewhat innovative feature which allowed me to bring my now short-white haired Xbox live Ava- oh wait… this is PS4 isn’t it? How!? Sony, you have a lot to answer for, you stole Microsoft’s idea didn’t you! On second thoughts… why am I rooting for Moneysoft when I despise them so much?

In all seriousness, let us take time to celebrate the long-awaited return of big head mode! Remember those times where you could enter a cheat into the game and when you activated it your character’s head was puffed up like a balloon? Well tri-Ace saved us the trouble and gave us this feature right off the bat. Thanks tri-Ace, you know what we gamer’s want. I’m not going to touch on the character models any further because… well I don’t mind them. Do you know why? Because I don’t nitpick every single little tiny thing about a videogame and base my judgement solely on it! You got that? Good, let’s move on.

It’s morphin’ time!

The music in Exist Archive feels somewhat unusual compared with Motoi Sakuraba’s usual work and this is definitely not a bad thing. There are some nice tracks in there, some even reminiscent of Valkyrie Profile 2’s style. The music that plays in the main hub area at the top of the tower is very relaxing. The dungeon music seems to follow the first Valkyrie Profile’s style in the sense that is dynamic and somewhat catchy.

The only issue I have with the game’s soundtrack is… well, there’s just not enough of it. The bonus soundtrack that came with the game has 11 tracks in it, that’s almost half the number of tracks found in the game itself. This is quite worrying. However quality over quantity comes to mind here and I will say for what it’s worth, the soundtrack is very enjoyable nonetheless.

Speaking of quality over quantity, this game doesn’t seem to realize when enough is enough when it comes to filler content. I swear you will go through so many dungeons in this game and since the dungeons themselves are mostly re-skins of other dungeons, this can quickly become quite dull at times.

Now to add to this, it is also impossible to save inside a dungeon, rather the game expects you to get through it in one sitting. This can be a bit of a pain for those who have OCD when it comes to fighting every single enemy in the dungeon without a break and after doing it for a significant amount of time, it does get quite tiring after a while. Heck I still haven’t finished this game yet whilst writing this.

You can leave the dungeon at any time but if you do…

However I decided to make a start on this review and finish it off when I have finished the game. By the time this review is up, I will have already finished it, so bear in mind that I never review unfinished games… OK, I lied, I did it once with Warhammer 40K Space Marine but I got to the last boss in that game and could never beat him. I promise not to do so again if I can help it. In any case, this game has a lot of content available and it can be daunting to try and get through it all.

Now to end this review on a high note, the gameplay of Exist Archive is where I really start singing praises. Exist Archive’s battle system is reminiscent of the original Valkyrie Profile but with a few ideas from Valkyrie Profile 2 thrown in there too (thank god they brought back the AP gauge, praise be to tri-Ace).

Like Valkyrie Profile, the battle system is turned based and the characters attack using the face buttons. You control every character on the field and can press the menu button (options) to use certain spells and items. Sound similar to Valkyrie Profile doesn’t it? Well the similarities end there.

Rather than focusing on comboing enemies, Exist Archive’s battle system is more strategic and forces you to think more. Though it may lack the flashiness of Valkyrie Profile 2’s combat system, it makes up for with it’s simple, yet somewhat intricate combat system which manages to keep players on their toes. There is so much to like about Exist Archive’s battle system and so much to cover, so let’s get straight to business.

First I’d like to touch on the differences between Valkyrie Profile and Exist Archive’s battle system and this lies in the enemy placement and the weapon range. Enemies are all bunched up together. Some are more further apart from others, some are stronger than others. The gauge on the bottom left hand side of the screen (the one shaped like red diamonds) is the demon’s greed gauge. To fill it up you have to attack enemies, just like the heat gauge in Valkyrie Profile.

Unlike Valkyrie Profile however, the demon’s greed gauge isn’t drained when you’re not attacking so rather than focusing on chaining your combo’s your focus is to target either specific enemies or groups of enemies and deal the most hits and damage.

Attacking multiple enemies simultaneously can help build up your demon’s greed faster however it may be important to target specific enemies first, particularly if they are spiked enemies who deal damage to melee. As such, each battle requires a different approach in order to bring in the best results.

Your tactical choice can depend on your setup. Exist Archive is probably the first game of its kind to offer a class system. Yes, much like Final Fantasy V your characters can change classes with other characters by gaining affection with said characters. Gaining affection works similar to private actions in the Star Ocean series… but without the private actions.

The more you battle with people, the higher your affection grows. Eventually once your affection is high enough you will be able to share skills between your party. This is extremely handy as unlike Valkyrie Profile 2 where you had to grind for skills. In this game you pick a skill for each character and once their affection is high enough, everyone will learn each other’s skill. Pretty neat if you ask me.

