An interesting Fusion between JRPG and Survival Horror. It takes place in New York City during the snowy days around Christmas Eve, a rather cozy setting, that contrasts the horror Aya encounters during those days really well. The depiction of gruesome body deformations, where the game derives its horror from, is presented in beautiful CG sequences (for the time). Of those, there are surprisingly a lot of. New York is also displayed beautifully with detailed prerendered backgrounds, where the game shows a lot of distinct looking locales. All of this is accompanied by a great soundtrack, part of which are ambient electronic tracks, that give this game a very distinct atmosphere.
The game mainly consists of traversing through various locations, engaging in semi random battles. Meaning, enemies are not visible and just appear, but the formation of those groups of enemies is often predetermined. Those battles are played out in a semi active manner, making use of the ATB system known from the Final Fantasy games around that time, but with the addition of real-time player and enemy movement, so the main challenge consists of dodging incoming attacks. When it comes to dealing damage, the game has a broad arsenal of guns, all with unique stats and quirks that merge well with this round based but also active combat system. Aya has some additional abilities, which provide more options in combat. Equipment can be upgraded, also in a rather unique manner, in which weapons or armor can be merged together to transfer distinct stats or effects from one item to another.
While I love all the unique systems and ideas for combat, the game overall was a bit too easy to really make good use of them. Once you have a good upgraded weapon, that works for you, there is no need to switch to something different, and all those extra abilities Aya has, are mostly not needed, at least until the very end, where the difficulty ramps up a bit. I still enjoyed the combat, enemies go down rather fast and the game develops a good flow. The only gripe I have is the limited inventory space in a game, which throws way too many items at you. The survival horror aspect really takes a backseat with the amount of ammunition you have at your disposal, but that didn't bother me too much, I was already interested enough to see where this grotesque journey goes, and I was not disappointed.
The game mainly consists of traversing through various locations, engaging in semi random battles. Meaning, enemies are not visible and just appear, but the formation of those groups of enemies is often predetermined. Those battles are played out in a semi active manner, making use of the ATB system known from the Final Fantasy games around that time, but with the addition of real-time player and enemy movement, so the main challenge consists of dodging incoming attacks. When it comes to dealing damage, the game has a broad arsenal of guns, all with unique stats and quirks that merge well with this round based but also active combat system. Aya has some additional abilities, which provide more options in combat. Equipment can be upgraded, also in a rather unique manner, in which weapons or armor can be merged together to transfer distinct stats or effects from one item to another.
While I love all the unique systems and ideas for combat, the game overall was a bit too easy to really make good use of them. Once you have a good upgraded weapon, that works for you, there is no need to switch to something different, and all those extra abilities Aya has, are mostly not needed, at least until the very end, where the difficulty ramps up a bit. I still enjoyed the combat, enemies go down rather fast and the game develops a good flow. The only gripe I have is the limited inventory space in a game, which throws way too many items at you. The survival horror aspect really takes a backseat with the amount of ammunition you have at your disposal, but that didn't bother me too much, I was already interested enough to see where this grotesque journey goes, and I was not disappointed.