A gorgeously presented tale about love, war, free will, and fate in all of its beauty, ugliness, joy, and misery.
My honest to goodness first Vanillaware game I've ever dipped into personally (previously watched someone play "13 Sentinels", which inspired me to start looking into Vanillaware), and what a game to start on.
However, before I start gushing about the game endlessly, I just wanna take a moment to talk about some of my minor complaints about the game in a relatively objective manner. To start with, despite the excessive variety the game has (which will be talked about later), I feel that that bosses, both the Mid and Chapter End variety, end up being repeated more than I'd like. Sometimes storylines for the characters have entirely unique encounters (including certain player character bosses), but more often than not you'd be hard pressed to go through a character storyline and NOT re-encounter a fair number of bosses. It's not noticed at first, but definitely more present as the game goes on, with the Armageddon chapter literally being a five End-Boss gauntlet with each of the five characters (you pick which character to use per boss in the run) that must be completed at LEAST four times if you want to see all the cutscenes. The other nitpick sadly happens to be the voice acting. Not the quality of it, as it voices are absolutely top notch, but the script used by the characters can pendulum swing wildly between Shakespearean theater to schoolhouse play. Any given cutscene can be elegant, beautiful, heartfelt, harrowing, triumphant, sorrowful, etc and then a cutscene or two later the dialogue feels a stilted or cheezy (creating some unintentionally funny moments that were probably supposed to be more emotional). An often joked about line between me and my wife (also a fan of the game), is when Cornelius shouted "I have a magic sword!" upon hearing a rather beefy situation dump over the war between the Faeries and King Odin's forces, as if there was a line omitted that would have otherwise made it sound less jarring and narmy. To be fair, most of the good dialogue tends to belong to important characters, and most of the narm charm belongs to side or minor characters, but it trades every now and then. The last thing is that, despite one of the most interesting characters lore wise is present through the game and drops hints about more background info, her personal story instead is a slightly repetitious lore exposition campaign rather than the more personal story that the prior four characters would have. Sure, we do get some personal story, but it's normally quite sidelined by backstory about the world and talk of the big prophecy already talked about at length through the game.
Despite all of this, though, this is STILL very minor in the grand scheme of things. It's still a beautifully woven tale, presented with absolutely dazzling and graceful visuals and artwork, with storytelling that at least half the time sounds like professional theater. It's fascinating to partake in this Norse inspired story as it unfolds slowly and reveals more about how the world of Erion works. Meeting the vast array of inhabitants of the land from humans to valkyries to dwarves to faeries to fire spirits to the beast-cursed Pooka, along with variety of flora and fauna that populate the natural and unnatural worlds. Visiting the largely unique and exquisite locations that greatly contrast with each other in aesthetic, climate, and purpose. And fighting against a large cast of foes aiming to put your current character into an early grave in some of the slickest 2D combat that I rarely see outside of head-to-head anime fighters (hell, even the special moves that you unlock during your journeys can be re-mapped as fighting game commands for extra combo-style nonsense).
The game's presentation, regardless of the minor issues above, is just so close to pitch perfect that it might as well be, and I'm not even purely talking about the visuals here, which, I shall mention again, are absolutely stunning. I'm more referring to the absolutely jaw dropping amount of detail and care that went into this game. From animations, item effect use, character strength and weaknesses during combat, strong homages to other game genres, the mouth watering food-porn, and even the "main menu" in the game. Actually, let me get into that last one. The main menu of the game, after the title screen menu, has the player take control of a little girl in a blue dress, rummaging around an attic filled with books and knickknack, and reading these stories and documents as the game continues to progress. Hell, each transition to major chapters (usually the swaps between cutscenes and gameplay) presents itself as if it were lettering in a fairy-tale storybook, and every historical note found in game transitions to the bookshelf to be read, which can be re-visited by the little girl herself to review the documents separate from story progression. It's such a small piece of the game that just adds so much on top of an extra whimsical charm to an already very whimsical game (despite dark story themes).
Then, there's the combat. Holy crap, the combat. I touched upon it before, but seriously, it's such a delicious feast of violence and character with every slick move, every special utilized, every enemy juggled, and every boss triumph. Animations are as smooth as they are graceful, feeling like they're coming from a top quality arcade game, with all of the precision and control that comes with it. Every hit feels satisfying. Every finisher is heavy. Every special and dazzling with a large pool of utility, especially when mixed with other specials. And the RPG mechanics compliment the action gameplay extremely well, making it feel like a perfect blend of tactics and action. And to think you get FIVE different characters to play with that play WILDLY different from each other. It's kind of insane how much a player can actually do in the game with such vast kits between that many characters. Oh, and movement for the characters is pitch perfect too. Not too quick, and not too slow, but each character has their own personal method of speeding up if the player needs to rush.
This game is a special one. If you ever have the chance to play it, do so. Even if you're the kind of person to one-and-done it, it's a joy to go through from start to finish, and for those that want more than a single runthrough of essentially FIVE DIFFERENT CAMPAIGNS, there's new game plus, a special survival boss gauntlet, and a new difficulty for those that are seeking a challenge that demands near perfection.
