HomeVideo GamesCriminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review

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After it was discovered that the credits to the original Japanese PlayStation Portable release of Criminal Girls gave special thanks to Nippon Ichi Software America, there have been rumours that this was indicative of an eventual international release. While I have previously thrown some of my support behind a localization, I remained skeptical that it would ever be released outside of Japan given the sexual undertones and displays of punishment which are heavily prominent in the “motivation” mini-games, a defining feature of Criminal Girls. My belief was further diminished when NIS America decided to edit out the bathing scene mini-games in Mugen Souls and Mugen Souls 2 – prompting me to import and write a mini-review of Criminal Girls: Invitation in late-2013.

But to my surprise, the company announced their plans to work on the game during their games panel at Anime Expo 2014, with them subsequently confirming that they wouldn’t be censoring the game into a shell of what it was previously. While it has failed to receive any form of digital or retail distribution in Australia, New Zealand or Ireland; NIS America have managed to launch Criminal Girls: Invite Only in North America, with a subsequent release in Europe coming in only a few days time. Having now had the opportunity to see how the localization has fared, I can finally give my final verdict on if this was worth the trouble bringing Criminal Girls: Invite Only to Western markets or if the resources may have been better spent on something a little bit more familiar to the international JRPG crowd.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 1

Storyline

Criminal Girls: Invite Only sees you take control of a self-named character who accepted a job looking after what they presumed to be animals as a zookeeper. The catch is that… instead of working in a zoo you are forced into the dank prison tower of hell, and instead of looking after cute animals, you are left to handle young and (to be fair) cute “delinquents” who died well before they could become actual criminals. These girls risk spending eternity in the dark prison which they currently reside in unless you take the lead as Program Instructor to work and guide them through the four trials of a Reformation Program (Which in your case also involves several labyrinths full of enemies). Should you achieve the goal, you can go back to your ordinary life whilst each girl will be atoned and revived in the real world.

The storyline isn’t revolutionary for the genre and ultimately comes across as little more than an adequate plot to justify the dungeon crawling RPG elements. By itself, you receive some decent character development and the storyline is consistently present so you won’t find yourself making your way through half the game with very little dialogue to go with it.

One issue I did have with Criminal Girls: Invite Only was in regards to the localization. While the translation was of a good quality, I found that some of the text presented at the bottom-left hand corner of the screen while wandering around seemed to lack visible spaces between words. This may be an issue exclusive to the PlayStation TV which I used exclusively to playtest with. However, it was an incredibly off-putting issue which should simply not be present in any final product.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 2

Gameplay

Criminal Girls: Invite Only is more like your traditional dungeon crawling RPG where you spend most of your time in-game wandering around labyrinths (In third person) and fighting against the enemies you randomly encounter. There is nothing wrong with the implementation of this system, and the encounter rate is fair – so you can make progress through a dungeon without feeling hampered by either not having enough battles to gain EXP or being impeded by a new mob every time you turn a corner. This is important given the battle system itself, which can be time consuming.

Keeping with the whole “delinquent” vibe of Criminal Girls, you are not presented with a traditional battle menu to select attacks or skills from. Instead, every turn in battle sees each party member present one battle suggestion to choose from. These suggestions can be a basic solo attack, a combo attack or special character-specific skill. From these four options on offer, you get to choose just one of them to use against the enemies who stand before you. This means that unlike most RPG’s, potentially only one character will attack each turn against potentially three or four enemies.

As it is not possible to really influence what suggestion you are presented by each character, this adds an element of luck to your strategy. Here is an example I faced early on in the game: Alice is your key magic user in the early stages of Criminal Girls: Invite Only, however she only has a restricted MP supply at the start. During a boss battle, I had to weigh the benefit of using using her MP-hungry skills early on in the battle when presented them against the risk of holding off and potentially not being presented the option to use that skill should things become dire? While these conundrums didn’t occur too often, they were interesting situations to be put into.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 3

Although the encounter rates are not bad, the battles do tend to take more time than I felt was necessary to complete without excessive grinding. After being faced with the same assortment of a couple of enemies per floor, I found myself spending more time whittling away at each enemy’s HP rather than being offered a genuine challenge. This is especially more prominent in the earlier stages of Criminal Girls: Invite Only where the developers really needed a hook to keep players interested in the battle system. One of the reasons is that experience points accrued battle only go towards improving HP/MP and improving stats, with skills handled separately and taking quite some time to unlock. In fact, your first four party members all start without even the basic ability to attack.

