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.
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.
"We fed 500 JRPGs into a computer and this is the result!"
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.
One of the most disappointing games I’ve ever played. After Akiba’sTrip, I had high hopes for this game, but those hopes died minutes into playing this.
Compared to the previous games, combat has changed from a clothes tearing beat’emup to just pressing the circle button over and over. The game claims to have rhythm based combat, but the closest it comes to that is that you can activate a mode in combat where theme music can play, boosting your damage. Since you’re only pressing one button the whole time, it’s still boring and repetitive. Normal enemy fights can take a few seconds, while boss fights can take upwards of 30ish minutes.
You can upgrade weapons by buying computer parts, which sounds cool, but you have to upgrade your weapons at least every other dungeon, and these upgrades are extremely expensive, so you’ll need to grind for money regularly.
The plot feels like the developers read the summaries of some Persona 5 trailers, decided to copy that. The dungeons look bland and cheap, and are mostly just long hallways with random turns and stairs.
The characters themselves are annoying 95% of the time. The main protagonist himself is the worst offender. The plot focuses on how the protag is kinda an asshole to his one and friend, and implies that he might have some form of depression, and you think the game will go into his struggles with that. But nope, he doesn’t have depression, he’s just a lazy, greedy, selfish asshole with rich parents who couldn’t care about the few people who do care about him, and he never grows out of it. There’s a few moments where you think he gets some actual character growth, but nothing has really changed.
As for the other characters, they all hate each other. Whenever they talk to each other, they just bicker and argue and bully each other. There are moments where they just randomly act like best friends, and sometimes it’s a little heartwarming, but then they back to screaming at each other almost immediately.
The voice acting is pretty good, and the music isn’t terrible. But the writing and pacing is all over the place, and has a very bland, predictable, unearned resolution at the end.
Play Persona 5/Royal instead.
Compared to the previous games, combat has changed from a clothes tearing beat’emup to just pressing the circle button over and over. The game claims to have rhythm based combat, but the closest it comes to that is that you can activate a mode in combat where theme music can play, boosting your damage. Since you’re only pressing one button the whole time, it’s still boring and repetitive. Normal enemy fights can take a few seconds, while boss fights can take upwards of 30ish minutes.
You can upgrade weapons by buying computer parts, which sounds cool, but you have to upgrade your weapons at least every other dungeon, and these upgrades are extremely expensive, so you’ll need to grind for money regularly.
The plot feels like the developers read the summaries of some Persona 5 trailers, decided to copy that. The dungeons look bland and cheap, and are mostly just long hallways with random turns and stairs.
The characters themselves are annoying 95% of the time. The main protagonist himself is the worst offender. The plot focuses on how the protag is kinda an asshole to his one and friend, and implies that he might have some form of depression, and you think the game will go into his struggles with that. But nope, he doesn’t have depression, he’s just a lazy, greedy, selfish asshole with rich parents who couldn’t care about the few people who do care about him, and he never grows out of it. There’s a few moments where you think he gets some actual character growth, but nothing has really changed.
As for the other characters, they all hate each other. Whenever they talk to each other, they just bicker and argue and bully each other. There are moments where they just randomly act like best friends, and sometimes it’s a little heartwarming, but then they back to screaming at each other almost immediately.
The voice acting is pretty good, and the music isn’t terrible. But the writing and pacing is all over the place, and has a very bland, predictable, unearned resolution at the end.
Play Persona 5/Royal instead.
Repetive, but I dont absolutely hate the game. I like the style.
This review contains spoilers
This is one of the worst games I've ever played, and I LOVED it.
Ewwwwwww. What a Persona knock-off! Just play Persona 5 instead. Better in EVERY SINGLE WAY. Yeesh
I'm a little braindead so I had actual fun playing the original akiba's trip but this is worse in every single way. yeah I don't remember most (any, really) of the characters from akiba's trip but at least I didn't hate them. it's rare to see a sequel that is such a complete and total downgrade from the og
Has some interesting ideas marred by some horrible characters and a poor combat system.
Feels VERY different to the other games in the series to the point it only seems connected by name and setting
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.
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.
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.
Honestly feel like this game would have been better as a visual novel. The combat is serviceable but not great. Like it doesn't really feel good to play it in my opinion, but you can get by. The characters and the world and the story in general are the things I loved about this game (although the amount of navigating between short scenes in some of the subevents could really just be removed). But since combat is a big portion of this game I really can't give this more than 3 stars, even when replaying it on easy.
i like everything except the combat
This game's only goal is to take your fun and crush it. I hate games with a fun quirky animal mascot with no personality and boy does this game sure have one.
For the love of god, please do not pick up this game. Wish I could rate it lower
An uninspired Action RPG that has a hateable cast of characters, boring map with the same shops & NPCs everywhere, a combat system that has zero weight to it, and questionable performance.