In liberation maiden you play the next president of new japan, Shoko Ōzora. She pretty much goes around piloting a mech named Kamui while shooting enemy units that are trying to steal Japan’s energy sources. While there certainly seems to be a lot more to this whole story, this is really all the information the player gets throughout the game. It would have been nice to have more insight to this new world that Suda 51 made, but the gameplay really just speaks for itself.
Liberation Maiden is a simple shooter game where you go around with Kamui shooting various enemy strong holds till you open the final part of the stage after beating the last strong hold to fight the boss of that stage. The game uses touch controls the same way that Kid Icarus: Uprising does for air combat, using the analog to move around, and the touch screen set as both the reticule and fire button, while strafing is set to the R button. The control scheme takes some getting use to, but it really does work out quite well in the long run thanks to the top view of the stages, and the focused camera during boss battles. You also get two types of weapons throughout stages 2-5 that really make this game shine in a simple way as each weapon features a different risk and reward to it. The first weapon you get is pretty much a lock-on, homing missile deal, which is ideal for strafing, but does little damage compared to the second weapon. The second weapon however is all risk, it quickly drains your bars for your defense and does the most damage of the two weapons, which makes it ideal for boss battles and taking out most enemies quickly.
Course Liberation Maiden is not made without some flaws. Biggest by far being its length, being only 5 stages long and nearly each stage lasting about 20 minutes each it ends up being less than 2 hours worth of gameplay, which makes the 7.99$ a bit pricey for people that want more bang for their buck. Second, the games boss, save the last one, are all pretty much the same, in fact, most of the combat in liberation maiden is the same. You simply go around blowing up ships and drill things till you can finally blow up the bigger drill, which is the final boss for pretty much every stage. The game really only gets interesting during the last stage, where you fight this bird guardian throughout. Its a welcomed change of pace for a final battle, and makes the rest of the game look a bit boring by comparison. Still the shooting is fun and engaging for what little amount of time is had with this game, and with each stage providing something new, Liberation Maiden never gets too tedious or boring for anyone’s taste. It even has little achievement based things for beating the game or stages on certain circumstances, which makes for some replay ability. Course, Liberation Maiden has a lot of potential to be better than what it is right now, and to actually see something better come out of it would be great. Unfortunately that may not be realized with the sequel being announced as a visual novel.
Final Thoughts:
While the game may be fast and fleeting, Liberation Maiden is a fun shooter with a lot simple mechanics, and interesting concepts. It’s only a shame that the game couldn’t be more than what it is, but if you’re able to catch it up on sale and have some vain interest it, it would be worth to pick it up and see what all the fuss is about.