Nearly every strategy RPG
fan is waiting for one thing...an updated version of Final Fantasy
Tactics, or something to fill that void. Now, Front Mission 3 was
excellent, but you didn't quite have the diversity of jobs that
Tactics had. The Wanzers just didn't have the customizability most
people were looking for. Plus you could do that whole cheesy like 3
"Aim Pilot" attacks tactic. Dynasty Tactics is excellent, too but
the battles with armies involved just don't have the warm cozy
feeling of one on one combat.
So, when I was meandering through game store after game store in the
Electric Town area of Akihabara (if you're ever in Japan and are
trying to get there, hop on the JR Yamanote line. Get off at
Akihabara and follow the Electric Town signs.) and I saw a demo
video for this Namco title called Venus & Braves. Stunning graphics,
tactical combat...and it wasn't coming out until 2 weeks after I
returned to the US. A real bummer. So, I sent my friend off to get
it while making
his journey to the Promised Land and then waited as my game made
the 5,000 mile journey here so I could review it for you.
So What's With All The Funky Characters? The Japanese level
of the game would be very high if you're trying to figure out what's
going on in the story. But, the game can be played pretty easily
through just hitting the buttons and trial and error. From what I
can gather, here's the crux of the matter. You're the main
character, Blood Boal. (I thought they were calling him "Brad" for a
long time.) He's been alive for 345 years, and he intends to stay
that way. The game starts in the year 999, and something horribly
catastrophic is supposed to happen in the year 1099.
To start in your party are your pals Wipple and Walrus. Wipple's a
little ponce and he ends up causing you to retreat from battle the
first time you encounter something other than a rat. So you punt him
out of your party, and soon after meet Lily, some old guy, and a
young archer named Frei. Together, you try and stop the monsters
from appearing and make your way through the calamitous 100 years
that the prophecy has foretold.
Combat Combat works a little differently than you might
expect. You've got a 4 x 3 grid of characters that you can set up.
You can have a maximum of 7 people on the board. The characters all
interact with each other differently. The row currently in front is
the only one that attacks. The people directly behind the front row
group can affect the front row on attacks (Ninjas will throw smoke
bombs to cause extra damage, Spellcasters will amplify damage, etc.)
and on defense. (Knights will block enemy attacks, and spellcasters
will put up defensive barriers.) After performing their assisting
roles the "helpers" won't be able to perform the assist again for
another 3 turns.
The only general action in combat you'll have to perform is either a
decision to rotate or keep the units standing pat. You'll have 3
seconds to decide this after all your attacks in the round have
happened. If you do rotate the people into the back row, they'll
perform heals, and the enemy will heal a little as well. After
healing twice, your units will power-up and will deal extra damage.
Elements occasionally come into play, with the standard 5 Japanese
elements being: Fire, Wind, Earth, Water, and Void. Some of your
characters have elemental abilities, the majority won't. Attacks
that are strong elementally will always result in bonus damage for
that hit. Your character's mood plays a big part in their combat
performance as well. If the character's psyched up for battle,
they'll have a red happy face next to their name and a positive
number. If they're bummed, there will be a blue face with a negative
number. Psyched characters will hit for extra damage, sad characters
will hit for less.
An interesting twist is that characters who don't score the kill
won't level after the battle. Only the one who dispatches the enemy
will level up. Also, characters who aren't part of the storyline who
are felled in battle stay dead. Characters who have names, they get
to live. (No, they aren't wearing red shirts.)
Getting to Know Your Party
Given that this game looks to have a pretty good shot at coming over
to the U.S. (a similar strategy RPG, Desgaia has already been
announced for distribution here.) this might be one of the few
chances you get to mess around with another Japanese favorite, the
love simulation. If you have a male and female character in your
party, and you're somewhere past the year 1010, you'll get another
option in your menu called the Gestalt Board.
Gestalt theory is a form of psychology which tries to take a
step back and study the whole of the matter instead of the little
bits and pieces. (If you want to edify yourself my knowing more
about it, I've provided you that link there. So now you can tell
your parents that we here at Netjak.com are trying to further your
education.) So, what the makers of the game decided to do was show
you the whole of your party, and you could see how they were
interacting with one another so you can put them together if you so
desire.
But, doing so will require more effort than you'd expect. Not only
do you have to manipulate the two characters who are falling for
each other, you have to make sure someone doesn't come in and sweep
them off their feet in the meantime. Since you have to rotate your
characters out of battle depending on their combat effectiveness, if
you want to keep the flames of love burning you're going to have to
take BOTH characters out of battle. Also, frequent trips home don't
hurt either, as your characters don't seem to get too comfy while
the threat of battle looms, unlike the animals you'd recruit in
Tactics. Once the characters are married, you'll see a little slot
in their description that shows who they're hitched to.