Each class has its ups and downs and it’s up to the player to find the right synergy, much like Valkyrie Profile 2. Swords are well-balanced weapons, they’re pretty fast and cover a wide area though their damage is pretty average. Katana’s deal heavy damage to enemies but cover a shorter range than swords, their attacks vary in speed and their attacks require precision to get the most out of them. Whips however cover a very wide area and can also deal multiple hits to enemies, they’re great for gaining heat but they’re not very powerful.

In addition to melee weapons, there are ranged weapons. These are mostly gun-based classes and are used to attack enemies from afar. This can be useful for breaking an enemy’s guard with a barrage of hits allowing you to avoid getting intercepted. They can also be useful at hitting spiked enemies as they won’t take damage when attacking unlike melee.

Mage classes are based on multiple elements. These are fire, ice, wind and lightning. Fire magic deals the most damage to single targets, wind magic is often best for dealing with multiple enemies. Lightning mages deal decent damage but also have de-buffs which can be handy. Ice mages have buffs and are mostly single target casters like fire mages.

Your current setup not working out for you? Time for a class change!

You can’t rely on a single class type throughout the entire game, you will need to experiment with multiple class combinations and find what works for you. The class change system allows you to bring your favorite characters into the party and change their class on the fly, keeping their levels and demons greed. The class system could be seen as detrimental to those who want the characters to have more individuality but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s a pretty cool addition.

Once you reach a certain point in the game you are able to access a new feature called greed mode. I love greed mode, more games should have greed mode. Heck I think games should also provide the same level of empowerment and challenge that greed mode offers. Rather than forcing players to grind for power leveling, greed mode gives a higher rate of chain encounters. This means you have one long battle of up to 5 encounters stacked on top of one another.

You can make this faster than simply fighting multiple battles by conserving your AP and demon’s greed for the next battle which allows you to end it quicker. At the end of the battle gauntlet, you are given bonus experience for your efforts, the higher the chain encounter, the more xp you acquire.

This can make you very powerful very quickly without the need to grind. Sadly this doesn’t manage to completely counteract my OCD when it comes to fighting every single enemy in my path. Nevertheless it is a wonderful addition to the game which more games should employ. Consider it a revamped version of Star Ocean 4’s bonus board but better in every way.

However greed mode isn’t all fun and games. Once you are in greed mode, you are unable to heal up your party with spells/items. So you will have to survive a gauntlet of monsters without healing making it kinda like a risk/reward gimmick. It can make battles a lot more exhilarating though when you know there are more battles to come and you have to survive them all by taking minimal damage. One way to reduce damage is by guarding.

Guarding in Exist Archive is extremely important, unlike Baten Kaitos and Eternal Sonata however, you do not have to time it perfectly. Instead Guards last for a certain period of time and continue until you are guard braked. When you are guard braked you may re-instigate the guard but only at the cost of AP. So you have to guard sparingly as it otherwise will cost you precious AP which you can use to get demon’s greed.

However Guarding proves especially useful for farming drops as there is yet another feature in the game’s battle system. The risk gauge. Your risk gauge is depicted as a number in a similar fashion to the d-ratio in Breath Of Fire Dragon Quarter. When you accumulate red gems, instead of replenishing charge time or replenishing AP, red orbs increase the drop rate of items through the risk gauge. The better you time your attacks and combo your enemies well, the higher the risk you obtain as well as the chance to gain drops.

This replaces Valkyrie Profile 2’s breaking feature which was awesome but sadly it’s no longer present in this game. Regardless, the risk gauge will carry over between battles. As such it feels even closer to the bonus board from Star Ocean 4 in the sense that if you get hit by an attack you didn’t block or get intercepted by a guarding enemy, you have a chance to get a bonus break which reduces your risk gauge and also any magic crystal XP gains to zero which you don’t want to happen.

With proper timing, you are able to intercept enemy attacks by guarding.

As such you are encouraged to block quite often in Exist Archive, however not all attacks can be blocked through normal means. Magic attacks and breath attacks can pierce your blocks. I’m not sure but I think I heard there was a skill that allowed you to block magic attacks but I’m not all that sure as I couldn’t read the Japanese text properly. Just something to keep in mind.

 

 

“The better you time your attacks and combo your enemies well, the higher the risk you obtain as well as the chance to gain drops”

 

So all in all, the risk gauge and greed mode manages to keep players on their toes in battle and makes battles all the more intense and rewarding. In addition to drop rate increase, by increasing your risk gauge to a high enough percentage, you are also eligible for title drops. These drops are enhanced versions of regular drops which have additional factors and bonuses.

There are two tiers of these drops, title and title rank. Title rank is simply a better version of a title drop as it enhances stats or applies extra factors to your equipment to make it more powerful. As such, it’s rather satisfying and quite rewarding to get new drops. Better yet, unlike Valkyrie Profile, the weapons actually have cosmetic alterations too which is cool.