My honest to goodness first Vanillaware game I've ever dipped into personally (previously watched someone play "13 Sentinels", which inspired me to start looking into Vanillaware), and what a game to start on.
However, before I start gushing about the game endlessly, I just wanna take a moment to talk about some of my minor complaints about the game in a relatively objective manner. To start with, despite the excessive variety the game has (which will be talked about later), I feel that that bosses, both the Mid and Chapter End variety, end up being repeated more than I'd like. Sometimes storylines for the characters have entirely unique encounters (including certain player character bosses), but more often than not you'd be hard pressed to go through a character storyline and NOT re-encounter a fair number of bosses. It's not noticed at first, but definitely more present as the game goes on, with the Armageddon chapter literally being a five End-Boss gauntlet with each of the five characters (you pick which character to use per boss in the run) that must be completed at LEAST four times if you want to see all the cutscenes. The other nitpick sadly happens to be the voice acting. Not the quality of it, as it voices are absolutely top notch, but the script used by the characters can pendulum swing wildly between Shakespearean theater to schoolhouse play. Any given cutscene can be elegant, beautiful, heartfelt, harrowing, triumphant, sorrowful, etc and then a cutscene or two later the dialogue feels a stilted or cheezy (creating some unintentionally funny moments that were probably supposed to be more emotional). An often joked about line between me and my wife (also a fan of the game), is when Cornelius shouted "I have a magic sword!" upon hearing a rather beefy situation dump over the war between the Faeries and King Odin's forces, as if there was a line omitted that would have otherwise made it sound less jarring and narmy. To be fair, most of the good dialogue tends to belong to important characters, and most of the narm charm belongs to side or minor characters, but it trades every now and then. The last thing is that, despite one of the most interesting characters lore wise is present through the game and drops hints about more background info, her personal story instead is a slightly repetitious lore exposition campaign rather than the more personal story that the prior four characters would have. Sure, we do get some personal story, but it's normally quite sidelined by backstory about the world and talk of the big prophecy already talked about at length through the game.
Despite all of this, though, this is STILL very minor in the grand scheme of things. It's still a beautifully woven tale, presented with absolutely dazzling and graceful visuals and artwork, with storytelling that at least half the time sounds like professional theater. It's fascinating to partake in this Norse inspired story as it unfolds slowly and reveals more about how the world of Erion works. Meeting the vast array of inhabitants of the land from humans to valkyries to dwarves to faeries to fire spirits to the beast-cursed Pooka, along with variety of flora and fauna that populate the natural and unnatural worlds. Visiting the largely unique and exquisite locations that greatly contrast with each other in aesthetic, climate, and purpose. And fighting against a large cast of foes aiming to put your current character into an early grave in some of the slickest 2D combat that I rarely see outside of head-to-head anime fighters (hell, even the special moves that you unlock during your journeys can be re-mapped as fighting game commands for extra combo-style nonsense).
The game's presentation, regardless of the minor issues above, is just so close to pitch perfect that it might as well be, and I'm not even purely talking about the visuals here, which, I shall mention again, are absolutely stunning. I'm more referring to the absolutely jaw dropping amount of detail and care that went into this game. From animations, item effect use, character strength and weaknesses during combat, strong homages to other game genres, the mouth watering food-porn, and even the "main menu" in the game. Actually, let me get into that last one. The main menu of the game, after the title screen menu, has the player take control of a little girl in a blue dress, rummaging around an attic filled with books and knickknack, and reading these stories and documents as the game continues to progress. Hell, each transition to major chapters (usually the swaps between cutscenes and gameplay) presents itself as if it were lettering in a fairy-tale storybook, and every historical note found in game transitions to the bookshelf to be read, which can be re-visited by the little girl herself to review the documents separate from story progression. It's such a small piece of the game that just adds so much on top of an extra whimsical charm to an already very whimsical game (despite dark story themes).
Then, there's the combat. Holy crap, the combat. I touched upon it before, but seriously, it's such a delicious feast of violence and character with every slick move, every special utilized, every enemy juggled, and every boss triumph. Animations are as smooth as they are graceful, feeling like they're coming from a top quality arcade game, with all of the precision and control that comes with it. Every hit feels satisfying. Every finisher is heavy. Every special and dazzling with a large pool of utility, especially when mixed with other specials. And the RPG mechanics compliment the action gameplay extremely well, making it feel like a perfect blend of tactics and action. And to think you get FIVE different characters to play with that play WILDLY different from each other. It's kind of insane how much a player can actually do in the game with such vast kits between that many characters. Oh, and movement for the characters is pitch perfect too. Not too quick, and not too slow, but each character has their own personal method of speeding up if the player needs to rush.
This game is a special one. If you ever have the chance to play it, do so. Even if you're the kind of person to one-and-done it, it's a joy to go through from start to finish, and for those that want more than a single runthrough of essentially FIVE DIFFERENT CAMPAIGNS, there's new game plus, a special survival boss gauntlet, and a new difficulty for those that are seeking a challenge that demands near perfection.