In addition to trying to get your characters married off, you'll
notice that it keeps track of their age rather conspicuously. That's
because your party members will decline as they get into their
twilight years. So, if you catch them before 16 generally they're on
the rise. Their skill levels will increase the most at this point in
their life. You can look at the character profile to find out when
that character will hit their "over the hill" mark. This should be a
big consideration as to whether or not you really feel like bringing
a character on as part of your staff.
You Look Mahvelous!
Venus & Braves is a fantastic looking game. If you like the style of
art (which the little screenshot teasers should be able to help you
decide.) you'll really, really enjoy what Venus & Braves looks like.
All the little details to the little frogs jumping off the loading
screen to make up the progress bar, (The "Frogress Bar".) to the way
the battles all end up looking like a little photograph in an album
of successful battles (complete with little pieces of Scotch tape.)
make Venus & Braves an utterly spectacular looking game.
The character designs are done really, really well for the most
part. I have some issues with the way the ninjas look, but, that not
withstanding, all the characters look very, very nice, the effects
are simple, yet very elegantly done. I must give the art staff my
highest commendations.
Almost, but Not Entirely The Opposite of the Voiceovers in
Xenogears.
Sound is great. All the voice actors sound really good, matching
their characters well. Completely unlike the way any of the voice
talent in the US works, where you get one guy who does every main
character whether he be the pilot in Robotech, or the main character
in the New Adventures of He-Man. Voices all work really good, and
the text is voiced off and on, depending on if you're in a dramatic
sequence, which means this part is probably going to really, really
suck if this game comes to the US.
And Now...The Bad
Stuff
This game makes me want
to cry, seriously. There's so much potential here for an utterly
mind-blowing game, but everything good about the game is just tossed
casually aside into a wretched mass of weak core gameplay. Combat is
SO simplistic that for the most part you can start combat, and then
go over to the restroom, or grab a bowl of cereal, or read a book,
and NEVER have to worry about any characters dying. When the text
tells you that you should be expecting a long, drawn out battle,
they mean 2 to 3 rounds. Setting the party up to attack with 3
frontal attacking characters, and one viciously effective archer on
the wing will rack up (depending on if you have support) 100-170
points of damage, and most monsters top out at somewhere around 250
hp. Not too much to worry about there. Seeing as how you never have
to hit a button, you can honestly play 2 different games at the same
time. (I've just started up Suikoden Card Stories on the GBA SP to
kill time, personally.)
In addition, since all monsters will only attack once per round, and
for the vast majority of the battles, your characters are FAR
quicker than the enemy, you just have to make sure you have
defenders in back, and since 3 turns will slay any monster, as long
as the defender block most of the assault, even if the enemy hits
the same character twice, he lives, heals after the battle, and
laughs off the damage.
Also, you attack every enemy from the front. How lame is that?! The
whole point of the strategy RPG genre is to go around flanking and
attacking the enemy from behind by outmaneuvering them. No
outmaneuvering to be done here. Apparently, nothing you attack is
smart enough to surprise you. You have advanced data on the monster,
right down the number of hit points it has. If you want, you can
figure out exactly how every battle will go, right down to who will
deliver the killing blow, and all it takes is very simple math. None
of your characters ever miss and the enemy never misses. The
strategy in this strategy RPG has been left by the wayside and the
gameplay value of the game plummets.
Plus, while the characters having peaks in their stats and leveling
off is kind of cool, the fact that they start to become decrepit is
annoying, because you have to re-recruiting people. Most characters
have a effective lifespan of 15-20 years and then you gotta cast
them off and start anew. This is probably the reason you can't
reclass any character (one of the features in Tactics that everyone
liked, which is not developed here either.) because in a mere matter
of years (which pass oh so quickly when walking around on the world
map) that character will be super useless.
In addition, there's a hard limit at which your character refuses to
level up any more after a monster kill. I guess this is to prevent
you from just leveling up the main character and forcing you to use
your side characters. This doesn't really work good, it's like a
band-aid to force you into their flawed method of play, and not
break the game. Unfortunately it can never that much challenging
because the game understands that at any given point in time, you're
going to have a party half filled with completely new characters
that can't give or take damage worth beans.
But What About the Online Play?
Too late, I'm all mad about the flaws in the game now...moving on...never looking back.
Overall
Very, very easily could have been the greatest strategy RPG ever.
But it's not. Not by a long shot. It goes down in history as the
game that best personifies the phrase, "Snatching defeat from the
jaws of victory." It had all the little things anyone would be
salivating over. Leveling up your weapons, elemental damage,
intra-party relationships, 17 different classes, tremendous artwork.
It's too bad they scuttled their own game by making it for ages 2
and above. Come on Namco...get your head in the game and put a real
combat engine on this game. You'd have yourself a solid winner that
gamers would be fondly recalling for years. Instead, people will
recall this game in muffled words, with repressed anger evident in
all their words. Well, maybe Atlus got it right...we'll have to wait
and see on Desgaia. This day is a day that will live in video game
infamy.
