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    Project X Zone

    Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Oct 11, 2012

    Capcom, Sega, and Namco team up for this crossover strategy RPG for the 3DS using some of their most iconic characters. A spiritual sequel to Namco X Capcom.

    mento's Project X Zone (Nintendo 3DS) review

    Avatar image for mento

    A crossover RPG that manages to be the sum of its many parts.

    Project X Zone is definitely a curious beast. The concentrated efforts of Banpresto (creators of the Super Robot Wars games, among other often anime-influenced titles) and Monolith Soft (Nintendo RPG developers extraordinaire) to combine three publishing empires' worth of franchises and characters in a Strategy RPG akin to something like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea sounds like quite the elevator pitch when you see it all written out like that. What's perhaps even odder is that this all has a precedent in Monolith Soft's earlier Namco X Capcom: a similarly-themed Strategy RPG for the PS2 that was sadly never localized for the US and European markets.

    The general story of Project X Zone is that the scion of a powerful Japanese clan and her freelance ninja bodyguard/tutor discover that the secret treasure her family has dedicated themselves to protecting is suddenly stolen one day by a flamboyantly dressed organization calling themselves the Oros Phlox, and due to the item's dimension-hopping capabilities various universes are soon dragged into the fray with each of its heroes banding together to make sense of everything and halt Oros Phlox's plans. As premises go it's a very flimsy reason to get a whole bunch of different characters from different universes together, but it's interesting just how intertwined a lot of them are: While you have fantasy outliers like Shining Force EXA and Tales of Vesperia that need to hop onto the nearest magical means of crossing worlds, there are also a few universes closer to home like the various demon realms that Sir Arthur (he of Ghouls 'n Ghosts fame), the Darkstalkers posse and Dante and Lady of Devil May Cry inhabit. There's also characters from alternative futures and pasts, such as Mega Man X and Tron Bonne (who are from entirely separate continuities but appear to be cognizant of one another) to represent "what may be" and the Sakura Wars quartet from a steam-driven 1920s and the Nameless Squad of Valkyria Chronicles' fake-WW2 to represent "what might have been". The game also finds a lot of uses for virtual worlds as well: Those like The World MMO of .hack in which quite a lot of the game takes place. Odder still is that The World occasionally bleeds over to Gain Ground: a futuristic combat simulator that was the basis for an old Sega Arcade game of the same name.

    It goes without saying that this immense attention to detail will drive away and draw in a crowd of people in equal measure. Though the game does elucidate on the characters and concepts (such as named organizations and countries) of Project X Zone in a handy "Crosspedia", the game still banks on the player knowing most of the references being thrown their way. The localization is peppered with knowing winks to gaming references as well, and so much of the game is engineered towards fan service. This is all great and fine if you're the type of person who has been gaming for decades and is familiar with most of the featured games but if you're a casual gamer who was prompted to try, say, the recent Fire Emblem: Awakening and acquired a taste for strategy RPGs for their 3DS as a result, Project X Zone becomes a hard sell due to its vast amount of esoteric content. Even as someone who plays a hell of a lot of these games, as a European there were still a considerable number of them - among them God Eater, Yumeria, Shining Force EXA, Valkyria Chronicles 3, Super Robot Wars OG and, of course, Namco X Capcom - that I have no experience with.

    Fans, though, will have a lot to appreciate here. In a decision that seems directly geared towards appealing to that certain subset of fans of Japanese media, the entire game's voice acting is left in its original Japanese. Whether this was a deliberate decision or one influenced by the exorbitant cost of hiring such a sheer number of English VAs to complete the project almost seems moot.

    As for the gameplay itself it can actually be quite engrossing, due in part to this being a crossover of RPG and Fighter game franchises: battles are initiated by the usual Strategy RPG rules of moving a character within range of an enemy and engaging in combat. However, rather than just a simple cutscene or a brief exchange of damage, the player is put in control of doling out the various combos and specials that each character has using a basic system of holding a direction and the attack button to perform five basic combos. With this simple interface, the challenge comes through timing each of these combos to follow on from the last at the precise moment when that previous combo ends; because each combo air juggles the enemy to some extent, activating the next combo too soon means potentially missing a few of the hits as the characters will swing at thin air while the enemy tumbles overhead, but hitting it too late can often mean the enemy recovering their footing and managing to block a few of the following hits. If I had to compare this to an existing game, I'd say it was very similar to how Valkyrie Profile handled its combat - it's chaotic and showy by all appearances, but also deceptively stringent on player precision to maximize their combat efficiency; a balancing act that always requires you be paying attention and carefully judging when to start the next chain of blows. I've always held the belief that a RPG that can introduce an enticing timing-based mechanic - be it the Judgement Ring of Shadow Hearts or the Fighter-like artes of Tales - has managed to greatly expand its longevity as a result. While simply clicking menus can become tedious after a few hours, having to be constantly alert in order to hit timed sequences correctly means it is harder to lose focus and grow disinterested.

    In addition, the game uses a singular shared resource called XP (or Cross Points; it has nothing to do with actual experience points) that, once this gauge is filled to 100%, allows the player to unleash a special finisher that does a considerable amount of damage to an opponent. XP is also used for the Support skills - each take a specific amount and provide boons like additional movement speed, buffed attack and defense stats and technical stuff like fixing an enemy's launch height or cancelling out their ability to block. It's a versatile resource that becomes vital to balance, but once capped at 100% demands to be used. The items also follow suit: the player can only hold 20 of each type of healing and XP boosting item, so it behooves them to use them liberally before that limit is reached as new pick-ups will otherwise go to waste.

