A game that seems like it was hindered by a super low budget
I knew exactly what I was getting myself into with this one. A low budget game based on an anime that I enjoyed watching a few years ago. It doesn’t even try to make itself look even slightly flasher with the intro cutscene. Nothing wrong with that if the game is still fun to play though. As you might expect this game just retells the story from the first season but it does indeed do a little bit more than just that.
Adventurer Bell Cranel has traveled to Oranrio to seek fame and fortune by exploring the vast dungeon that lies beneath it. Right from the start things don’t go well since a minotaur ends up almost killing him before the sword princess Aiz Wallenstein saves him. Though they don’t know it their lives are intertwined from this moment onward as it pushes both of them to go beyond their limits.
This game has a pace that it continues for the entire time till the credits roll. Play as Bell for one chapter, then play one as Aiz.. Each one consists of two story quests and two side quests. With some story bits split in between each dungeon segment. Some variation would have been nice but you won’t see that here. Having two characters seems like it would mix up gameplay a bit to huh.
Yet that isn’t true both of them play exactly the same. Visual differences aside they have the same set of light and heavy attacks along with a ranged magic attack. No way to really change up their playstyle either. They both even get the same super ability that makes all their attacks crit. Teaming up with two other non playable characters also gets you a ranged AOE attack that will hit most enemies on the screen once a meter is filled up. A suboptimal dodge is also available but it feels kind of pointless other than boss battles most of the time. All of this comes together to make a very generic action game.
Even the way the dungeon is laid out is pretty mediocre. All the action scenes take place from a top down perspective like the older Zelda games. Yet almost every section is made up of the same looking layouts with slightly different visual designs. I don’t think the layouts are generic but they sure do give off that vibe after a while. Fights with monsters don’t add much either since for the most part you can just combo them to death. Might need to backstep once for some of the tougher enemies but that’s it. The only slightly good part to this game comes if you enjoy the cast of characters and that only shows up after you beat it.
After finishing the main story (You won’t even get to see all of Aiz’s storyline since it gets cut off half way.) a set of extra dungeons get unlocked along with a bunch of skits with all of the cast. That can only be unlocked by earning date points that are gained by playing through this extra content. I might be misremembering these scenes but all of this stuff seems fairly original. Characters get to talk to each other a lot more which is super interesting for me. If you don’t care about them at all then this little extra bit won’t make this game much better. The new dungeons don’t add anything new other than the same enemies with new colors. They hit harder so I had a reason to use a bunch of healing items.
Overall this is a game that feels like it had the budget of a mobile game. Yet they decided to put it on the console for $40. They even had it on sale for 20% off so they knew it wasn’t worth that price at all. Even for the die hard fans of the series it isn’t even worth that price of admission. Unfortunately this isn’t really a game worth playing. I’m going to keep wasting my time on it for some reason but for other people it is best if you don’t check this one out.