Due to the franticness of my schedule these past few months, there were a few video games that I was unable to review despite having play-tested and completed them all. Therefore, in a style that I think has worked quite well for some of my anime and older video game reviews, welcome to my Review Catch-Up series. In this new series, I will share my quick thoughts on a range of games, whether they are semi-new releases OR games that are the focus of ongoing sales, promotions etc. To kick things off, I would like to begin with reviews of three games that have been released in recent months:
Guilty Gear -Strive- from Bandai Namco Entertainment and Arc System Works
Samurai Warriors 5 from Koei Tecmo Games and Omega Force
Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed from Acquire, Marvelous Europe and XSEED Games.
Scroll down to read them all!
Guilty Gear -Strive-
Out now on the PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
Arc System Works is arguably the king of the arcade-style 2D anime fighter. Not only has the studio pushed out games in their own fantasy-inspired franchises such as Blazblue and Guilty Gear, but they have collaborated to develop similar games from major franchises, including Persona, Granblue Fantasy and Dragon Ball. In what has been a relatively quiet year, the studio opted to revisit a franchise they hadn’t focused on in more than half a decade, releasing Guilty Gear -Strive- onto the PC, PlayStation 4 and, marking their new generation console debut, the PlayStation 5.
Following an approach undertaken by some of the other Guilty Gear games, Guilty Gear -Strive- has separated gameplay and story modes. This has its pros and cons, with the main appeal, I would argue, being whether or not you have been following the game for a long time or enjoy binge-reading Wikia articles. On the plus side, the story isn’t constantly bogged down by potentially needless battles, which may or may not be warranted in the context of the narrative, but on the other hand, it can feel like a long slog without any gameplay to break up the text. However, the story is enjoyable enough with a diverse cast of characters from the series’ history. As a long-time player of them however, it was a shame not to see Bridget in the mix, even if chronologically they would be an adult at this point rather than a feisty teen.
While slower-paced than other popular fighting games such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the adequately-sized cast has a good diversity of movesets, personalities and attack styles. As has been the case for a while, Guilty Gear is home to a more complex combat system aligned to appease more skilled players than beginners – lacking the ‘auto-combo’ mode the spin-off games like Persona 4 Arena and Granblue Fantasy Versus had to an extent. But with the story mode being devoid of gameplay and having no skill barrier to access, online versus mode is where most of this game’s action takes place, and having everyone on the same foot is more appropriate.
Being made available at the end of the PlayStation 4’s life cycle and also able to harness the capabilities of the new-generation PlayStation 5 hardware, Guilty Gear -Strive-‘s production quality is on a whole other level. From quality battle models to some incredibly detailed stages – you can tell that Arc System Works aimed to make this their best looking game yet.
Samurai Warriors 5
Out now on the Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
After a bitterly disappointing release of Dynasty Warriors 9 back in 2018, developer Omega Force seems to have spent the last few years finding success away from their flagship Warriors franchise. Over this period, they have developed spin-off collaboration games including Persona 5 Strikers with ATLUS and Hyrule Warriors – Age of Calamity with Nintendo – both of which thrived on the market among their respective fanbases. Now in 2021, the development team are back on home soil, releasing their Sengoku-Era Hack-n-Slash game Samurai Warriors 5 onto the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC platforms.
The gameplay mechanics are reminiscent of what Omega Force is renowned for doing – putting players in control of a single character who can take down hundreds and thousands of enemies in a matter of minutes whilst barely breaking a sweat. Running from landmark to landmark, you take down enemy officers through story-driven events, assist and ally yourself with others on the battlefield and ultimately complete your target objective. It is a mechanic that the development team has delivered to gamers for decades now, yet it never stops being satisfying.
Although lacking some of the unique features found in their collaboration games, such as the clever implementation of Persona-summoning, which was so seamless, some of the traditional Warriors elements have received an overhaul from earlier instalments. This includes the Hyper Attack which allows you to attack enemies and travel a significant distance simultaneously and new Ultimate Skills which can do many things from upping your stats temporarily, cause devastating damage to foes and more.
Perhaps trying to focus on things that matter to the overall gameplay experience rather than having content for the sake of having content, the developers scaled back several traditional inclusions, including the total number of characters playable and the inclusion of a custom warrior mode. The story has also been scaled back and more refined, more focused on the adventures of Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi than others. Some elements, such as the lack of an Edit Mode were quite disappointing, as it can be pretty fun breaking lore and running around Sengoku-era Japan as myself. But from my playthrough, I can appreciate that resources were wisely spent on delivering a much better-balanced game more about doing things right than throwing copious amounts of filler content into the mix.
Developed at the end of the lifecycle for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Samurai Warriors 5 also features greatly enriched visuals reminiscent of Japanese brush artwork and a soundtrack which is top-notch, as is often the case with the series.
Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed
Out now on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4
Our first introduction to the Akiba’s Trip series in the West was with Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, the second game in the previously Japan-exclusive series. Developed by Acquire, this was an action-adventure game where players would find themselves with the ability to and tasked with taking down Synthisters (A vampire-like creature) in a virtual recreation of real-life Akihabara. To do this, you must use your combat skills and otaku-themed equipment to strip your foes, exposing their bare flesh to sunlight and destroying them. More than a decade after it first released on the PlayStation Portable exclusively in Japan, the original Akiba’s Trip has been ported across to the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and released under the title Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed.
Like its predecessors, or rather, successors, the main focus of this series remains taking down a vampire-like threat to Akihabara (the Shadow Souls) in the most lecherous way possible. This is not through holy water or a cross while chanting some holy verse, but instead stripping them naked. However, as the protagonist, you have also been transformed into one of them, meaning that others are also trying to strip you – and should you lose your clothes… it is game over. The objective of the game is for you and your group of friends, recruited as part of a secret organisation known as NIRO, to put a stop to the scheme of the Shadow Souls to convert the inhabitants of Akiharaba into hikikkomori.
As more of a light remaster rather than a fully-fledged remake, many of the issues and limitations associated with the PlayStation Portable are still present. While ambitious for 2011 portable standards, you are still faced with poorly detailed open-areas, fuzzy textures, FPS dips and the game world broken up into small zones linked by tedious loading screens. The combat system could have also gained much from introducing a complete overhaul, being slow, boring and on multiple occasions leading me to quit out of the game due to how frustrating it could be. It is one of those games that the best thing to do is just randomly button mash and hope you can move forward onto the next scene.
It feels weird that the port was not great. Between XSEED Games and Marvelous Europe, some solid localisation work welcomed western audiences to Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed. The translation was of great quality, and they even included an English dub despite the setting, justifying them not spending the extra time and resources to arrange one. I think if this were a remaster and bringing it up to the standards of games in 2021, it would have been such a satisfying experience for those looking to experience Akihabara virtually and those who want a geeky, meme-filled and goofy experience.