    Graphically the game is dedicated to 2D sprites. This makes sense as there are a lot of characters to animate, quite a few of which from games that were never in 3D to begin with. These animations are all quite good, as each combo involves the many playable characters hopping around and performing quick attacks. Like Disgaea, it does look a bit off whenever the camera dynamically zooms in on a static sprite, but overall the animation and sprite quality is top-notch. Each character also has the customary selection of emotive portraits for dialogue scenes and there's a few well-drawn animated cutaways during the special attacks for each unit as well. The game recognizes that the music is as important to our appreciation and recognition of the various featured games as the characters themselves, so each unit has a selection of leitmotifs from their respective franchises that will start playing whenever their turn rolls around. You might get Volcanic Rim when it's Ken and Ryu's turn to move, but if you joined them with Arthur you might get a remix of the classic Ghouls n' Ghosts Stage 1 theme instead. Considering the number of nostalgia tingles I kept getting, they clearly handled that element adroitly.

    There are problems with the game. Quite a few, even. The first and foremost is the unfortunate reality that the term "fan service" to mean nerdy references, in-jokes and cameos and "fan service" to mean a lot of gratuitous titillation from the many buxom and scantily dressed female characters are often one and the same. I'm not necessarily offended by partial female nudity or dumb "Bunker Buster" boob gags from a few of the more licentious characters like Resonance of Fate's Vashyron or everyone's favorite war/erotica photographer Frank West, but I am made somewhat uncomfortable by being constantly pandered towards. That in order to appreciate a whole bunch of anime and video game references in this weird crossover environment, I need to be treated like a hormonal teenager who has never met a real woman. It's certainly not a dealbreaker - like I said, it all plays out through inoffensively goofy humor and incongruously scintillating cutscenes - but given how hard the game must be trying to find an audience that understands who the hell Ulala is and why the protagonists of Space Harrier, Alien Storm and Fantasy Zone are helping her attack zombies from Zombie Revenge, it doesn't seem like brushing off the half that would not be down for some jiggling gynoid boobs is going to help their case too much. This may well be mountain out of a molehill stuff, but these niche game developers would have a way easier time with things if they acknowledged that whole other half of the market. I could make the case I'm standing up for gender equality, but really this boils down to me wanting them to sell more copies so they feel secure in publishing more games like this in the US and Europe. I'm just a selfish guy who likes his JRPGs, all told.

    As for other issues, there are four chief problems that - when combined - conspire to turn the game into quite a slog at times. The first would be the fact that each unit, as per the rules of any crossover, are equally matched in order to avoid any undue disrespect to one franchise or another by letting them lag behind their rivals; all characters are created equal in any crossover because that's always been the most diplomatic way to handle these sorts of affairs. Unfortunately, the net result of this is that each unit feels largely interchangeable, as besides from a few special skills and the timing on some of their combos they're all more or less equal in strength and damage output. The second problem is that many of the fights are extremely long - you eventually have access to 20 units (which are actually 20 pairs of characters each with a solo support, raising the number of playable characters to 60) and about three-to-five times as many enemies to slog your way through to keep the game's difficulty balanced. In addition, the many recurring boss characters have an inordinate amount of health necessitating a number of direct attacks before they'll finally sulk a little and wander off to return later in the game. Therein lies the third problem: There are less enemy NPCs than there are playable characters, so you'll be seeing the same ones crop up over and over. Many of the regular enemies too, most of which come from the featured games like the Red Arremers of Ghouls n' Ghosts, are also drawn from a small pool and see a lot of palette swaps as they get stronger. The fourth and final problem that I experienced is that the game is simply far too easy for its own good. Healing items/skills are plentiful, most defeat conditions involve keeping a few crucial units out of danger and many of the low-tier enemies will drop after a single combat round. At a grand total of 41 missions, each of which will start to take at least an hour to complete as the party grows and the monster population rises to compensate, this all amounts to making Project X Zone a "play in spurts" type of game. It can be very easy to burn out from too many battles in one sitting.

    Overall though, this is a great game for fans of Sega, Namco Bandai, Capcom or just Strategy RPGs in general. The combat is hard to grow tired of, in spite of how much of it you'll end up seeing; the banter between characters is in turns goofy and mildly amusing; the visuals and music are both really high quality; and the game will definitely justify its cost in overall play-time and then some at 50+ hours. It's also a whole lot of fun to see the Nemesis-T Type and Lord Raptor working together, or to see Dynamite Deka's Bruce Delinger (best known to us as the ersatz John McClane of Die Hard Arcade) trade quips with Morrigan Aensland and Dante. This might also be the only venue where you see characters from Tekken, Rival Schools, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers and Virtua Fighter fighting alongside each other outside of MUGEN. There's an impressive variation in stages, and although there's not much topographical variety it's still a little disorientating (in a good way) to pass through Vesperia's final dungeon between downtown Akihabara and Darkstalkers' disturbing "Fetus of God" stage. This is honestly a very strange, very enjoyable little jaunt through many different game franchises that needs to be seen to be believed. Just make sure you're on its geeky wavelength if you want to get the most out of it.

    Other reviews for Project X Zone (Nintendo 3DS)

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