It is not flawless, but at least results a good game.
The game told the adventures of Haken Browning, a sci-fi cowboy, and his robotic assistant Aschen (an android affected by double personality disease): treasure hunters and adventurers of Lost Herencia, one of the world forming the "Endless Frontier", a series of worlds linked between them by dimensional gates. During an exploration of an ancient fallen starship the dynamic duo meet the beautiful Kaguya Nambu: ninja princess of another world of the frontier and keeper of a 100 cm boobs size!!!
It's the beginning of a long story (the game requires at least 35 hours of play) unfortunately pretty confusing and inconclusive. The game presents a cast of various characters well developed not only in design, but even in their attitudes, as for the main playable characters as much for their rivals. Beside the original characters like Haken, Aschen, Kaguya and Suzuka we'll found some names well-know to Namco fan: Reiji, Xiaomu and Saya from Namco x Capcom and Kos-Mos and
T-Elos from the Xenosaga titles.
Characters are splendidly drew and dialogues between them are often clever and exhilarating, but the game throw in the mix a lot of characters and situations without come to any decisive event or explanations. The several sub stories so created merge later in the last hours of play, but by now the player already forgot the main plot, applying only to the good and frenzy battle system.
So the main story is mediocre, as well of the normal explorations. First of all even in world map than in dungeons the graphic is under the average… very much under the average. Overall the graphic remember the early RPG of the 16 bit era. Much better the music with a lot of various themes spacing from heroic to Japan disco. Great attention was put also to the background music of the battles (since battles are practically the main part of the game). Dungeons are pretty linear, but cleverly designed to minimize player's frustration especially because the plot require a good amount of backtracking in already visited locations. Complete the situation some easy puzzles and random enemy encounters with a 100% escape rate.
So far the game results under the average either in plot than in technical aspects, but is the battle system that improve remarkably the experience. Seem almost that all the previous missing attention was concentrated on this aspect of the game.
Fighting works similarly to games like Valkyrie Profile. Once a main character is up the player can attack the enemy simply pressing the A button on the DS. Each pressure unleash a specific combo attack. Each character have five attack slots totally customizable, so you could also decide to use five time the same combo or create a wide range of attacks. Target during fighting should be to juggle the enemies so they can't touch ground. Describing so the battle system should sound pretty simple, even boring, but really is much more deep as it can seem to first look.
In the beginning, juggle the enemies is essential for avoid their counter attacks, moreover as the combo count go up the critical rate of the attacks rise too. Again, similarly to Valkyrie Profile, every attack deplete an energy meter called COM; every combo use some percentage of the meter, so the player shall must decide carefully the order and the number of the most powerful attack (just to be clear shall be impossible set five 30% meter attacks in the slots, because the limit is 100%, so you'll can attack only three times instead five). Indeed creating an attack succession that take advantage of all the meter balancing in the meantime damage and juggle possibilities is pretty simple, thanks to a valid menu interface, but satisfying. Kicking enemies fill an overdrive gauge once full can release a devastating final attack specific for every character.
In the second, an attack don't stop necessarily with the action of a single character. If the turn board schedules two or more main characters actions in a row during a fight you can every time allow the successive fighter enter the brawl continuing the juggle. There's more: you can have up to four characters in battle, but others shall put on back front providing support combos simply pressing left on the directional cross. So an ultimate overall attack between all the characters could count four main characters action for a total of twenty normal combos, eight support combos (two for main characters) and a final overdrive… difficult to realize, but awesome if you are able to do it!
If you are too lazy to tack on elaborate combos you can always count on a limited (but effective) set of special skill: special attacks consuming SP able to hit all enemies on the screen or to cause huge damage to a single foe.
More depth to the battle system was given by the "Spirit", spell-like support abilities costing SP from another gauge specific for every player. Spirits can heal the characters, increase the experience earned and empower in several ways making the characters even more powerful. A little newness is the "Mentality" system: at the beginning of every turn each main characters can assume a specific disposition that translate herself in the game in a specific bonus lasting one turn. Each character have various mentalities and their activation is choose randomly (beware… some mentalities have negative effects).
In the end the battle system results at the same time engaging, exciting, fun, simple for a beginner player and enough deep for a RPG veteran.
The only question about is… how to use so much power? And above all… against who?
Thanks to the high level of characters customization and attacks management, fights with regular enemies soon become mere formalities, though never boring, and even against bosses (some are really strong and resistant) an accurate preparations and a clever use of the supportive spirits things may result, in the end, pretty easy.
However… technical parts of the battles is simply awesome. Sprites are huge and animated in a masterly fashion. During attacks there's an incredible number of animations frame with a details care simply amazing. Hairs and dresses sway, sparks and special effects go through the screen without any slowdown, the breasts of the female sprite bounce.
Special skill and overdrive attacks are introduced by brief bitmap animations excellently drew.
Very good even the sound with various background music, powerful sound effects and high level in-battle voice acting. Characters speak even at the beginning and at the end of the battles, but unfortunately all the voice acting is in pure modern Japanese language.
So, though some flaws, this game was however a pleasant surprise
One last note about the dialogues. Discussions between characters are well wrote and often exhilarating, but the omnipresent sexual allusions and excessive attention to female characters boobs may result annoying. Personally I almost died by laughter when the little Kyon said to Kaguya "Shut up! You pathetical dropout of a Hentai game!"
Final Score: 7