Bringing a much needed revamp to the tactics gameplay, Mask of Deception is a decidedly more ambitious followup to Utawarerumono. You likely won’t feel that ambition until halfway in, but it’s a fun romp up throughout and by the midpoint you’ll begin to see what it was all for.
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(I played the 3 main Utawarerumono games back to back, so this effectively a “Part 2” to my series review. Part 1 can be found here.)
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It’s rather impressive to me how consistent Mask of Deception feels as a followup to Prelude to the Fallen. There were about 12-13 between the original releases of the two titles, and yet the art and writing all feel like natural continuations. The exception being combat which came back much better than it’s first iteration.
The way I see it, is that Aquaplus pivoted into more traditional JRPG combat in terms of the flow and challenge, but kept the party sizes and positioning elements of a tactics game. The result is something more focused on being a “skirmish” battle game. Rarely are there any major environmental gimicks or special objectives, instead the challenge of combat lies in the flow and dance of units that results from type matchups and using their varied attack types in their optimal situations.
The active input system was improved as was the Zeal resource. Characters now have 3-5 different, multi-stage attack/support skill routines which get more complex as they level up. Each stage of these moves has different properties and build or expend Zeal in different ways, and the active inputs are how you traverse these routines, both choosing when to cut them short and eking more damage and Zeal out of them with critical timings.
Individual attacks in a series will have different areas of effect and secondary effects. The most effective ones will probably cost more zeal or have specific range requirements. Some have secondary effects that are life-saving in one scenario but will get you killed in others. And even the standard routines stay interesting by having the most “hidden” critical points you can exploit for a bit more mileage and access to a character’s finisher abilities in the late game. And even on defense there are now active inputs, though those trigger mostly on random chance (there are equipment options to tweak the odds, however).
While the effect is far more subtle, the arenas you fight in are improved as well. The best of them won’t be until Mask of Truth, but even here they introduce a “height” variable to the grid along with characters with variable “jump” distances. Combined with better use of impassable terrain and the other combat elements promoting more movement, the arenas provide a firm foundation to the encounters. They don’t make the fights on their own, but they’re pleasantly relevant to proceedings.
One thing some may find disappointing is that fights never have nail-biting tension to them. This is largely due to the player’s ability to rewind a fight whenever and to wherever they wish to change a decision or retry a routine. Considering how many elements are at play and how the game is still primarily narrative focused, I think this was a necessary and welcome addition to the game. There is still challenge to combat, especially on Hard, as sometimes life and death for a unit can come down to whether or not you let them go too far into an attack routine or use up too much zeal. Sometimes your failures can originate from 30 actions back and you have to decipher where you went wrong. Ultimately, though, this remains a low-pressure series when it comes to gameplay.
So then, if the combat is still engineered at its core to support a narrative experience, does that narrative justify it? In my opinion, yes, though I will admit that there were times early in that I was worried it was going to veer too far into the more slice-of-life inspired elements. Mask of Deception takes its time to set its stage. There is plenty going on in the moment to moment, so I wouldn’t call it boring, but coming right off of Prelude I was feeling the itch to get into the thick of the war drama sooner. By the end, however, I felt a bit silly being so impatient.
Most writers seek to make their readers attached to their characters so they can buy into the plot and its emotional beats. The more you show the readers who the characters are, the more likely they are to sympathize and become attached. Spend too much time on that, however, and you risk losing the readers who are looking for a consistent central narrative to follow and more weighty stakes. Mask of Deception takes that risk because it doesn’t just want the reader invested in the life of its protagonist, it wants the reader to understand exactly what that life means to the protagonist.
It might not payoff for everyone, but it really did for me. I’m getting a bit into Mask of Truth saying this, but the character growth across the two games was top-notch. This is a tale of characters with conflicting wishes who lack the strength to fulfill both their duties and desires. So, they must make a sacrifice somewhere—and they do.
It’s also a story that made me giggle a lot. I might be alone in this, but its sense of humor in the lighter parts of the story felt very Konosuba-esque. This game hits a wide gamut of tones in the adventure it takes you on, and yet all of those pieces feel connected in the end.
So, if you got through Prelude to the Fallen and enjoyed your time there, then set this title high on your priority list. They’re delightful. And if you just need one excuse to help you push through Prelude, then let this game be that excuse.
