When I saw this game's trailer, I thought Vanillaware was doing an Eva clone. So even tho I am a fan of Vanillaware, I felt I won't have fun with this game.
Now looking back to my platinum completion achivement... Yeah... THAT WAS AWESOOOOOOMMMEEEEEEE
I am a casual fan of vanillaware, I only played Muramasa and Odin Sphere and they were pretty fun but flawed experiences. When I saw 13 sentinels I thought it's impossible for them to do a good game with 13 different characters when they were struggling to do 5 characters(Odin Sphere). Not just that, all of the mechas and teenagers gave me the red warnings so I didn't buy this game. Then saw videos from youtubers I like and they put this game in their top 10s and I was really suprised. Does that mean I prejudged not fairly? Maybe there is really something here? So I jumped in too with wonder and found a really unique experience.
Game design
I said this game is unique experience isn't it? So it's best to start from here. This game does a non-linear/half-open design. What I mean is by this is once you finish the prologue you are almost free to do the story(walk/interact/talk) and gameplay(real time, top down strategy) in whatever order you please with some restrictions. The restrictions are, for example when you halved a character's story, it gets locked. To unlock it you need to read it's requirements and do that. It's the same for the gameplay too. When you finish half of the missions of that chapter, it gets locked and you need to do it's requirements. These requirements are most of the time simple things like finish this gameplay section or experience this character's story event or both. So game is not full open yet not linear either. Maybe this doesn't look like that unique to you but remember this. There is 13 characters in this game. It's my first time seeing a game that tries to do a giant 13 character story and at the same time tries to be a non-linear story but it works... mostly.. I said mostly because sometimes you get spoiled on another character's events or gameplay problems(I am gonna get to that). But still this is what makes this game great in my opinion, why? Because you never get the "full picture" with one character. When you combine all the answers and clues from all the characters you find the "truth". That's the thing that hypes you and results with 3am thoughts. I finished this character's story but in another character's story he acted different? What the heck is going on? I don't need sleep! I need ANSWERS! That's why this type of storytelling makes this game great in my opinion.
Story
It's starts as a generic aliens invades this city and these teenagers here to protect! Kind of cliche plot. But once you start to unlock characters you realize things are not that simple. Especially not because some characters are from the past and some of them from future. So you keep thinking how the heck they are gonna connect them to the present? And it connects. With metal gear solid levels of plot twists and implications. Not all of the twists are logical or needed unfortunately but discovering them are so fun that they didn't hinder my experience. Because rest of the game is that fun to uncover in my opinion. When it comes to characters on the other hand... I can't say I liked them as much as the story because of their cliche "anime" acting. Especially I felt less motivated because of it in the beginning because I can't take the one note gimmicky anime characters seriously anymore, but believe me it's worth it for the story to push on. My only stinker in the story was Hijiyama's section. Some parts were a filler also not just that it feels like someone forgot to include some interactable signs on some places(I am talking about the infuriating find money section). It's the only section that I had to look up a walkthrough for and it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
Combat
I saw lots of people that disliked gameplay sections and I am here to defend them. But there is things that I agree with them. Combat background looks lifeless and everything looks like a map symbols rather than character sprites. I kinda understand why they did it but I wish they give us a alternative screen that we can see the character and enemy sprites more clearly on the map.
But when it comes to this game is mindless... No!
I know why they think like that because there is two problems one is intense difficulty should be the normal option, because in normal mode there is literally no reason to use anything other than missile attacks, you can't get killed easily so just spam missile attacks bum you win, of course you would say it's mindless. On the other hand in intense mod every heavy-strong enemy can kill you in 2-3 attacks. So you have to use your defense, status effects, room breathers, emps, buffs, debuffs etc. You have to use your full arsenal to make sure your sentinels go unscathed, because if they do, you need to repair them for an additional minute and you rarely get that much time. So what? You Strategize. You don't sleepwalk anymore, because you use your brain now. It's that simple.
The second problem is a big one
The big problem with 13 sentinel is, how it's paced... Or to say how it's not paced. I already told that you can select 13 character stories almost in any order you want and also you can do battle whenever you want and... I can't believe I am saying this but this half openness kind of harm the game for the combat sections. Because doing battles feels not important for the story at first. Yet near a character's story finale, now you have to do it bunch of them at once so you can see how that character's story ends. Or quite the opposite, you feel warmed up and want to battle for a day long yet suddenly you can't progress because you didn't unlock enough story content. How can they solve this problem to begin with? Removing battle? No because they are core to the experience in my opinion. Making it fully open? No because then there would be no incentive to do battle for the player. Just scrap everything and make a more linear/straight game then? But it wouldn't be exciting to explore the characters then is it?
Then what? I would say just mixing the battle sections inside to the character stories would result for a better paced experience. After all battle sections wants us to choose certain characters sometimes so just match these battle sections with these certain characters stories. Also some characters gets unlocked later so you can also gradually up the challenge too! Of course this isn't the perfect solution, after all player can harm their playthrough with choosing a future character and but I think it would be a better integration then this current one.
After all you can't have both at once, linear game takes away from the unique storytelling, but opposite of that: too open game can make the pacing worse in my opinion. So my suggestion is the only way I can think to mitigate this issue.
Whoa I wrote a lot here. I wasn't expecting that actually. But anyway play this game. You won't be disappointed hopefully. Is this the best game Vanillaware had done? For the base game comparison, yeah it is! In my opinion. Not just that, I am excited to see what are they going to do next so hope I can see and play that. Thanks for reading everyone.
