so.. I'm necro posting, but since I actually bought this used off Glyde (for dirt cheap) for the hell of it and nobody else has posted details here, I guess I'll do that. Bottom line: definitely not worth full price, but a somewhat interesting diversion with a few neat things hidden inside a lot of poor design choices..though maybe it was a conscious choice to avoid holding the hand of the gamer. Be advised that I tend to dislike things like CoD and go for odd games because I find them less boring...maybe coz I use my imagination to fill in the gaps or wonder how to improve the game =/
The controls aren't perfect.. accessing the magic-wheel to cast Lightning while under pressure (since you have to aim it, and can be interrupted) can be tough, and accidentally crouching can get you killed when you need to Dodge, since Dodge does not override crouch. Precision shooting is not a part of this game (this is what i say to console myself), and you can mostly get by with spraying lots and lots of bullets in addition to using magic. You will typically want to use both, especially Raven Panic, which calls a host of Ravens to peck at all the enemies in range, effectively CC-ing them for you to kill more easily. In later stages with faster moving targets or higher difficulty settings this spell is essential to your survival. Rose Spear is your AE/grenade spell, causing an eruption of spears in the targeted area that will spectacularly insta-gib anyone it hits. Unfortunately, this is best used in enclosed spaces or at barricades where people are grouped up, as it can be a bit hard to use. Willpower is great fun to use, as it is essentially a TK attack allowing you to fling inanimate objects in front of you. I doubt this is the first game to use this, but it's well done here and a blast to use. Taking cover behind a truck and rolling it over the faces of people chasing you is great. Less flashy but still essential is Ancient Wall, which summons...an ancient wall...in front of you, letting you beat a hasty retreat or hide from snipers. Elemental Shot has a damage-add quality on whichever weapon you have equipped at the time, though I've only really enjoyed it on the regular gun, which gets a DoT. The cannon gets a super sniper mode, but i've never managed to kill anything with it. Sacrifice is purely used to save human lives at the expense of some of your hp, which you may not really care for. Unfortunately, human losses figure into your score and on the last boss, at least, you will need them to help you. Your final 3 spells are Lightning, Tornado and Meteor Shower, all of which are unlocked at pivotal moments and then open for free use.. as long as you have the mana. Meteor Shower is risky to use as it will level everything around you, sending debris flying everywhere and potentially killing you if you are not careful.
Level design is all over the place... I like the large scope of some of the levels, but at times it feels you are poorly herded in the right direction, meaning you can wander around and screw your score. I would say the second and fourth levels are the only ones worth complaining about in terms of getting lost (a city and a hazy outdoors area with multiple paths) , though Walnut-head placement can cause some cheap deaths in the city zones. The first and third levels stand out as the most interesting, to me. One level has you fighting while standing on top of a flying airplane as some demon dragon sends Eyes of Kilrogg to smash the plane. There are no items or secrets to discover in the levels; your health and mana rebound and your weapon and skill upgrades are purchased with the point tally you earn for completing the level. The more damage you keep taking, the lower the cap to which your health will rebound. The higher the level of the magic you are casting (and the more frequent) the lower the cap to which your mana will rebound. Your ammo is theoretically infinite, though reloading the weapons costs mana and each weapon and spell has a different cost. The more enemies you kill with your gun (not magic) the greater your mana pool will be. It's and interesting (though certainly not unique) method of dealing with the two types of abilities. Upon completing a level you are graded on your timeliness, kill ratio and Survival ratio: how often you have continued and how many humans you have let die. With each of 4 weapons (machinegun, shotgun, cannon, gatling) and the minor spells (Ancient Wall, Elemental Shot, Raven Panic, Rose Spear, Willpower and Sacrifice) having 3 tiers of upgrades and your hp/mana regen having two, you'll have to farm up a lot of points to unlock everything.
