Akiba's Beat

released on Dec 15, 2016

Akiba's Beat is an action RPG developed by Acquire and is the sequel to Akiba's Trip. The game takes place in Akihabara where the party getting stuck in a world of delusions, trapped in a repeating day-long cycle on a Sunday.


Released on

Genres

RPG


More Info on IGDB


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This will be the only game I ever give a star rating to, purely because of what it means to me. I'm honestly not gonna rant on Akiba's Beat too long, since I'd be here forever and I know it would turn into gushing, but I do still feel my judgement is valid having played the game several times and watching a relative play through another recently.

The main point I want to state with this review is that this game is NOT soulless, and I still can't understand where this reputation emerged from. Everything from the dialogue to the item descriptions to the narrative to the voice acting... this game is absolutely a work of passion. I definitely respect that the story isn't for everyone, but the love that was poured into this game both by the original team and the western localisation team shines through no matter what. Regardless of anything else, I'd absolutely recommend Beat on heart alone, with its somewhat satirical yet genuine core narrative about escapism and isolation. I've talked with a couple of people who worked on the game, and the one apparent thing every time is how much passion they put into it.

With that out of the way, all I can really say is this game was pivotal to me in more ways than I can describe. Its characters and themes were and still are a huge comfort to me, and the core theme of moving into the future while carrying memories of the past has helped me time and time again. It lets you know that it's okay to fantasise and escape every now and again, since it's those daydreams that motivate us to catch our goals in reality, and that's always been really powerful imo. To quit my emotional stuff for a moment, the plot straight up bangs and the characters are brilliant. Regardless of if you find them predictable or not, there's some really cool and compelling concepts in here that are grounded well by the setting and characters.

Beat definitely shows some indie roughness in a few QoL aspects but nothing will ever stop me from loving it, even now I find new reasons to appreciate it. It just saddens me that people could call it heartless.

To make one last comment: As someone who has played the first portion of Persona 5, they are nothing alike. This isn't to do with quality or my opinion, just objectively, the story themes are completely unrelated, the gameplay isn't the same genre, even the structure of the narrative is completely different. I can confidently say that people who compared this game to P5 did so because of the similar release dates and/or not playing enough games with mindscapes for environments. I have the same things to say about P4 too. A much more apt comparison would be Tokyo Xanadu eX+, another game I greatly enjoyed, and I can confidently say that if you enjoy one then it's highly likely you'll also enjoy the other.

Feels VERY different to the other games in the series to the point it only seems connected by name and setting

"We fed 500 JRPGs into a computer and this is the result!"

personally i don't think this game deserves the h4t3 it gets. i love this game. i found out about it yrs ago back when i got it on amazon cuz it recommended me the game, and i got it based on the trailer and the screenshots.
i personally really enjoy this game. the art is nice, and the cut scenes are animated into looking like an anime and they did a great job.
the gameplay is very nice and the art is colorful.
another thing about this game is it has well known VA's in it. some examples are Tia Ballard(a.k.a. rinko from my love story),Cherami Leigh (a.k.a. Omoharu Nakanaka from komi can't communicate),and Justin Briner(a.k.a. deku from my hero);now i will say justin isn't a huge role in this game, but figured i would put him in here non-the less.
if u like fighting games,anime,and/or plot twists as there are several within this game i highly recommend giving it a go.

This is one of my favorite games of all time, I can't explain why, but I tried to 100% the game once but getting all the cards was a pain in the ass. Drastic Emo Car is a amazing song.

Gameplay is pretty boring and aside from bosses the enimes were beyond repetitive. What gives the game its score is its art style, story, and characters all of which has its fun charm and it helps that the entire game is fully voiced and I wish more anime games got this treatment. Also might have my favorite song from Claris, seriously it's a banger.