I can almost hear the naysayers with this latest release of NBA 2K25: “Another year, another sports title update, another roster update with nothing substantial added”. Well guess what?
The farming simulator genre has solidified itself as a fantastic way to pass the time. Often these cozy games have a top down perspective and a pixelated graphics style...
Are you in the market for a turn-based roguelike deck builder that has more of a focus on strategy than luck? Well good news for you, Shogun Showdown might be what you're looking for!
Come one! Come All! Listen as we regale you with details of a vampire game that fully released on May 8th with more content, bosses, and just loads of fun!
Going into Natsu-Mon I wasn't sure what to expect. I watched the trailer and knew it was about a ten-year-old boy on summer vacation and from what I saw it looked like a mix of Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing...
This game is witched-good fun... Sorry, wicked-good fun. Fast-paced and beautiful, Witchfire by The Astronauts is a snappy little extraction shooter that has recently been getting a bit more attention.
Do you know what the mightiest of birds
are? Is it the pidgeon? The crow? Here in Canada, we know what the mightiest of
birds is: the goose. They're tough, they're gruff, and they won't hesitate to
beat you up. Obviously the developers of Mighty Goose are aware of this, with
the eponymous bounty hunter and feathered friend Mighty Goose.
Mighty Goose is a fine feathered bounty
hunter chasing after evil across the galaxy. The dreaded void king is taking
over, and Mighty Goose is contracted to get rid of the problem. With his trusty
mechanical gun arm and pig(?) assistant, the great Mighty Goose is off to
rescue planets across the galaxy from the dominion of the VOID. Mighty Goose is
very reminiscient of Metal Slug, or maybe some of the older megaman games for
those of you who don't recognize Metal Slug, in both art style and gameplay.
You play as the eponymous Mighty Goose,
fighting your way through 2D side-scrolling stages, shooting up enemies,
collecting different weapon types, occasionally hopping in vehicles, and
beating up the bad guys. The Mighty Goose has a normal shot that is the
default, but can also pick up limited ammo weapons while going through a stage,
or get them called in via air drop for a cash price. As you run, gun, and
dodge-roll through stages, you may also come across "war machines",
such as a bike, a tank, or a…mecha goose suit. Hop on in and rain bullets down
upon your enemies. In addition to the gunning, the Mighty Goose also has a
secondary skill that can be used. The secondary skills can be swapped out
between stages, and may be damaging skills like bombs, support skills like
filling the "mighty meter", or honking.
If you fill up the mighty meter, you can
enter a super mode where you don't take damage from enemies (environment is
still fair game) and your weapons are enhanced. The gauge will deplete, even
when not using the mighty mode, so make sure to keep it filled for when you
need it. After completing a stage you can visit the armoury to choose what
secondary skills to equip, as well as passive skills which will unlock as you
play through the game. Passive skills may be as small as "increased
walking speed", but can help you out a lot. You have a limited amount of
energy to assign skills, so make sure you know what you want. You can also pick
an ally to join you. That's right, you can bring an assistant into battle, that
can also be controlled by a friend in a sort of co-op mode. Although the
partner isn't to the same level as Mighty Goose, they can definitely still
assist you.
Mighty Goose has a great retro feel with
both the soundtrack as well as graphic style, and I felt like the developers
really nailed a lot of what made the old school games so enjoyable. Unfortunately
there are a few very noticeable setbacks. First and foremost: you have a melee
attack. If enemies get too close, you slash them instead of shooting. Which is
pretty awful considering all of the guns other than the default definitely do
more damage than the slash attack. Second, there's a sub weapon that are
rockets, and they are unequivocably awful to handle. They are auto seeking, but
hover around a bit before doing anything, and I would routinely go out of my
way to avoid picking them up.
The game is also very short. I completed
the normal game, "new game +", and had most of the stages S ranked
within three hours. I'd also like to point out that the S rank requirements
are… weird, I suppose you could say. It seems like there are certain benchmarks
you need to hit for kills, deaths, combo, and speed, but points aren't total
cumulative? There is also this really annoying slo-mo and cut-in with a honking
goose occasionally, which is really infuriating. As much as I gripe though, I
truly do hope to see more from the Blastmode and MP2 developers in the future.
