While its turn-based tactics ruleset will likely leave a tactics aficionado disappointed, Prelude to the Fallen’s decision to stick close to its original 2002 design is also one of its greatest strengths as a narrative focused title. Its early history inspired setting is charming, its characters both fun and robust, and its plot is sufficiently weighty for the war drama it tells without indulging in unsufferable pessimism.
(I ended up binging the three Utwarerumono games back to back, so this review is effectively a "Part 1" of a review of the series as a whole.)
As a beginning to the series, Utawarerumono serves as a solid foundation. It has the markers of inexperience natural to a developer's first forray into a genre, but Leaf played it safe to positive effect by staying 60% in the realm of the Visual Novels they had built their reputation on. And, at least in Aquaplus's remake, the combat system’s safety means it’s also never frustrating and maintains the flow of the story even when their encounter design is at its weakest.
Combat is fairly archetypal FF Tactics style, and the most complex it gets is in managing the facing/flanking, unit element matchups, and a mana-like Zeal resource which effects what abilities your units have available. There’s a fun mechanic around timing button presses to the attack animations to get “criticals” and juice a little extra effect out of your units abilities. But, with how minor of a role Zeal makes in the moment-to-moment in this title, the timing game doesn’t reach the impact it has in the next two titles.
The combat system might have been quite fun as it is, but unfortunately its weakest link is simply encounter design. Arenas are sparse on environmental hurdles and if you have any basic grasp on positioning and target priority, the game will rarely give you any higher challenges. Despite this, I appreciate Leaf/Aquaplus’s decision in context. These days I personally favor more cutthroat turn-based combat, but I remember when early RPGs would derail my ability to experience the story with their random difficulty spikes. Leaf wanted to tell a tale first and foremost, and the combat was an experiment to enhance that. If the combat had stayed this way in the following titles, I would be more critical, but thankfully it did not.
As for that narrative, it follows a sort of episodic/historical structure covering the establishment of a small nation after a rebellion and the series of conflicts that shape its place in the world. Yet it’s equally a character focused tale following the tight knit circle leading the young nation. The regular breaks from the war drama to take time on low-stakes character and world building scenes will likely make it feel a bit slower paced at first. Yet, I was consistently surprised by how much of plot threads which seemed rather trivial at first unfolded into much more intricate events that weaved into the central narrative quite nicely.
I think what makes it work so well is that it is a story which rarely makes empty promises. When there’s fighting, people get hurt and die; when there’s political maneuvering, reputations are harmed and enemies are made; when times are tough, people make decisions they can’t take back; when there’s love, the population number goes up.
It may be that I’ve simply spent too much time in the orbit of modern fantasy anime, but there’s a very refreshing early-00s VN feeling to this story with its writing and subject matter. With the minor edits made in the 2006 iteration to bevel out the egregiously explicit early-00s VN elements, it comes off as a solid balance of fun and mature (and definitely not always both at once).
Once the ride gets going in earnest—and it does start a bit slowly—Utawarerumono offers an engaging series of twists and turns with many organic layers to its characters and intrigue. It’s not a flawless story, but it’s an effective one and I found myself well attached to the world by the end of the first act.
I imagine one element that many people will get hung up on is the more… harem-y setups, which is most prominent in this title of the three. And…
Fair
But a wise man once said that you can know the true virtue of a Harem Anime’s soul by the strength of its male supporting cast. And Utawarerumono does right by its men. The bonds of fraternity get their due development. Even apart from that, they also somehow manage to fit some real meaningful character development into most of the romantic scenes, well beyond the surface level appeal.
I have to dance around spoilers for my examples here, but there were a few subplots in particular that start out like setups to a rom-com gag, only to then closeline you in the gut with the sincerity or seriousness of them. One that got me was a “baby in the basket” setup that gets into boundaries one must put on their parental instincts. Then there’s another where a character’s drunken plea to the main character could have been ripped right out of a comedy as a setup—and it is quite light spirited in the moment—but in context it leaves a melancholy aftertaste, and that subplot ultimately blooms into the story’s most bittersweet tragedy and a major setup for the rest of the series.
So, yes, it’s harem-y, but it’s not a power fantasy. (How the sweaty otaku’s it originally preyed upon for sales in 2002 reacted to it, I can’t say)
In regard to the art and sound of the game: it was one of the main factors to me starting the series and it delivered throughout. I adore the character art. They hit such a fun balance between fantastical and period appropriate in the designs and the range of unique-yet-cohesive feeling characters is impressive. The illustrations, including the backgrounds, are soft and natural, yet clean and precise. Every inch of the screen adds to the warmth of its atmosphere, and the music carries you into it.
I do have to admit I’m not a huge fan of the 3D art used for the tactics gameplay sections. It was a Vita game at launch, however, so there’s little to do about that. It’s a practical and efficient style for a tactics game on a small screen and it’s done well enough to be inoffensive. This sentiment stays the same through all three of the modern ports of the games. The rest of the presentation, however, is wonderful. And that is also true for the whole trilogy.
So, would I recommend this to Turn-Based Tactics fans? Not on the merit of its combat alone. If you’re casual fan then you’ll probably have fun enough with it, but regardless, this is a game you’d realistically be picking up for the story. I can say the gameplay gets better in the next two, and it certainly does, but really this title is a good test for whether or not you want to continue. The amount of writing per game only goes up from here as well (though not dramatically).
Who this game is really for is anyone looking for a good war drama with lots of fun character development and is appreciative of the fantasized Kofun-era-Japan-esque setting (I’m not an expert so feel free to correct me there). The fact that it also then becomes an engaging tactics JRPG in the next two titles is just an added bonus for sticking with it.