Now looking back to my platinum completion achivement... Yeah... THAT WAS AWESOOOOOOMMMEEEEEEE
I am a casual fan of vanillaware, I only played Muramasa and Odin Sphere and they were pretty fun but flawed experiences. When I saw 13 sentinels I thought it's impossible for them to do a good game with 13 different characters when they were struggling to do 5 characters(Odin Sphere). Not just that, all of the mechas and teenagers gave me the red warnings so I didn't buy this game. Then saw videos from youtubers I like and they put this game in their top 10s and I was really suprised. Does that mean I prejudged not fairly? Maybe there is really something here? So I jumped in too with wonder and found a really unique experience.
Game design
I said this game is unique experience isn't it? So it's best to start from here. This game does a non-linear/half-open design. What I mean is by this is once you finish the prologue you are almost free to do the story(walk/interact/talk) and gameplay(real time, top down strategy) in whatever order you please with some restrictions. The restrictions are, for example when you halved a character's story, it gets locked. To unlock it you need to read it's requirements and do that. It's the same for the gameplay too. When you finish half of the missions of that chapter, it gets locked and you need to do it's requirements. These requirements are most of the time simple things like finish this gameplay section or experience this character's story event or both. So game is not full open yet not linear either. Maybe this doesn't look like that unique to you but remember this. There is 13 characters in this game. It's my first time seeing a game that tries to do a giant 13 character story and at the same time tries to be a non-linear story but it works... mostly.. I said mostly because sometimes you get spoiled on another character's events or gameplay problems(I am gonna get to that). But still this is what makes this game great in my opinion, why? Because you never get the "full picture" with one character. When you combine all the answers and clues from all the characters you find the "truth". That's the thing that hypes you and results with 3am thoughts. I finished this character's story but in another character's story he acted different? What the heck is going on? I don't need sleep! I need ANSWERS! That's why this type of storytelling makes this game great in my opinion.
Story
It's starts as a generic aliens invades this city and these teenagers here to protect! Kind of cliche plot. But once you start to unlock characters you realize things are not that simple. Especially not because some characters are from the past and some of them from future. So you keep thinking how the heck they are gonna connect them to the present? And it connects. With metal gear solid levels of plot twists and implications. Not all of the twists are logical or needed unfortunately but discovering them are so fun that they didn't hinder my experience. Because rest of the game is that fun to uncover in my opinion. When it comes to characters on the other hand... I can't say I liked them as much as the story because of their cliche "anime" acting. Especially I felt less motivated because of it in the beginning because I can't take the one note gimmicky anime characters seriously anymore, but believe me it's worth it for the story to push on. My only stinker in the story was Hijiyama's section. Some parts were a filler also not just that it feels like someone forgot to include some interactable signs on some places(I am talking about the infuriating find money section). It's the only section that I had to look up a walkthrough for and it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
Combat
I saw lots of people that disliked gameplay sections and I am here to defend them. But there is things that I agree with them. Combat background looks lifeless and everything looks like a map symbols rather than character sprites. I kinda understand why they did it but I wish they give us a alternative screen that we can see the character and enemy sprites more clearly on the map.
But when it comes to this game is mindless... No!
I know why they think like that because there is two problems one is intense difficulty should be the normal option, because in normal mode there is literally no reason to use anything other than missile attacks, you can't get killed easily so just spam missile attacks bum you win, of course you would say it's mindless. On the other hand in intense mod every heavy-strong enemy can kill you in 2-3 attacks. So you have to use your defense, status effects, room breathers, emps, buffs, debuffs etc. You have to use your full arsenal to make sure your sentinels go unscathed, because if they do, you need to repair them for an additional minute and you rarely get that much time. So what? You Strategize. You don't sleepwalk anymore, because you use your brain now. It's that simple.
The second problem is a big one
The big problem with 13 sentinel is, how it's paced... Or to say how it's not paced. I already told that you can select 13 character stories almost in any order you want and also you can do battle whenever you want and... I can't believe I am saying this but this half openness kind of harm the game for the combat sections. Because doing battles feels not important for the story at first. Yet near a character's story finale, now you have to do it bunch of them at once so you can see how that character's story ends. Or quite the opposite, you feel warmed up and want to battle for a day long yet suddenly you can't progress because you didn't unlock enough story content. How can they solve this problem to begin with? Removing battle? No because they are core to the experience in my opinion. Making it fully open? No because then there would be no incentive to do battle for the player. Just scrap everything and make a more linear/straight game then? But it wouldn't be exciting to explore the characters then is it?
Then what? I would say just mixing the battle sections inside to the character stories would result for a better paced experience. After all battle sections wants us to choose certain characters sometimes so just match these battle sections with these certain characters stories. Also some characters gets unlocked later so you can also gradually up the challenge too! Of course this isn't the perfect solution, after all player can harm their playthrough with choosing a future character and but I think it would be a better integration then this current one.
After all you can't have both at once, linear game takes away from the unique storytelling, but opposite of that: too open game can make the pacing worse in my opinion. So my suggestion is the only way I can think to mitigate this issue.
Whoa I wrote a lot here. I wasn't expecting that actually. But anyway play this game. You won't be disappointed hopefully. Is this the best game Vanillaware had done? For the base game comparison, yeah it is! In my opinion. Not just that, I am excited to see what are they going to do next so hope I can see and play that. Thanks for reading everyone.