I had a lot of fun with Mighty Goose, and can't wait to see what they come out
with next.
Summary
Overall, Mighty Goose is a pretty fun
game with a lot good points to it. The combat basis is pretty well done, the
skills and upgrades are a neat touch, and the weapon system was enjoyable.
Unfortunately, there just isn't a whole lot there to really dig into. Mighty
Goose is well too short, and coupled with some of the more aggravating issues,
such as the periodic slow-mo, the easy difficulty, and how the "post
game" is just the main game but a little harder, Mighty Goose probably
won't keep you occupied for too long. That being said, if you enjoy Metal Slug,
this is definitely going to be put on your watch list, it will probably just be
one of those titles you'll pick up on sale.
LOS
ANGELES – June 14, 2021 – Freedom Games unveiled the indie publishing
label’s upcoming catalog at E3 2021. The showcase spotlighted anticipated
releases from the publisher, including Dreamscaper, To The Rescue!, One Lonely
Outpost, Anuchard, and more.
Dreamscaper, the surreal rogue-lite action RPG
from Afterburner Studios, has set its alarm to
awaken from Early Access on both PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch on Tuesday,
Aug. 10, 2021. The 1.0 release will feature new difficulty settings, bosses,
environments, enemies, endings, music, and more. Dark Deity, the classically inspired
turn-based tactical RPG from Sword and Axe, also teased a special
announcement for tomorrow during E3…
Tame eclectic creatures and battle
against trainers in Coromon, the modern monster-taming RPG from TRAGsoft, capturing PC and Nintendo Switch
fans’ hearts in Q1 2022. Then voyage to a distant planet to sow a frontier farm
in Aurorian Studios’ One Lonely Outpost, sprouting up on Steam Early
Access in Q1 2021 ahead of the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series
X|S launches.
To The Rescue Screenshot
Meanwhile, pet-lovers can look forward to
Cat Cafe Manager, a charming sim from Roost
Games about restoring a family’s feline-focused bistro, as well as To The Rescue!, the heartfelt dog shelter
management sim from Little Rock Games, who have partnered with The Petfinder Foundation to donate 20% of
their profits support the adoption of furry companions. Both Cat Cafe Manager
and To The Rescue! arrive on PC and Nintendo Switch in early 2022 and Q3 2021,
respectively.
Adventure through a mysterious
underground dungeon and rebuild the community that lives on the surface in Ancuchard, the civilization restoration action
RPG from stellarNull. Developed in partnership with
Microsoft through the Xbox Diversity Fund, Anuchard arrives on PC, Xbox One,
and Xbox Series X|S systems in Q1 2022.
Freedom Games also revealed upcoming
console versions of Airborne Kingdom, the acclaimed city-builder
set in the sky from The Wandering Band later in 2021. Monster Outbreak, a retro-inspired 2D tower
defense survival game from developer GameMunchers, also received its first public
gameplay reveal, in addition to announcing a 2022 launch window for PC.
Dreamscaper Screenshot
In keeping with the spirit of fun-first,
inventive games, Microwave Games’ deadly game show racing
platformer Slaughter League highlighted outlandish
gladiatorial gameplay from recent content creator community events. Freedom
Games also shared the news that Tower Rush and Sands of Aura are planned to storm PC via
Steam in 2022.
“Freedom Games is thrilled to share an
exciting rundown full of reveals, first-look videos, and updates on our
upcoming titles,” said Benjamin Tarsa, Director of Publishing, Freedom Games.
“Our first E3 showcase is just the beginning, and we’re honored to have the
opportunity to share our future plans with digital audiences!”
To learn more about Freedom Games and the
publisher’s upcoming suite of games, please visit the official website and follow @freedomgamesgg on Twitter.
About Freedom Games
Freedom Games is a publisher dedicated to
offering best-in-class services to partners and providing players around the
world with unique and memorable experiences. With over 50 years of combined
industry experience at the executive level, Freedom Games seeks to leverage its
expertise to facilitate great games and even better publishing experiences.
