Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy (PS Vita) Review

By Tina Hand

Operation Babel is a direct sequel to Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy.  It picks up directly after the conclusion of the previous game.  Everything is nearly identical to the game's predecessor, from enemies to game mechanics, with only a few tiny but significant changes.  Plot-wise, it's like most dungeon-crawlers, in that the plot is really just kind of an aside to the constant revisiting of dungeons.  You are shown fairly early on what the world will be like if you fail to defeat the ultimate enemy, and while the post-apocalyptic/altered reality vibe is fitting for a game of this nature, I felt they spent too much time focused on what it would mean for the characters and their narrow window of the world, rather than the entirety of the globe.  If the player characters actually had development, this would be more tolerable, but like the previous game it allows you to create your own party, so the player characters really only have whatever development you can come up with on your own.

Unfortunately, you can't simply import your party from the previous game, so no matter the fact that this is a literal sequel you will be starting all over at the beginning.  This does have some benefit, as it levels the playing field between those who have played before and those who never have, but at the same time it would have been nice not to have to start from square one.  Like the previous game, you are given the ability to create a party from scratch or to take a pre-constructed group and use them.  You can create parties of up to six characters (and with all the things you need in a dungeon, I have no idea why you would ever take less than the full compliment of characters), each with varying stats and classes.  The first thing to note with character creation is that after a few levels, your character will be able to add a sub-class.  Sub-classes get to learn the skills of the class chosen, but don't get the strengths or drawbacks of that class.  So giving a fighter a mage sub-class will allow them to learn spells, but their intelligence won't get a boost so those spells will be very weak.  It's a great way to slide a couple of the less-useful classes into your party without having to hamstring yourself by putting in a party member whose only purpose is to identify unknown items.

They have retained the Unity Gauge from the previous game, which is both useful and not.  While it's great to have the extra options (a reliable battle escape, for one), they've toned down the power of the offensive options and reduced the usefulness of the defensive options, so really the only thing its good for now is running away.  Most of the time, this is completely unnecessary, as enemies will either fall quickly or run away on their own.  It makes the Unity Gauge almost useless, though when you get ambushed by a Wanted Variant (a special type of powered-up monster), it can save your party.

Unfortunately one of the tiny but significant changes they've made was to reduce the encounter rate.  Why is this a bad thing, you ask?  In a game that requires hundreds of hours to progress and complete, the fact that I can spend an hour of real time wandering around a dungeon without EVER encountering a monster is just ridiculous.  To try and compensate, they've included an item that increases the encounter rate.  Unfortunately, that just brings the rate up to what it should be normally.  It still requires hours and hours of play time to get anywhere significant level-wise.  And with experience being split between main- and sub-classes, it takes even longer to level up.  In almost thirty hours of game play, my party is level 11.

Dungeons run on the same principle as the previous game.  Movement is forwards, turn left or right, or strafe side to side.  Everything is a grid pattern, with hidden walls, hidden doors, and secret passageways almost from the outset.  It also retains the pesky gimmick panels from previous games, like shock-floors, rotation panels, and waterways that are only there to annoy and confuse.  Also like the previous game, quests are very vague with their instructions, telling you "go here and investigate", or "gather this random item but we won't tell you where from".  As before, this gets highly irritating very quickly, as it prevents a player from being able to form dungeon exploration strategies.  There's a difference between providing a babying tutorial and providing an item book that shows you where you found something, and thus where you're likely to find it again.  Even telling me what monsters drop items would be useful.

One of the things they didn't change was having to use a rare and expensive item to save inside a dungeon.  You get one for free every time you defeat a Wanted Variant and return to town, but not all dungeons have Wanted Variants in them when you first go in, and beating them isn't exactly easy.  They also didn't balance out the equipment drops for the dungeons.  I was frequently wasting time getting very low-level equipment in higher level dungeons, which makes it near-impossible to beat bosses.  If my party is level 10, the boss is level 10, and I'm wearing level 3 equipment, I'm going to die.  Period.  No amount of skill or strategy can compensate for weak equipment.

On the whole, if you liked the previous game then the additions made to Operation Babel will certainly appeal.  If you love spending hours in dungeon crawlers, and have the patience of a saint, this will fulfill that need.  However, if you don't have hundreds of hours to invest in the game, or if you get frustrated with vague instructions, this will piss you off faster than hitting a cat with a spray bottle.  The balance has been tweaked, the encounter rate reduced, the item drops leveled down, and the instructions were not improved.  It is fun, but if you aren't wholly invested it will get very dull and repetitive very quickly.

Tokyo Xanadu (PS Vita) Review

A few days before I started playing Tokyo Xanadu, I finally cracked open my copy of Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.  Why is this relevant?  Well, they are both made by the same company (Nihon Falcom), and had a few similarities, which I found kind of funny.

