Maxis
5 reviews liked by Maxis
"The most PS2 game of all time that is NOT on the PS2."
Blew me the fuck away. I was honestly going to skip this game, as I have no prior experience with mecha games or Armored Core, but I ended up caving and buying it anyways.
Completely fell in love with this game. The gameplay was absolutely top notch, with a highlight of bossfights that are some of FromSoft's absolute best (ICE Worm is From's best setpiece fight ever). You know you have a good game on your hand when the actual act of just moving around and shooting feels so good.
The story was also a massive shock to me, as I was honestly expecting something a lot more barebones and basic. But I ended up falling in love with almost all of the characters, and it made a lot of the choices in the game have a lot more impact on me than I expected.
The only real complaint I have with it is that some missions were a real drag, and I feel could have been cut for an overall tighter experience. But honestly....the forced stealth sections and other jank missions add to the PS2 esque charm that this game has.
It's a game with a lot of soul poured into it, and the result is FromSoftware at its absolute best.
Blew me the fuck away. I was honestly going to skip this game, as I have no prior experience with mecha games or Armored Core, but I ended up caving and buying it anyways.
Completely fell in love with this game. The gameplay was absolutely top notch, with a highlight of bossfights that are some of FromSoft's absolute best (ICE Worm is From's best setpiece fight ever). You know you have a good game on your hand when the actual act of just moving around and shooting feels so good.
The story was also a massive shock to me, as I was honestly expecting something a lot more barebones and basic. But I ended up falling in love with almost all of the characters, and it made a lot of the choices in the game have a lot more impact on me than I expected.
The only real complaint I have with it is that some missions were a real drag, and I feel could have been cut for an overall tighter experience. But honestly....the forced stealth sections and other jank missions add to the PS2 esque charm that this game has.
It's a game with a lot of soul poured into it, and the result is FromSoftware at its absolute best.
Pros:
+ Combat feels surprisingly fluid, more reminiscent of hack-and-slash than a traditional fighter
+ Lots of characters to choose from, each with their own fighting style
+ Variety of customization options, made more fun with the diorama mode
+ Kind of shameless, but I platinumed it so I guess that's really more of a personal fault than the game's
Cons:
- Not very challenging, which may not appeal to more experienced gamers
- Visuals are mediocre, though not overly offensive
- Replayability is lacking due to the stale content outside of the main campaign
- Story is very obviously not the focus of this game
+ Combat feels surprisingly fluid, more reminiscent of hack-and-slash than a traditional fighter
+ Lots of characters to choose from, each with their own fighting style
+ Variety of customization options, made more fun with the diorama mode
+ Kind of shameless, but I platinumed it so I guess that's really more of a personal fault than the game's
Cons:
- Not very challenging, which may not appeal to more experienced gamers
- Visuals are mediocre, though not overly offensive
- Replayability is lacking due to the stale content outside of the main campaign
- Story is very obviously not the focus of this game
This review contains spoilers
Completed all routes, endings, and supports, so here is my personal breakdown (mild spoilers):
Gameplay: 2/5
This was my first Warriors-esque game and unfortunately the battle system didn't really click with me. I do appreciate the variety in play styles across all the characters, it always made a new recruit interesting to try out and once you get the hang of fighting and traversing the maps it becomes very fast paced and easy to breeze through battles. However, once you level enough and settle into your preferred characters, the gameplay stales quickly and capturing anywhere from 5 - 10 territories became a chore that had me sighing. Granted, the game is good about giving you options to streamline gameplay - for instance, on NG+ you can spend Renown points to purchase an item that allows you to capture territories instantly, but if you're a completionist like me then doing anything less than S ranking every battle on the map just isn't it, even though doing so will become incredibly repetitive and annoying.
In terms of the social aspect/micromanaging, Hopes is a vast improvement over Houses with a smaller base that allows you to locate units quickly as well as a multitude of activities that can greatly boost support points without you having to resort to putting the units you're trying to boost in battles over and over again. To put it into perspective Houses took me around 400 hours to fully complete while Hopes took less than half that time, and much of that was due to the ease of support grinding. Really, I would say almost every time I had a thought like "I hope they have this/added that/etc" Hopes came through, the attention to improvement over Houses is evident in this area.
Characters: 4/5
Highlight of the game for me by far; seeing supports between characters who may not have had an opportunity to interact in Houses or characters who had their relationships changed due to the new course of events was so interesting to see. Even Byleth had more nuance added to their character, apart from actually being voiced, and grew much more on me vs the blank slate they were before. Shez is punchy and likeable and where Sothis can come off bossy and childish towards her vessel, Arval is notably more endeared/attached and views Shez as a true partner (which they will let you know MANY times lmao). The only drawback is that playing through Houses is pretty much a requirement in order to be able to fully appreciate all the character detail, but it's still fun to see them all interact regardless.