If you say Nippon Ichi Software, or their
North American localization and publishing group Nippon Ichi Software America
(NISA or NIS America for short) I'm going to think one of two things. The
first, is turned based strategy RPGs that have been their bread and butter for
decades now. The other? Is a solid turn based strategy titles and the latest
entry into the Makai Senki universe, Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny, is no
exception.
Note: Please be aware that this review contains some spoilers either in the
text or in the screenshots taken during gameplay.
Having recently released a demo in order to see how
much damage one could deal to an enemy within the first chapter and three
quarters, the intro was enough to show the direction of the latest title
without spoiling the rest down the line. Solid base mechanics? Quirky character
design? Smart and sassy dialog? The latest has it all but there's one thing I feel
that D6 has over D5 and that was the magic of the originals which were more
about the characters than it was about the Netherworlds that they could be
found in.
As a fan of the series it's an honor to
be able to review something that you hold in such high regard. At the same
time, reviewing something that you hold dear can sometimes be a bit complicated
as you're not only sitting down to potentially and hopefully enjoy, but you're
also sitting down to analyze and critique what has been put in front of you. In
that regard, while having only ever upped their game with each new entry into
the Disgaea series I felt that the new systems in place were both several steps
forward and maybe one back.
Straight up, from the gameplay mechanics
into the story, Disgaea 6 is solid. The writing is on point for the series with
a blend of nonsensical and dark humour. The voice acting only ever does the
characters justice and helps to further bring them and their trails to life as
our protagonist Zed recounts the story to Overlord Ivar and his Darkest
Assembly just how exactly he took out the most powerful God of Destruction in
written history.
Split as it's always been, each chapter
of the adventure has multiple sub stages each with their own challenges ranging
from awkward layouts making you have to think through your approach, or die.
Really there's no inbetween. In these stages you'll also be facing off against
a variety of foes in a variety of numbers. The less you see the more you should
be prepared for a fight as like the laws of the ninja, the less you see the
more powerful they are.
What's changed this time around though is
that there are a lot of other systems in place to help boost you through these
challenges. I had poked at them in the demo but they didn't really shine until
I was six or eight chapters in and almost religiously using them to get ahead.
The Juice Bar, Squads, Skill Upgrades, the Rozen Queen Store and the Darkest
Assembly. Some of these have been around forever while others I could only gawk
at times at their sheer brilliance.
Starting off with the new, Zed and
company will now have access to what is known as the Juice Bar that allows for
the infusion of experience points, mana and any other extract such as attack,
intelligence or hit. All of these can be banked over time as you trounce
countless enemies that stand in your way. Each of these values costs money, as
money does make the world go round, but when you leverage that out against
another new feature, Super Reincarnation, it's totally worth it.
Unlike normal reincarnation, Super
Reincarnation comes with Karma that not only makes your units more powerful,
but also allows you to increase their stat values as you see fit. Want to make
sure that a spell caster takes a hit? Add more defense or hit points. Want your
tank to withstand a magical attack? Increase their resistance. If you've got
the karma to do it, the Netherworld is your oyster! Compared to the previous
version where you just made your units more powerful, now you REALLY make them powerful
with careful, or carless I won’t judge, allocation of new stats.
Making returns are the skill shop that
allow you to learn new evilities and to power up skills whether it’s to throw
more power behind the hits or increase the range of your spells. Side to that
the Dark(est) Assembly is back again in order to pass Netherworld rules such as
being able to create new unit types, increased experience earned in the next
stage, steal all of the mana for just one character, and once you’re done the
main story, open up the end game for some real brutal turned based tactics fun!
Now there were two things in the demo
that I wanted to hold reservations on until the full release. The first, was
the autobattling system as I wondered firstly how well it would really work and
secondly if it wouldn't pull the player away from the experience. In order?
Works really well and to a degree, takes the player away from the experience.
The reason that it works well is that the autobattle system isn't just
"rush in and destroy", you can set parameters to it. Use skills, heal
teammates, target specific enemies like the toughest. A bit convoluted at
first, there's at least decent tutorial to teach you how to set up your if-then
structures. The premades are pretty decent but you’ll find them a bit limited
over time especially when it comes to healing status effects such as poison
that can destroy your team in seconds.