so..graphics/audio. To be honest, graphics aren't that important to me but since it is to other people I will say that the game does not look superb. The backgrounds/skies and some framed stuff looks pretty good. Alicia's character model is well done, not sleazy but has some style. Enemy models are not as creative as one would hope. Sometimes it is hard to pick enemies out of the backgrounds due to lighting, effects or palette choices. They seem to go for high contrasts a lot. Overall, nothing special and nothing terrible...and no slow-down. The only times I hated the palette choice was in a level where it was very difficult to see enemies due to it being intentionally hazy. The audio is sub-par.. didn't like many of the sound effects. voice-acting ............... basically, it's a Japanese script, with all the cliches you'd expect. Bad guys walk and talk like Yaks, good guys say something silly and scratch their heads etc. The dialogue is 100% purely translated into English, with all the mannerisms intact, etc. I don't find this a plus because the dialogue used in Japanese seems to have been copy/pasta from every anime/manga ever made.. it's entirely derivative, though i have to say there were a few times I actually found it funny (intentionally funny). Tbh, this game was probably meant to be a lot less serious than we're taking it for. Still, your human flunkies resolutely saying "We're proud to be human!" really doesn't work, and I'm guessing it was the closest they could match to the probable original "we'll show them the pride of humans!" in japanese.. maybe.
The enemies are mostly not very creative in appearance, and rarely display any intelligence. It is difficult to judge, though, as sometimes the basic grunts display amazing awareness and aggressive behaviour while the rest barely register your existence, or stand still and say "heeeeeey, it's a pretty lady!" allowing you to kill them with ease. I end up wondering if they were all meant to be as alert and strafey as the good ones. There are a few faster moving enemies, such as the possessed humans who breath fire or attack you with their ribcage (kinda neat), but in general there are only 4 more types worth mentioning. Gigas are giants with miniguns attached to their arm who could probably do some harm to you if they weren't so brainless as stand around while you kill them from out of range. Just don't follow up too closely as the shockwave from their fall will kill you. Walnut-heads are floating guys with giant brains who create impenetrable barriers (ie, you have to kill them to move to the next area..sigh) and use telekinesis to gather objects around them as shields and ammunition to throw at you. It's really cool, but incredibly unforgiving, and most of the times I died to them it's because I was smashed by a bus they were pulling TO them from as they were beyond (or at the very limit of) my clipping range. Realistic, I suppose, but unforgiving. Unfortunately, it reduces your approach to one of the most interesting enemies in gaming to hiding out of range and sniping them to death, usually after you've been BS killed once. Geist Snipers are dead accurate and will insta-kill you. If you see the red laser, drop everything and summon an Ancient Wall to hide behind. On the other hand, should you close the distance with them they will cower in their boots and beg for mercy (naturally, I impale them on Rose Spears). The final enemy I want to mention are the tanks littered throughout the levels. Your only method of dealing with tanks is to call down Lightning to insta-gib them. Since they are stationary turrets it's not so bad, but it does feel poorly implemented.
The last boss encounter is as frustrating as one poster above me mentioned. It is, literally, a time sink. In terms of gimmick, it's quite clear what you have to do: let your allies strip the shield off the boss, then hit him with a high damage spell (Lightning) or otherwise hurt him.. you need to try kill his tentacle hand since that is what controls his shield. The Mana to cast the spell comes from killing 2 dozen ghosts he launches at you, so if you mess that up then you have to wait. There are only 3 problems with this boss that are bs; the ghosts can totally stunlock you if a swarm of them hits you, even leading to death from a train of ghosts hitting you for a small piece each... and shooting them isn't as easy as you may hope, since you'll often have to dodge, and dodging stows your gun, reducing your reaction time (disclaimer: i'm quite bad at shooting on consoles). Next, the boss himself has two insta or near insta kill moves.. one is a swipe from the tentacles (this includes any objects he might knock into your teeth) and the other is a fire attack that, you guessed it, can sort of stunlock you as it hits for massive damage. You'll end up spamming your dodge move a lot because of all of this, which slows down the fight.. but even if you didn't, he's literally a sponge.... there are large sections where he just limps back and forth, not giving up ghosts and not attacking, meaning you are unloading zillions of bullets into his exposed weakspot to little effect. W/out a health bar it's hard to tell whether there are thresholds you have to reach to switch phases (and whether during the scripted change he is actually immune)
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