OK, I have played some pretty weird games in my life, but this one is up there as one of the weirdest and most awesome games around. This game is an action JRPG that is like a breath of fresh air in a world of stale games that have been released recently.
The game has two main story lines and from what I have heard, is that the game is pretty different depending on the character you choose, which is pretty cool cause it makes the replay value high right off the bat. I am playing the male character named Yuito Sumeragi and it starts off with you being a cadet in the Other Suppression Force (OSF). The "Others" are weird monsters that the OSF is tasked in defeating and keeping out of the city.
The game takes place in the city New Himuka, which is a Japanese city way in the future. The technology is crazy, with some pretty insane ideas about communication and visuals like holographic barriers to the govt being able to censor things that your eyes see if they deem it too disturbing. Like if there is a dead body with its head missing, you will not see a the missing head, but rather a large censor type of block over that part of the body. It is pretty weird concepts to think of happening in the future. Anyways, let's get into some of the different elements of the game and how I feel they stack up.
This game looks amazing. It is optimized for next gen consoles and PCs and I am playing it at 4k resolution and it runs super smooth. I am really digging the animation style of this game. It has a nice blend of cell shaded characters with a more detailed environment and monsters. And there are some crazy looking monsters in this game.
If you have ever played Devil May Cry, it has somewhat of the same style of combat. There are some pretty cool things like being able to control your companion's abilities as you are fighting, and it looks like there is a large assortment of companions to play and choose from as you progress in the game, which can lead to some cool combinations to defeat the enemies. It also gives a lot of freedom in how you choose to fight.
The members of the OSF all have different abilities. My characters main ability is psychokinesis, which allows you to hurl objects at your enemies while you are fighting. I just got teamed up with a companion that has fire abilities so when activate her attacks, it looks like I swing fire with my sword as well.
Now one of the things that can be frustrating at first is that the game doesn't seem to explain much of anything in terms of the UI or the other menus. I am about 3 hours into the game and don't really have a clue what a lot of the different screens are. But at the same time, it allows for a ton of exploration through the menus and they are all filled with a ton of information. You can spend hours going through all the different menus and learning about the different things you pick up or the enemies that you have encountered.
This game doesn't have traditional cut scenes, but instead it tells the story through many different comic book type slides. At first, I wasn't a fan of this, but then it started to grow on me and I thought it was pretty cool. This game does an amazing job of not really following the mold of other games and does a lot of weird stuff that makes it stand out. This is also a bit frustrating at first because it can feel like you are learning a whole new way to play games and it is a bit uncomfortable, but once you get more into the world and all the technology of the world, it all fits perfectly.
The characters all can talk to each other through connections in their brains, so it is like a Zoom call going on during team meetings, but they are all inside your brain. It is a pretty cool concept of allowing others to jack into your brain, but I wonder if as the game progresses, there could be hacks and other problems with this technology. This game reminds me a lot of Cyberpunk in the way it presents some new technologies, but I feel that this game is way further into the future than Cyberpunk is. I really enjoy games like this that show what technology and stuff could come to.
OK, the soundtrack to this game is AMAZING. It is super fast paced at times and other times when you are just exploring it has a really cool vibe to it. It is a lot of techno and bass, which really adds to the whole advanced world they have created.
The voice acting can be a bit odd at times though, but hey, it is a Japanese RPG, and they aren't known for having the most captivating dialogue and English dubs. One thing that I have found a bit annoying is that your character and the other members of the OSF don't seem to have a clue about the basic things and ask some dumb questions so that someone else can explain parts of the story.
It is just weird that these people don't really know much about their city or the OSF and it has to get explained in the most childish way. But it is still good to learn some of these things because it is like you are thrown into a whole new world and way of life and there is zero context about what the hell is going on, but exploring and finding this stuff out is a lot of the fun of this world.
Overall, I am really enjoying this game and I look forward to playing it more. The story is about 30 hours or so to complete, so it isn't too long, which is pretty good cause I feel a lot of the times when games are made really long, it is just a grindfest or mindless missions.
If you are looking for a game that is a lot different than other stuff that has been released and is actually pretty good, I would highly recommend this one.
All screenshots were taken by me in game