The skill system of Exist Archive is reminiscent of the first Valkyrie Profile as it allows you to put points into skills rather than learning from equipment runes like in Valkyrie Profile 2. The skills themselves however are rather interesting. Rather than simply boosting stats, skills can be used to alter certain actions in battle. Each skill is split into categories and you can equip 1 skill in each category. For example, defensive skills alter your guarding ability and offensive skills add modifiers to certain attacks to give them extra hits etc.

Shopping in Exist Archive works like Valkyrie Profile. This would be rather sad if it wasn’t for the premise of the game. As such, it makes sense that they wouldn’t include conventional shops like other RPGs. Instead you shop in the main hub where you can buy items from Amatsume using a currency you gain from selling items you acquire from enemies (AMP). The items you can buy are mostly potions and usually outdated equipment. I kinda find shopping to be pointless in this game aside from replenishing your potion supply but at least it gives you a place to dump all your unneeded loot which is nice considering the fact that there is an inventory cap.

Seriously of all the games to do this, why does a game like Exist Archive have an inventory limit? It’s just annoying to have to constantly be removing items from my inventory after every battle just to fit new ones in. Can’t we just have a bottomless inventory like most RPGs? I mean why does this game of all things try to be realistic when it comes to inventory storage when it has you fighting dancing plushies which explode on contact and pull out giant pots which shoot bullets at you right out of their mouths? It’s nothing more than a painful ordeal that I tire of having to constantly deal with.

Anyways back to the battle system. Like I mentioned before, you can stack up to 4 demon’s greed attacks (one for each character) and they can be activated by pressing the L2 button at any moment during an attack. Your demon’s greed is reset after every battle. However like I mentioned before, your demon’s greed gauge doesn’t reset after a combo so you can save it for when you need it, should you choose to do so. As such, unlike in Valkyrie Profile, you cannot chain your special attacks if you only have 1 crystal lit up as you can only use 1 character’s special attack. However if you rise it to 4 crystals (which is maximum) you can use all 4 of your characters attacks in any order you choose.

This can be really handy in chain encounters as it doesn’t reset after each wave. Oh and in case you didn’t already realize, yes your demon’s greed attacks are essentially the replacement of soul crushes/purify weird soul attacks from the Valkyrie Profile series and whilst they aren’t as flashy as Valkyrie Profile 2’s soul crushes, they’re still pretty cool to look at. I love how all the special attacks summon part of the god’s power stored inside each character.

Button mashing is fun… but Namero takes it a bit too far…

Combat aside, the game’s platforming sections are handled quite well in this game. As you progress through the story, you will unlock more actions you can use to reach certain areas in the map (as well as other features found throughout the game).

The platforming seems to follow Valkyrie Profile 2’s style but rather than using photons to solve puzzles, Exist Archive allows you to transform enemies into come kind of boost mechanism, kinda like the cannon barrels in Donkey Kong which shoot you in the direction you choose.

Wheeee!

Ultimately, the gameplay for me was the most stand-out feature in Exist Archive and that is never a bad thing. It’s a shame I was unable to truly experience the game to its fullest especially considering the story-driven nature of this game. I can only hope that this game was successful enough to warrant localizing it later down the line. There are so many scenes that looked interesting but because I couldn’t understand what was going on in them, I feel like I only played through half of a game which probably damaged my review in the process.

One thing to be aware of though is that this game is very prone to crashing/freezing. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the game had save points in dungeons. However this can cause you to lose a lot of progress which can be very frustrating especially since many of the dungeons in later portions of the game can be very long and time-consuming. Not the best combination and it is the one thing holding this game back from getting an Excellent rating from me.

Nevertheless, this game has given me a lot to write about and although the budget constraints have caused to fall short in some areas, I still think it stands up as an enjoyable RPG and a great homage to the Valkyrie Profile series. If anything, this game is a message to Square-Enix telling them that Valkyrie Profile is far from dead and that they should continue it.

Say YES to Valkyrie Profile 3! Wait… hold on, did he just speak…

I strongly recommend this game if you can understand Japanese and enjoyed Valkyrie Profile. If you cannot understand Japanese and are intrigued by the gameplay, I’d say it’s worth a try too as I got my money’s worth out of it. If you’re not a fan of Valkyrie Profile and can’t speak Japanese, I doubt you’ll care to pick up this game and no matter how much I try to convince you to, If you can’t understand Japanese, there’s no point.

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Story/plot: Satisfactory

Visuals: Great

Music: Great

Gameplay: Excellent

Lifespan: Decent Length (but most of it is filler)

Difficulty: Easy

Would You Replay? Maybe

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Overall: Great

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Value: £40.00+