You play as Kou, a high school student who accidentally stumbles upon the hidden world of Eclipses.  These are doorways to another dimension brought about by strong emotions.  He quickly meets Asuka, a person who goes around fighting monsters to close the Eclipses, and decides to try and help her out.  As such, the game goes through a period of several months as new doors open, and Kou and his friends use their new powers to make sure the Eclipses get shut down.

Combat is very action-driven.  You have a normal attack, a jump, a projectile attack, and a dodge.  You can also hold down the projectile button for a powerful charge attack.  Both that and the projectile take SP, which fills over time, or from normal attacks.  Attacking is fun, but the SP can feel limiting when you are attacking enemies that are resistant to your physical attacks and need to be hit by your projectiles.  Plus, the dodge doesn't seem very good.  It's not an animation skip, so you can't cover for attack vulnerabilities, and it theoretically has invincibility frames.  I don't think I've ever hit them.  Considering how easy it is to get hit (there are a lot of cheap attacks), I would have liked a block, too, or at least a slightly better dodge.

A second meter you have in battle is for your X-Drive.  Using this will temporarily make all your attacks strike the enemy's elemental weakness, and give you infinite SP.  There's also a bonus effect depending on the element of your partner.  If that weren't enough, there is a third meter to fill, this time for your X-Strike.  These are basically super moves, which of course I save for boss fights.  they aren't quite as strong as I'd like, but they are useful.

Each Eclipse is a different dungeon.  They don't usually take that long to navigate, which is good because you are ranked on their completion.  Speed isn't the most important factor, though.  They also rate you on how many things you smash, enemies killed, and if you took advantage of an enemy's elemental weakness.  Sadly, it isn't always possible to get 100% for that, since you can only have three people with you at a time.  Switching to your partner is pretty easy, but switching to the "support" (third character) feels cumbersome.  You can always return to any completed Eclipse to grind or increase your rank.

Each character has an orbment soul device that represents their weapon.  There are several slots where you can equip crystals.  These crystals can give stat points, or even passive abilities like a percent chance to inflict a status ailment.  There are also spots that give extra combo damage and a couple of other effects once unlocked.  Monster parts randomly gained from loot drops are used to open and upgrade these slots.  There is also standard equipment, too.  Characters can equip an outfit (armor) and shoes, along with two accessories.

When you are not in a dungeon, you will run around and talk to people, advance the story, and maybe do some side quests.  Like Trails of Cold Steel, many of the people you talk to are tracked in your phone, and there are several pieces of information to learn about them as the story progresses.  You can also get side quests from an app.  Unfortunately, some are not shown in this way.  As a completionist, this bugs me.

The more important characters also have character episodes, where you can hang out with them, or help them out, and become closer friends.  As the game goes on, more people are added, and there are only a limited number of times you can spend with people per chapter.  If there is a free Eclipse, you will get an extra shard, but it's still nowhere near enough to spend time with everybody.  You are also at the mercy of who is available, so it's hard to focus on one or two special people.  I will give the game big props for being very clear about when the story is going to proceed, so it's hard to do so before you are ready.

My only real gripe with the game is that the localization feels a bit rushed, as there were several instances of typos.  The most glaring one was the shards used for the character episodes.  They are referred to as both affinity and infinity shards.  One time it's even called a Friendship shard.  Affinity makes more sense, but at the very least there shouldn't be two different names for the same thing.  Well, unless the character has a real name, but is always referred to as "mid-boss".

Tokyo Xanadu is a really fun action RPG that I enjoyed playing.  The difficulty felt about right (although it was a little too easy to get hit), and the length was good.  It is likely overshadowed by the enhanced version coming to PS4 later this year, but the Vita version is worth playing.


The Good:
I don't know if I could point to anything specific, but the game was just really fun.

The Bad:
Hidden side quests, and of course the typos.

The SaHD:
Wow, character models don't wear shoes in some indoor areas...nice touch!

(Review code for Tokyo Xanadu was provided by the publisher)

Ghost Blade HD (Xbox One) Review

Ghost Blade HD is another bullet hell shmup on home consoles, and I was happy to get my hands on a review code for the game.

There are three different ships, each piloted by a different lady, and each with different shot patterns.  You get the basic shot, which covers more area (some much more than others), but isn't very strong.  Next is a focus shot, which is skinnier than your ship, but packs a mean punch.  Finally, all three ships get a limited bomb attack.  The bomb is the same for all three ladies, and on the whole, the bombs are underwhelming.  They hit an area in front of your ship.  It doesn't even effect the whole screen.  It's not too powerful on bosses, either.  It does make you invincible for a few seconds, so it does have a use, but could be better.