Still on the subject of the auto-battle,
is that as much as I loved being able to use it as speeding everything up and
disabling animations made fighting go faster, in an automatic fashion it was
even faster as you’re not moving each individual member on your own, the system
is moving them all at the same time. It was perfect to grind for experience and
mana in order to level up skills and Super Reincarnate, BUT, I felt that it
took you out of the experience. This long running series as well as the others
such as Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, Soul Nomad, each of these is so hands on
that you’re in it, and you’re in it to win it. With the auto-battle, you’re
around, but you’re only really checking in to make sure parameters are up and
running or if it’s a new stage, make sure to toss your units up and over to
another location to continue the fight.
The other reason that I found myself a
bit more disconnected and more and more as time went on using the auto battling
system other than to throw a few prinnies around here and there, is that
there's been an adjustment to the base values. Now, instead of starting off
with 10HP and moving over into the hundreds and then thousands, you start with
thousands, you deal thousands and by the final chapters you’re grumbling if you
don’t see at least 500K to 1M popping up against your enemies. The numbers get
so high so fast that you almost want the system to handle the math especially
when you can gain hundreds of levels per stage which works with the new max
level, but at the same time, removes some of that finesse that used to be
present.
The second of the two after the auto
battle is unfortunately the graphics. The move to 3D is great. The characters
look alive and it really brings the world a bit more forward then the 2D based
3D models have over the years. Where it doesn’t work is that it’s just not
optimized for the Nintendo Switch. Performance, Balanced or Graphics, none of
the three really ever make it pop and stand out. Instead, Performance makes
things work but looks like so many textures are missing so it’s a very
pixelated experience. Balanced is ok but then it’s a bit fuzzy around the edges
and from time to time there are hiccups in the animations where you can see the
screen freeze. Finally, Graphics if you stayed still were fine but the frame
rates would tank even moving around your base. I’m not sure if these issues would
exist in the PS4 version that launched in Japan, but for right now, as fun as
it is, it doesn’t look as good as it could.
So on a final note, I really do want to
highlight the story. For the past few entries, and for as much as I love the
Fuka and Desco Show to poor FenFen’s attempt to get Valvatorez to drink blood
and get back to being a supreme badass, the stories have been more about what’s
going on in a particular Netherworld more than it’s been about the characters.
Even Mao and Almza, it was about their adventure through the school in order to
defeat Mao’s father. Going back just a bit further, Adel and Rozalin (who I was
so happy to have as up front DLC party members to wreak havoc) theirs was a
story more about them just as Laharl, Etna and Flonne’s was about Laharl
becoming the overlord. Returning back to that point where this story was all
about Zed, Cerberus, Beiko, and their party members from a Human King to a ten
thousand year old magical school girl, it was refreshing and it brought back that
comfort of a more simple story as Zed fights again and again against a God of
Destruction.
Summary
Overall, Disgaea 6: Defiance of
Destiny is a solid entry into the Disgaea Series. Fun characters, great dialog,
amazing voice overs, it hits all of the notes. While there are some issues on
the performance side on the Nintendo Switch, it’s never enough to completely
remove you from the experience and with plenty of new additions such as an
auto-battling system to do your Netherworld grinding for you, you may not even
notice as you gawk seeing the millions of hit points disappearing per turn!
This year E3 was completely
showcased online due to the length of the pandemic that we are still recovering
from. With it came a number of challenges, not only for game developers but for
companies showcasing new games they’ve been able to work on during the last few
years. In this article, I’m going to cover many of the E3 announcements this
year, as well as some of my most anticipated.
Nintendo
Direct
Out of the Nintendo Showcase came a
number of titles being ported to the Nintendo Switch like Worms Rumble and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2.
Both of these titles I’m excited to see on the Switch because I played a bunch
of both Worms and Tony Hawk games many years ago, so it’s on account of
nostalgia. I’m also personally excited for some more Legend of Zelda because Breath of the Wild 2 was announced! Again, while
I haven’t played all of the Zelda series, it holds a special place in my heart,
meaning I will not miss this title when we get it in 2022.
