Aight, so this is definitely a horny game, and obviously your enjoyment is going to vary depending on how much you can enjoy that kind of thing. If you are the type of person that thinks this kinda thing is degenerate/objectifying then yea nothing this game does is gonna change that opinion. But like, idk man playing this 20 years after the fact it's kinda a vibe? hear me out

In todays day and age, I feel like a lot of horny shit has fallen to the blatant and trashy side of things. Should you feel so inclined, you could use the very web browser you are reading this review on right now to delve into all sorts of dubiously degenerate shit from probably millions of sources. Hell, even strictly staying to the console game sphere there's all sorts of "Sakura Succubus 4"s and "Hentai Girls 8"s clogging up digital storefronts on stuff like the switch and Playstation, degen shit is out there. There's also comparatively higher budget shit like the Senran Kagura and Hyperdimension Neptunia series that hit that degen sphere, hell even the later sequels to this game crank up the trash dial with all the different ports and versions of DOAX3 out there. And that's not even considering all the actual eroge/nukige that are on PC. What I mean to say by all of this is that compared to how things are now, DOAX1 is really honestly quite tame, to the point where I feel like I could hardly even call it a trashy guilty pleasure game anymore.

Maybe it's the games self-awareness and goofiness in its plot, as it's just Zack inviting all the DOA girls over to play volleyball on a vacation island he happened to win before it explodes into a million pieces at the end. Maybe it's the aesthetic design being solid, with clear, crisp sunny beaches with sparkling water and bright blue skies accompanied by the most 2000s ass ska/reggae summery music you ever could find. The areas have the same high attention to detail and level of polish that the stages in the main DOA games contain. There are a lot of moments where the game basically gives you a free-cam to zoom in and look at whatever is on the screen, and while it's definitely designed to peep on some polygonal xbox goochie, I honestly found myself using it to look at the environments more than the girls.

The actual gameplay is kinda eh though. Half the time you are playing volleyball with the girls, the other half you are blowing away your life savings at the casino. There's also this lite-social sim aspect to it in that you can talk to other characters and give them presents in order for them to play volleyball with you, but it's all quite shallow. The point of the game really isn't so much in the gameplay, so honestly its whatever.

So like yeah. It's horny, but not aggressively so. I'm honestly rather impressed. They cared equally as much towards making a game that captures a summer vacation vibe as they did towards making an early coomercore console game. It may still basically be softcore porn at the end of the day, but damn is it some vibin softcore porn. I earnestly can't hate it. Sasuga itagaki.

really this games opening says more about it than I ever could, so just watch that.

made it about to mission 13, doing an ironman and got my shit scuffed

i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!

to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.

stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time

This game felt pretty good but when I realized how easy it was to break it and that I didn't really care for the story I lost a lot of fun. It was already relatively easy on expert (highest difficulty before NG), but I would have to limit myself to have any challenge.

They present you with an open world but there is a very clear linear path they expect you to take as the areas are set to specific levels that will give you a hard time if you attempt to overcome them. Even so, it's very easy to come up with a good strategy for one unit and stomp over higher level enemies until you yourself are too high.

I tried very many combinations and there's a lot to work with so it can feel pretty good to come out with something cool. That being said, the game expects you to build around countering specific units, but with a good team and maybe some overleveling, the counter system doesn't really matter. It doesn't feel good to have a few units who just decimate everything and have some units who might be good against a specific type of enemy. Cavalries are stupid broken.

Eventually, your army will grow very large, and it can be extremely cumbersome to have to manage 40-50 people at once. This could also be a part of the appeal, as the tactics system is pretty neat and it is fun to work with usually.

The animations are really good but at some point just feel time consuming and I ended up skipping all of them which is a bummer. The art style in this game is top tier, thank you Vanillaware. That being said though, a HUGE amount of character designs feel undermined by the fact that they look largely the same as mercenaries/common hired units. I was so disappointed when I learned one of the characters I started this game for, Yahna, was basically a carbon copy of the witch mercenary. I think if you someone to care about a character, having them be visually indistinguishable from NPCs is not a good idea.

I think the story ends up being pretty barebones, which is a shame because the rapports/supports and small character moments were all pretty great. The music was nothing to write home about imo but it wasn't bad either.

Overall, I think it's a decent game that I think falls short in aspects that I crave in a tactical RPG, being challenge, story, and music. I could see someone loving this, but for me its a bit too slow and long, with mostly good aspects but nothing great. I feel like I dogged on the game a lot in this review but it does genuinely have good things going for it and I would play it again. This is still the dumbest name I have seen for a serious game. At least you can marry your cousin.

throughout the journey, from the Andes to the city, I kept seeing faces in wilderness; the mountains, the cliffs, and the trees were watching my movements. they didn't judge, however. they just watched. Atuel introduces the concept of a "documentary video game" and does an amazing job at personifying the river and letting the player reflect on the past, present, and future of the world's bodies of water.

durante todo el viaje, desde los Andes a la ciudad, vi caras en la naturaleza; las montañas, los precipicios y los árboles miraban mis movimientos. pero no me juzgaban, solo me miraban. Atuel introduce el concepto de un "videojuego documental" y cumple un gran trabajo de personificar el río y deja que el jugador reflexione sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro de las masas de agua del mundo.

The SEGA Saturn's answer to King's Field and Ocarina of Time. If it was released today it would be called a Soulslike and a Roguelike.

Virtual Hydlide has quite a few baffling design decisions and the Saturn can barely run it, but it has that special something that makes you want to keep playing despite it all. The game looks beautiful at times and can really draw you into it's world when it wants to. Give it a try!

I recommend you play on Normal or higher. At easy difficulty the game is so easy it becomes boring.