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Part 2 - Mask of Deception
Part 3 - Mask of Truth
(I ended up binging the three Utwarerumono games back to back, so this review is effectively a "Part 1" of a review of the series as a whole.)
As a beginning to the series, Utawarerumono serves as a solid foundation. It has the markers of inexperience natural to a developer's first forray into a genre, but Leaf played it safe to positive effect by staying 60% in the realm of the Visual Novels they had built their reputation on. And, at least in Aquaplus's remake, the combat system’s safety means it’s also never frustrating and maintains the flow of the story even when their encounter design is at its weakest.
Combat is fairly archetypal FF Tactics style, and the most complex it gets is in managing the facing/flanking, unit element matchups, and a mana-like Zeal resource which effects what abilities your units have available. There’s a fun mechanic around timing button presses to the attack animations to get “criticals” and juice a little extra effect out of your units abilities. But, with how minor of a role Zeal makes in the moment-to-moment in this title, the timing game doesn’t reach the impact it has in the next two titles.
The combat system might have been quite fun as it is, but unfortunately its weakest link is simply encounter design. Arenas are sparse on environmental hurdles and if you have any basic grasp on positioning and target priority, the game will rarely give you any higher challenges. Despite this, I appreciate Leaf/Aquaplus’s decision in context. These days I personally favor more cutthroat turn-based combat, but I remember when early RPGs would derail my ability to experience the story with their random difficulty spikes. Leaf wanted to tell a tale first and foremost, and the combat was an experiment to enhance that. If the combat had stayed this way in the following titles, I would be more critical, but thankfully it did not.
As for that narrative, it follows a sort of episodic/historical structure covering the establishment of a small nation after a rebellion and the series of conflicts that shape its place in the world. Yet it’s equally a character focused tale following the tight knit circle leading the young nation. The regular breaks from the war drama to take time on low-stakes character and world building scenes will likely make it feel a bit slower paced at first. Yet, I was consistently surprised by how much of plot threads which seemed rather trivial at first unfolded into much more intricate events that weaved into the central narrative quite nicely.
I think what makes it work so well is that it is a story which rarely makes empty promises. When there’s fighting, people get hurt and die; when there’s political maneuvering, reputations are harmed and enemies are made; when times are tough, people make decisions they can’t take back; when there’s love, the population number goes up.
It may be that I’ve simply spent too much time in the orbit of modern fantasy anime, but there’s a very refreshing early-00s VN feeling to this story with its writing and subject matter. With the minor edits made in the 2006 iteration to bevel out the egregiously explicit early-00s VN elements, it comes off as a solid balance of fun and mature (and definitely not always both at once).
Once the ride gets going in earnest—and it does start a bit slowly—Utawarerumono offers an engaging series of twists and turns with many organic layers to its characters and intrigue. It’s not a flawless story, but it’s an effective one and I found myself well attached to the world by the end of the first act.
I imagine one element that many people will get hung up on is the more… harem-y setups, which is most prominent in this title of the three. And…
Fair
But a wise man once said that you can know the true virtue of a Harem Anime’s soul by the strength of its male supporting cast. And Utawarerumono does right by its men. The bonds of fraternity get their due development. Even apart from that, they also somehow manage to fit some real meaningful character development into most of the romantic scenes, well beyond the surface level appeal.
I have to dance around spoilers for my examples here, but there were a few subplots in particular that start out like setups to a rom-com gag, only to then closeline you in the gut with the sincerity or seriousness of them. One that got me was a “baby in the basket” setup that gets into boundaries one must put on their parental instincts. Then there’s another where a character’s drunken plea to the main character could have been ripped right out of a comedy as a setup—and it is quite light spirited in the moment—but in context it leaves a melancholy aftertaste, and that subplot ultimately blooms into the story’s most bittersweet tragedy and a major setup for the rest of the series.
So, yes, it’s harem-y, but it’s not a power fantasy. (How the sweaty otaku’s it originally preyed upon for sales in 2002 reacted to it, I can’t say)
In regard to the art and sound of the game: it was one of the main factors to me starting the series and it delivered throughout. I adore the character art. They hit such a fun balance between fantastical and period appropriate in the designs and the range of unique-yet-cohesive feeling characters is impressive. The illustrations, including the backgrounds, are soft and natural, yet clean and precise. Every inch of the screen adds to the warmth of its atmosphere, and the music carries you into it.
I do have to admit I’m not a huge fan of the 3D art used for the tactics gameplay sections. It was a Vita game at launch, however, so there’s little to do about that. It’s a practical and efficient style for a tactics game on a small screen and it’s done well enough to be inoffensive. This sentiment stays the same through all three of the modern ports of the games. The rest of the presentation, however, is wonderful. And that is also true for the whole trilogy.
So, would I recommend this to Turn-Based Tactics fans? Not on the merit of its combat alone. If you’re casual fan then you’ll probably have fun enough with it, but regardless, this is a game you’d realistically be picking up for the story. I can say the gameplay gets better in the next two, and it certainly does, but really this title is a good test for whether or not you want to continue. The amount of writing per game only goes up from here as well (though not dramatically).
Who this game is really for is anyone looking for a good war drama with lots of fun character development and is appreciative of the fantasized Kofun-era-Japan-esque setting (I’m not an expert so feel free to correct me there). The fact that it also then becomes an engaging tactics JRPG in the next two titles is just an added bonus for sticking with it.
---
Part 2 - Mask of Deception
Part 3 - Mask of Truth