This is where the “Motivation” system comes into play. Criminal Girls: Invite Only requires you to motivate each of the girls into learning skills and abilities through an assortment of punishments which include Maintenance (Spanking) and EdgePlay (Electric Shocking). While I will be discussing the fanservice elements to this system in the “Design” section of this review, this system pretty much comes down to using the front and back touchscreens to attack “temptations” that appear on the screen. It is an incredibly simple system which sees you performing simple movements in a certain period of time. Depending on how you perform, these actions will contribute to an EXP bar exclusive to that particular motivation, which unlocks new skills as you level up. These begin with the simple ability to attack, and slowly unlocks each character’s unique range of spells.

The “Motivation” system is clearly a distinct quirk and the main draw to Criminal Girls: Invite Only. I don’t hate the system, and clearly it was popular enough to merit an enhanced port on the PlayStation Vita which came with a lot of visual rather than gameplay improvements. Still, it is a system that doesn’t provide a lot of substance and often comes down to pressing buttons in the hope of removing just a little more pink fog from the screen. There is also a consistent grind associated with acquiring the points to use it. This issue doubles when the same points serve as currently in the item shop, with neither coming in particularly cheap when you have up to nine characters to work with.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 4

Design / Music / Voice Acting

One of the big changes made to Criminal Girls during its transition from the PSP to PS Vita was the addition of its new “Live2D” system. Previously, players were treated to a pink screen during motivation scenes where their actions slowly revealed circular segments of a static image which featured the girl undergoing a chosen punishment. The “Live2D” system replaces the pink screen with pink fog, and gives each of the characters a lot more expression, movement and intractability during these scenes. Given the capabilities of the Vita, this was a smart means of enhancing the experience for PlayStation’s current generation portable console, and came out well overall.

As someone who has reviewed visual novels in the past, including those with sexual content, I have no particular issue with any fanservicey content provided they are justified by the storyline. While I don’t see the motivation system as a necessary addition in terms of visuals or gameplay, it is at least somewhat justified by the setting and plot. However it must be clearly noted that the scenes are sometimes sexually suggestive and the content itself may not be for everyone. NIS America have made some minor yet still noticeable edits to the system including the addition of more pink fog and removing the moans/screams originally presented during them. Although this seems to have been a classification decision more than enticing people who have been sitting on the fence about Criminal Girls.

Aside from the Live2D system, most of the visuals remain similar to the original PSP release. This isn’t a bad decision in any way as the dungeon designs are pretty diverse / well structured and the character sprites / portraits are also of a high quality.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 5

The music of Criminal Girls: Invite Only is decent, however with the exception of one particular song the soundtrack doesn’t leave much of an impression. The exception to this is the theme song ‘I Can Fly’ which is performed by Akiko Hasegawa. Although it would have been nice to have this song overlapping a detailed opening animation rather than the menu screen, it nevertheless did leave me pretty pumped up when loading the game for the first time.

Unlike games such as Battle Princess of Arcadias and Legasista, NIS America had enough belief in Criminal Girls: Invite Only to do a retail run. However it shares one major distinction with their digital-exclusive releases which could be due to the content or another reason entirely: the inclusion of only the original Japanese dub. Although some may be left disappointed with this decision, I personally think keeping the original voice acting was the wisest option for this release given the sexualised content and way that the original cast delivers each character. Aside from the cut moaning and screams, Criminal Girls is fully dubbed rather than only dubbed in selected scenes.

Criminal Girls: Invite Only | Game Review 6

Final Words on Criminal Girls: Invite Only

Criminal Girls: Invite Only proves itself to be a competently designed RPG with a handful of ideas that makes it distinct from others on the market. The issue is that these concepts combined resulted in a fairly average dungeon crawling RPG experience that at times does become tedious and grindy.

The main niche appeal of this title is clearly the variety of “motivations” that the player has at their disposal to use on each character. I consider the motivation system to be very reminiscent of the experience provided by the bathing system which had been cut from the English release of Mugen Souls. It was something quite surprising to play through for the first couple of times as they are not experiences you would ever expect to see in a video game. However after that, it becomes something less appealing and more like a slightly time-consuming means of unlocking new skills and abilities.

So overall, Criminal Girls: Invite Only is a niche title which provides a visually impressive but otherwise average RPG experience that will likely be overshadowed by other games set for release by NIS America in the coming months. If you do enjoy a bit of fanservice then this may be up your alley, but those looking for a title with more satisfying gameplay then it may be better holding off for The Awakened Fate Ultimatum or Disgaea 5. Of course, those in Australia, New Zealand or Ireland don’t have any option but wait.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.
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