Metroid fans can rejoice because a
new game was announced titled ‘Metroid Dread‘ which puts players in the role of
Samus Aran. This is the fifth installment of the Metroid series and fans of the
side-scrolling action can finally look forward to this latest addition.
Beloved Shin Megami Tensei V is slated for launch in
November 2021 which will make plenty of fans of the role-playing title happy.
The game is designed to be a hybrid between Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
and Shin Megami Tensei IV, so expect to be raising and fusing demons along with
other new mechanics. I’ve never tried this series, but I do know that many
people in my circle are hyped for this one!
Dear Villagers is publishing a JRPG
this year titled Astria Ascending and it looks fantastic. I’m not
too familiar with this title but knowing that it’s being published by Dear
Villagers who brought titles like Hover, Edge of Eternity, and The Dungeon of
Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos, I’m interested to watch some of Astria’s
gameplay.
So we all know about my love for
Dontnod’s Life is Strange series, yes? Well good news for people like me! Life
is Strange is being remastered and I have to say that the graphics do appear to
be much better than the original (Although, I’m not sure that the games will be
worthwhile to purchase again, but we’ll see.) Anyways, we also saw a more
in-depth trailer for Life is Strange: True Colors where players get to
be Alex, a woman who feels the emotions of others. This is a must buy for me in
September of this year!
Strangely I’ve missed any news about
the Hitman series since the third game was released as the final installment,
but Square Enix surprised us with a mobile, free to play title called Hitman Sniper: The Shadows. The mobile market has
gained a lot of traction over the last couple of years and it shouldn’t be a
surprise that studios are jumping on the band wagon, so who knows? This game
could be good. I may give it a shot. (Terrible, I know.)
I love a good Final Fantasy game and
Square Enix hit us with a trailer for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. This
title is an action role-playing game and is a spin-off of the main Final
Fantasy series. Although, based on the trailer, I can’t say I have high hopes
for it right now. The trailer repeats the protagonist’s need to kill someone
named Chaos and if that is the sole motivation for the story, UGH. Square, I
hope for your sake and for Final Fantasy fan’s sake that there is more to the
game than that. Just saying…
Finally, Square Enix showcased a new
Guardians of the Galaxy game, which isn’t
necessarily a bad thing, but I am often skeptical of movie-to-video game
renditions. I’m especially worried about it because of the terrible Fast and
Furious video game. While it would be awesome to ride with the Guardians and
maybe attempt to stop Thanos before oblivion happens, I don’t have high hopes
for a video game. I especially don’t tend to have high expectations given that
the showcase for it was needlessly long. I want this to be good, but I don’t
know yet. We’ll see.
Xbox
and Bethesda
Out of all the game announcements
from this year’s E3, there is only one that I shrieked over. That would be for
more SLIMESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Yes. That’s right. We are getting a Slime
Rancher 2 and I’m over the moon. I played a ton of the first game on stream and
absolutely loved every minute of it. I will get this game and play a TON of it,
because it’s just that good. Trust me. You’ll thank me later.
Technically, there was a second
title I would have been really excited about. For reasons I’m not going to go
into here, I happen to love Top Gun (and yes, this does mean I will be watching
Maverick in Theatres when it releases very close to my birthday. It’s
tradition. Top Gun can never be a quiet movie. NEVER.) Now, if this Top Gun trailer
was a standalone game, I’d be ALL OVER IT. Alas, no. Top Gun is merely a DLC
for Microsoft Flight Simulator. You almost had it. ALMOST. *Grumbles*
There’s another title in the Xbox
line-up that has peaked my interest and that is The Ascent which looks to be a
cross between Cyberpunk and XCOM. It is definitely a third person game and
players seem to be able to have a squad, but I am not yet sure if this is a
single player or multiplayer title. Either way, it looks neat and I’m totally
down for more tactical games especially if they are in the vein of Cyberpunk.
Check out the trailer here.