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Part 3 - Mask of Truth
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(I played the 3 main Utawarerumono games back to back, so this effectively a “Part 2” to my series review. Part 1 can be found here.)
---
It’s rather impressive to me how consistent Mask of Deception feels as a followup to Prelude to the Fallen. There were about 12-13 between the original releases of the two titles, and yet the art and writing all feel like natural continuations. The exception being combat which came back much better than it’s first iteration.
The way I see it, is that Aquaplus pivoted into more traditional JRPG combat in terms of the flow and challenge, but kept the party sizes and positioning elements of a tactics game. The result is something more focused on being a “skirmish” battle game. Rarely are there any major environmental gimicks or special objectives, instead the challenge of combat lies in the flow and dance of units that results from type matchups and using their varied attack types in their optimal situations.
The active input system was improved as was the Zeal resource. Characters now have 3-5 different, multi-stage attack/support skill routines which get more complex as they level up. Each stage of these moves has different properties and build or expend Zeal in different ways, and the active inputs are how you traverse these routines, both choosing when to cut them short and eking more damage and Zeal out of them with critical timings.
Individual attacks in a series will have different areas of effect and secondary effects. The most effective ones will probably cost more zeal or have specific range requirements. Some have secondary effects that are life-saving in one scenario but will get you killed in others. And even the standard routines stay interesting by having the most “hidden” critical points you can exploit for a bit more mileage and access to a character’s finisher abilities in the late game. And even on defense there are now active inputs, though those trigger mostly on random chance (there are equipment options to tweak the odds, however).
While the effect is far more subtle, the arenas you fight in are improved as well. The best of them won’t be until Mask of Truth, but even here they introduce a “height” variable to the grid along with characters with variable “jump” distances. Combined with better use of impassable terrain and the other combat elements promoting more movement, the arenas provide a firm foundation to the encounters. They don’t make the fights on their own, but they’re pleasantly relevant to proceedings.
One thing some may find disappointing is that fights never have nail-biting tension to them. This is largely due to the player’s ability to rewind a fight whenever and to wherever they wish to change a decision or retry a routine. Considering how many elements are at play and how the game is still primarily narrative focused, I think this was a necessary and welcome addition to the game. There is still challenge to combat, especially on Hard, as sometimes life and death for a unit can come down to whether or not you let them go too far into an attack routine or use up too much zeal. Sometimes your failures can originate from 30 actions back and you have to decipher where you went wrong. Ultimately, though, this remains a low-pressure series when it comes to gameplay.
So then, if the combat is still engineered at its core to support a narrative experience, does that narrative justify it? In my opinion, yes, though I will admit that there were times early in that I was worried it was going to veer too far into the more slice-of-life inspired elements. Mask of Deception takes its time to set its stage. There is plenty going on in the moment to moment, so I wouldn’t call it boring, but coming right off of Prelude I was feeling the itch to get into the thick of the war drama sooner. By the end, however, I felt a bit silly being so impatient.
Most writers seek to make their readers attached to their characters so they can buy into the plot and its emotional beats. The more you show the readers who the characters are, the more likely they are to sympathize and become attached. Spend too much time on that, however, and you risk losing the readers who are looking for a consistent central narrative to follow and more weighty stakes. Mask of Deception takes that risk because it doesn’t just want the reader invested in the life of its protagonist, it wants the reader to understand exactly what that life means to the protagonist.
It might not payoff for everyone, but it really did for me. I’m getting a bit into Mask of Truth saying this, but the character growth across the two games was top-notch. This is a tale of characters with conflicting wishes who lack the strength to fulfill both their duties and desires. So, they must make a sacrifice somewhere—and they do.
It’s also a story that made me giggle a lot. I might be alone in this, but its sense of humor in the lighter parts of the story felt very Konosuba-esque. This game hits a wide gamut of tones in the adventure it takes you on, and yet all of those pieces feel connected in the end.
So, if you got through Prelude to the Fallen and enjoyed your time there, then set this title high on your priority list. They’re delightful. And if you just need one excuse to help you push through Prelude, then let this game be that excuse.
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Part 3 - Mask of Truth