Post by Bramblett05 on Nov 18, 2014 16:44:10 GMT
The vita has some Monster Hunter type games in it's library and now chalk up another with the very hyped up Freedom Wars from SCE Japan Studio, Dimps and Shift. How does it stack up with the others? Well....
The story is you are sentenced to 1,000,000 years for having a bad memory(take that cliche JRPGs) and in order to reduce the sentence and be free you must be a mercenary and do some work. The contracts are in a little variety like eliminate a certain enemy, hold areas for a certain time and rescue a certain amount of civilians. You have restrictions based on your CODE level and as the story goes and you complete the things to level it up, for instance level up your facilities to the next level, you can take the CODE exam. It's not automatic and goes with the story so don't think you're missing something when everything is checked off.
The missions have you with team members which are actually good A.I. members but you can play them online which is the strong point in the game. There is special missions that have you taking on only one Abductor but don't let that fool you into thinking it's a cakewalk.....it's not. You also have VS missions with the area you choose and protecting the city but I haven't tried it yet so I can't really comment on it but the online works surprisingly well. Your team members and you use thorns which signify a color that makes them a "class" which goes: green for healers, white for shields and red for attackers. How you set it up is all on you but you can also level them up with the points called CP that you get by completing the missions.
Among leveling you also can gain the right to rest and in not doing so well you tack on years to your sentence and doing other things like running and talking to the opposite gender will also add years unless you earn that right. You can upgrade weapons and after reaching weapon level five you can upgrade it to a different color model which offers you elemental attack. The big thing is after missions items,weapons and upgrade items in red means you can't take those with the current item level and doing so adds years to your sentence until you increase that level.
Graphics are really good with an anime cartoonish look and the enemies though only a few, do more than just add a new color(looking at you final fantasy). There's some great story though only in bits, does get bigger in later chapters but having to do the "go here, now here, backtrack here and talk to this person" does get old after the 10th time or more. You can rewatch the CG's as you unlock them and after you reach a certain level with your CODE you can even change the battle music though it's weird you can do that LATER than NOW. The PSN store does have DLC in means of cosmetics and weapons but no story DLC yet but maybe in the future but doubtful though could be nice seeing something of that sort down the road.
It's a challenging and highly fun game with a strong point on MP but the offline shines well on its own and this title will have players playing for months if not years to reduce their sentence and follow a strong story that even out shines the other MH type games out there. It doesn't hold your hand either so don't worry about tons of tutorials and just go straight for the meat of the game. It's a classic and one of the great games on vita hands down.
Score: 10 out of 10