A couple other intriguing games are Redfall – a vampire game which can be played solo
or multiplayer, Psychonauts 2 – a cute platformer which was
developed by Double Fine, Starfield – a first person action-adventure game,
Twelve Minutes – an interactive thriller by
Annapurna, Aragami 2 – a ninja stealth game developed by Lince Works,
Other titles announced during the
Xbox showcase were:
Shredders – Developer Foam Punch announced
this snowboarding game
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising & Hundred Heroes – A JRPG that was
successfully Kickstarted and launches in 2022
Forza Horizon 5 – Playground Games returns
to the stage with this popular driving title
Party Animals – This is a physics-based
brawler which looks like Gang Beasts but with animals
Replaced – A side-scrolling steampunk action
game coming out in 2022
Somerville – By Jumpship comes a sci-fi
adventure where players try to make their family whole again
Battlefield 2042 – The iconic first person
shooter by DICE and published by EA is releasing the seventeenth
installment in the series
Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl – Sequel to
Shadow of Chernobyl, Stalker 2 is a first person survival shooter from GSC
Games
Devolver
Digital
Devolver Digital always has an
interesting showcase where I often don’t think the games are real until I look
them up. As history shows, the studio doesn’t have many games to show off, but
what they do announce tends to be different than others. One of those titles is
Death’s Door which is classified as adventure,
shooter, action roleplaying, and fighting game. Players take the form of a crow
who reaps the souls of the dead. It sounds strange because it is.
Another title announced by Devolver
Digital is a game called Inscryption which is a card-based deck building roguelike
mixed with some escape room puzzles and psychological horror. As I said, they
announce games that are off the wall, and this one is no different. Check out
the Inscryption trailer here.
Coming to the App Store and Google
Play later this year comes the title ‘Tumble Time’. This game is so strange
that I don’t even know what to say for it. If you’re brave enough to think that
your head won’t explode, check out the trailer here.
The final three titles that were
announced at E3 this year are Demon Throttle, Trek to Yomi, and Wizard with a Gun .(Not gonna lie, I kinda want
this even though I know I would SUCK HORRIBLY at it.). Feel free to check out
all the trailers for those to get more information about them.
Ubisoft
Is it really E3 if we don’t have a Just Dance announcement? Probably not. Normally
we have some embarrassing demonstration or performance that makes the dancer in
me roll over in my future grave. As much as I love the Just Dance series
because it is a fun game, the marketing kills me every year. Please, I beg you.
Find another way to market the game because this travesty needs to end. I BEG
YOU.
Just when I thought the face-rolling
was done, Ubisoft announced Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Don’t get me wrong,
at the time the Avatar movie came out, it was a cinematic marvel. But movies
that become video games are very much hit and miss. Some of the good ones
include Mortal Kombat, Golden Eye, Lord of the Rings, and Star Trek Bridge
Crew. It’s not to say that the Avatar game can’t be good, it’s that I don’t
have particularly high hopes for it. (Also, I wasn’t super enthralled with the
movie like most people were.)
I know a lot of people who are
extremely excited for Rainbow Six Extraction, but I’ve never been much
of a shooter kind of player. It doesn’t help that the developers felt the need
to change the original name from quarantine. The word is not bad or malicious
and I don’t see why the change was necessary. Anyways, I’m sure the fans of
Rainbow Six Siege will be excited for another title but to me it’s just another
shooter.
There are two titles that grabbed my
attention during E3 and those are Riders Republic – a first person cross between
the Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Steep, and The Trials series – and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. Riders Republic
has a lot of potential replayability with the different modes while Mario +
Rabbids Sparks of Hope is a tactical strategy game like the first one of its
kind. And honestly, I really loved the first one.
Koch
Media
From Koch Media we saw a trailer for
King’s Bounty 2 which is an upcoming turn-based
tactical RPG. While I never played the first game, this title is a fantasy
based game that I’m interested in looking at. We also saw a trailer for
Encased: C.R.O.N.U.S. which is a sci-fi RPG with what seem to be factions.
Another sci-fi RPG that also combines horror elements is a game titled Dolmen which will be available on the PS4 and PS4
in 2022.
There were several other games that
were showcased during the Koch Media presentation. Some of those titles can be
see in the YouTube video below:
E3
Final Thoughts
Overall, I found that this year’s E3
presentation was lacking something for me. I think because of the pandemic I
wasn’t as excited for it this time around. It has nothing to do with the games
presented or the developers who worked tirelessly from home to present upcoming
games to the public. That said, I’m glad that E3 even happened because most
other events delayed their in person shows to 2022. While I wasn’t as hyped up
this year, a few presentations impressed me with their upcoming releases.