Narrative: 3/5
I'll go ahead and lead off this part with the fact that NONE of these routes have a satisfying ending. I understand that the structure of this game and Houses doesn't really allow for a "canon" ending, as the narrative changes drastically depending on which leader you side with and what perspective they have on their world. However, that doesn't excuse sloppy, inconsistent, and unfinished writing. The reason I gave an average score is because the routes all start out on very interesting premises - especially the side stories like Dimitri's desire to discover the truth about Duscur and make amends with its people and Claude's balancing of being the leader of Leicester while also being an heir to Almyra. Edelgard's route sadly was the most disappointing; she was a favorite of mine in Houses but she was somewhat watered down in personality and her route felt meandering, she had no real arc to her character as Dimitri and Claude did - not even touching the fact that her character was completely ruined during Dimitri's route for no sensible reason. Arval and Shez also have no cohesive storyline nor delve too deeply into their pasts; there are bits of information that you can put together for a vague understanding of who or what Arval is - and good luck if you fail to recruit Byleth because you will be locked out of a whole chapter that even addresses what happens to Arval by the end. Basically, each route has a strong setup that completely fumbles its ending with abrupt and open ended conclusions.
All in all, I feel this game is best suited for people who enjoy Warriors games and people who want to see more interaction and expansion on the Houses characters and relationships. If you're going in for anything else, my suggestion is to temper expectations.
Gameplay: 2/5
This was my first Warriors-esque game and unfortunately the battle system didn't really click with me. I do appreciate the variety in play styles across all the characters, it always made a new recruit interesting to try out and once you get the hang of fighting and traversing the maps it becomes very fast paced and easy to breeze through battles. However, once you level enough and settle into your preferred characters, the gameplay stales quickly and capturing anywhere from 5 - 10 territories became a chore that had me sighing. Granted, the game is good about giving you options to streamline gameplay - for instance, on NG+ you can spend Renown points to purchase an item that allows you to capture territories instantly, but if you're a completionist like me then doing anything less than S ranking every battle on the map just isn't it, even though doing so will become incredibly repetitive and annoying.
In terms of the social aspect/micromanaging, Hopes is a vast improvement over Houses with a smaller base that allows you to locate units quickly as well as a multitude of activities that can greatly boost support points without you having to resort to putting the units you're trying to boost in battles over and over again. To put it into perspective Houses took me around 400 hours to fully complete while Hopes took less than half that time, and much of that was due to the ease of support grinding. Really, I would say almost every time I had a thought like "I hope they have this/added that/etc" Hopes came through, the attention to improvement over Houses is evident in this area.
Characters: 4/5
Highlight of the game for me by far; seeing supports between characters who may not have had an opportunity to interact in Houses or characters who had their relationships changed due to the new course of events was so interesting to see. Even Byleth had more nuance added to their character, apart from actually being voiced, and grew much more on me vs the blank slate they were before. Shez is punchy and likeable and where Sothis can come off bossy and childish towards her vessel, Arval is notably more endeared/attached and views Shez as a true partner (which they will let you know MANY times lmao). The only drawback is that playing through Houses is pretty much a requirement in order to be able to fully appreciate all the character detail, but it's still fun to see them all interact regardless.
Narrative: 3/5
I'll go ahead and lead off this part with the fact that NONE of these routes have a satisfying ending. I understand that the structure of this game and Houses doesn't really allow for a "canon" ending, as the narrative changes drastically depending on which leader you side with and what perspective they have on their world. However, that doesn't excuse sloppy, inconsistent, and unfinished writing. The reason I gave an average score is because the routes all start out on very interesting premises - especially the side stories like Dimitri's desire to discover the truth about Duscur and make amends with its people and Claude's balancing of being the leader of Leicester while also being an heir to Almyra. Edelgard's route sadly was the most disappointing; she was a favorite of mine in Houses but she was somewhat watered down in personality and her route felt meandering, she had no real arc to her character as Dimitri and Claude did - not even touching the fact that her character was completely ruined during Dimitri's route for no sensible reason. Arval and Shez also have no cohesive storyline nor delve too deeply into their pasts; there are bits of information that you can put together for a vague understanding of who or what Arval is - and good luck if you fail to recruit Byleth because you will be locked out of a whole chapter that even addresses what happens to Arval by the end. Basically, each route has a strong setup that completely fumbles its ending with abrupt and open ended conclusions.
All in all, I feel this game is best suited for people who enjoy Warriors games and people who want to see more interaction and expansion on the Houses characters and relationships. If you're going in for anything else, my suggestion is to temper expectations.
Do you like every single possible annoying anime cliche slapped into one mediocre video game? Well have I got the game for you!
Complete playthrough. Visual novels aren't usually a genre that I have much interest in, but the very positive write-ups that I've seen of this game had me intrigued enough to give it a try, and it's certainly a memorable experience - in a good way! To say much in the way of specifics about how the game/story progresses would be a spoiler, but suffice to say that it's very much not what the outer facade might suggest!