The game has five stages, and three different difficulties.  Easy was nice because there are fewer bullets, but it has auto-bomb.  I'm not a fan of that.  Yes, it makes the game easier, but it also doesn't help you learn timing the bomb for maximum benefit.  There is a lot of stuff going on on the screen at once, which can make it feel a little cluttered, not to mention confusing.  There was an option to turn the background down, so I tried that and it does help a little.  Still, there are several different bullet types and colors flying around with other things, and it can be hard to differentiate the threats from the non-threats quickly.  Practicing does help, though.

Another thing that took some getting used to was the extra point stars.  When you kill some enemies, their shots will turn into extra point stars, which then fly toward you (auto collect).  It took me a bit to get used to that.  Granted, it's nice, but at first it's scary.  You are barely dodging some bullets when all of a sudden, they change their look and zoom toward you.  My initial reaction was a fraction of a second of panic.  Once I had a better grasp of when it would happen (since it's not all enemies, all bullets, or all of the same color/type), it was fine.

Besides the normal modes, Ghost Blade HD has the requisite Score Attack and Practice modes.  Score Attack is nice in that you have infinite lives...although that won't really help you get a high score.  It also has a set stage that has a different enemy configuration from any other.  Practice will let you, well, practice any stage or boss that you have previously encountered.  You can set the number of lives and bombs, too.  I like it for practicing the further out stages and bosses, since that's where I ran into the most trouble.

Ghost Blade HD doesn't do anything new for the genre, but it doesn't have to.  It's a solid, fun, and quick bullet hell game that I would definitely recommend to fans of the genre.


The Good:
Solid and fun shmup action.

The Bad:
The screen can get very busy and hard to make out threats.

The SaHD:
At first, I thought concentrating on the game would make me do better.  Eventually my mind wandered to other things, and that's when I started doing really well.

(Review code for Ghost Blade HD was provided by the publisher)

Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls (Steam) Review

Idea Factory International continues to bring their titles to Steam, so I recently checked out the PC version of Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls.  I previously checked out the PS Vita version, which I enjoyed quite a bit, and I expect this version to be in line with all the others.

Instead of starring Neptune or one of the other (non-Vert) goddesses, this one focuses on IF and her new friend Segami, as they battle to repair time and keep the history of Gamindustri safe.  Along the way they will meet new characters modeled and named after various Sega consoles (remember when they made those?)  Dungeons are mostly what you would expect: 3D environments to run and jump around in, with enemies patrolling around.  Now you can also climb ladders, monkey bar swing across rope lines, and crawl through small openings.  There's also coins and baseballs to collect, and item boxes to open.

Touching an enemy in the field (or getting to a certain point in story scenes) will start a fight.  Combat also looks familiar, but with some new tweaks and twists to keep it fresh.  You still move around a small plain to aim your attacks, but now each action fills part of your action gauge.  The more you do, the higher it goes, and the longer your next turn will take to come around.  If you fill it into the red zone, your turn ends by itself.  Normal attacks fill it a small amount, but there's also a charge attack that fills it the rest of the way, but you get a strong attack for the sacrifice.

Special skills require SP to use, which builds up as you attack in battle.  This is great because you can always build it up, but bad if you want to switch around your characters.  I usually ended up just saving it for boss fights.  A new addition is the Fever Meter.  When it is filled, grab the star that appears and your characters can continuously take turns while it lasts.  This prevents the enemy from having their turns, and, like SP, is best used on bosses.  Combat as a whole was pretty fun, and the different systems gave it some strategy.

Progress through the story is made by undertaking missions.  There's a limit to how long each quest will hang around, and that number decreases whenever a quest is completed.  This means you are going to miss some quests, since there are more than you can do.  You have to be a little careful of what ones you choose, since some will be very difficult or impossible on your first run through the game.  There is a great new game+ that lets you keep just about everything.  This make it easier to run through the game subsequent times.  My first run on the Vita version was under 25 hours, and I ended up going through the game a second time.

I probably sound like a broken record with a lot of my PC reviews, but the game ran fine on my i7/16gb machine.  I didn't encounter any weird problems in the few hours I played.  The keyboard and mouse work ok, but I far prefer the controller for this style game, and the Xbox 360 pad worked great.  Fans of Neptunia games should definitely check the game out.  Superdimension Neptune is a solid JRPG.


The Good:
Fun RPG featuring everybody's favorite scout, IF!  Plus, several new characters.

The Bad:
Bosses can and will require grinding.

The SaHD:
I'm never getting a Vert-based game am I?

(Review code for Superdimension Neptune was provided by the publisher)