I love the SRPG genre, so by default
Empire of Angels IV was likely to hit something of a sweet spot with me. I
enjoy tactics games with RPG progression elements, and if you throw in a
fantasy setting and some appealing visual aesthetics, it’s not hard to convince
me to give it a go. Empire of Angels IV provides all of those things, which is
enough for me to enjoy it by and large, even if it doesn’t really do anything
all that great to separate it from the rest of the genre.
The story is pretty typical fantasy fare,
with warring factions, spreading darkness and characters wielding medieval
weapons as they progress through the narrative. The localization is a bit rough
in places, with peculiar word choices or stilted sentence structure that
provide the gist of the plot, even if it can be a little awkward at times.
Probably the most unique aspect of this setting is that all of the characters
appear to be female. Certainly all of your characters in the party are.
As for the characters themselves, they
tend to be pretty thinly crafted with more attention given to their job class
than their actual characteristics. You see the usual mix of types – swordswoman
with paladin-like healing, a polearm-wielding attacker who can strike two
squares in front of her, an archer who can shoot at enemies from range but
struggles in melee and so on. Characters gain experience and level up, and have
the option of changing classes or upgrading to a higher tier class with better
stats and abilities. Again, nothing revolutionary, but some of my favorite
progression tactics to keep me playing like a carrot dangling from a stick.
The character art is generally quite
good, with detailed portraits with good use of color. The characters look more
vibrant than their actual personalities most of the time, though there are some
cute if tropey moments that had me chuckling along the way. The majority of
your time will be spent in combat, and this takes place in a traditional
downward-ish view with a grid map. Characters become chunky chibi characters as
they move around the maps and attack one another. Here the visuals are less
impressive, but they get the job done. This was a game released on mobile, and
it is anything but a technical powerhouse. There’s a very Akiba’s Beat / Trip
-like gimmick at play where defeated characters (who again, are all women) wind
up getting their clothes knocked off, putting them out there for the world to
see in their chibi underwear. It’s a little odd, though I did laugh the first
time due to the sheer absurdity of it all, since I don’t think there’s any real
reason in the narrative for this to occur. I suspect it’s just mostly done for
laughs.
Unfortunately other RPG elements are
rather light. There’s no branching story, no weapons or armor to be acquired.
The strength of the characters comes down to level, class and how you use them.
It is not a bad premise in and of itself, but it doesn’t provide tons of depth
either. It’s all executed well, with options to defend, attack and break out a
variety of special moves. Similar to older SRPG games such as Shining Force,
area attacks rule supreme. Clusters of enemies are begging to get hit with a
multi-square arrow attack. Plan accordingly though, because they can do the
same right back to you. Not that Empire of Angels IV is really a difficult
game. Maps come with enemies and objectives that give you ample experience,
allowing you to level up your characters, but not many of the scenarios really
made me think too hard along the way. Generally as long as I didn’t cluster my units
too close together, put ranged users in unnecessary harm’s way or under-level
my characters by shooting through stages not milking the potential experience
points, it was pretty smooth sailing.
Despite having started life as a mobile
game, the controls are pretty solid. Bouncing around menus, moving about the
stages and advancing dialog boxes all works well. You will be doing a good deal
of reading since there are no English voice options. The music gets the job
done, and like the sound effects fits with the overall fantasy tone of the
game. I would say if you try to make a beeline through Empire of Angels IV to
wrap it up as quickly as possible, you’d probably spend about two dozen hours
on it. Taking a bit of extra time to grind out experience points to earn all of
the achievements (about half of those are tied to reaching the top-tier job
class with each character) probably doubles that.
Summary
Empire of Angels IV is a nice enough
strategy game that does just enough for me to enjoy it, even if I did find
myself sometimes wishing for a bit more meat on the bones. A cleaner
translation, items / equipment, and a more interesting combination of characters
and narrative would have helped elevate the entire package. What we still have
is a fundamentally sound, relatively easy SRPG that can be enjoyed over a
couple of dozen hours or so.
