First Impression:
So I've been on a Bleach fix lately, as those on my friends list would know thanks to the Rock Musical. (Twelve kinds of awesome, I tell ya.) Go figure as I was hyping myself up for this game. Now I'm only a Bleach fan as far as the Soul Society arc. Anything beyond that and I'm not too updated on. Maybe this game can shed some light on it...
Gameplay:
Unlike Bleach Blade of Fate and Dark Souls, The 3rd Phantom is an SRPG. Yes, you heard me right. An SRPG.
Battles are played out on a grid where you move your units beside an enemy to attack them. Fights are done on a one-on-one basis with full renders of your character and their opponent. Characters are classified as Power (Zaraki, Ichigo, Renji, etc), Speed (Hisagi, Soi Fon, Yoruichi, etc) and Tech (Ukitake, Hitsugaya, Rangiku, etc) and interact in a rock paper scissors fashion: power is weak to tech, tech is weak to speed and speed is weak to power. Unless you're a big fan, battles are rather slow as you're watching the same battle animation over and over again. Most people complain about it but I don't mind it all that much, really.
Battles aren't all that hard. During fights, you have options to move, attack an adjacent opponent and use skills but 3rd Phantom adds two other things.
First is the option to charge spiritual pressure. Getting it higher gives a higher chance of getting in a stronger attack during fights. Get it to maximum and characters with bankai can activate it to power up and deal some massive damage.
Bankai is a shinigami-exclusive skill that involves releasing the true power of their weapon. Bankai mode differs with each Shinigami and gives them a nice hefty boost to power and defense. Some characters will summon another heavily powered unit to join the fight and some others will have an altered sprite and new attacks during Bankai.
Another thing is the reiatsu field. All over the map are these brown panels (normally invisible until you press Y) which give a nice boost when you absorb them during Spiritual Pressure charge.
Before the game, you are asked to pick between Fujimaru or Matsuri; a brother and sister shinigami pair. Nothing much changes plot wise no matter who you pick. The only difference being in the shikai form of your zanpakuto which you get much later. Fujimaru, the brother and younger twin is a speed type while his sister Matsuri is a power type.
You can name the character you pick as well as give them a last name... and off you go.
Inbetween battles, you get some graphic novel style dialogue and plot progression. You don't select locations to go to. The game handles that for you. You can say it's more of a "read lotsa dialogue, deploy units on the set up screen and let's go kick some arse" sort of deal.
Some time inbetween parts of a chapter, you get something called Freetime. Kon is seen on the top screen and on the bottom screen are panels with different characters on them. These panels can be selected for scenes with that character and your main character. These scenes can net you some exclusive stat boosting items or raise your compatibility with that character which leads to better team attacks together in battle. These scenes have an AP cost and make Kon move forward a certain number of squares depending on the AP cost. On the way, he can pick up icons which can give you an AP discount for one scene selection, a stat boost for your character or restorative items.
Last words:
The 3rd Phantom is a simple enough game. The battles aren't crazy hard and the characters are well rendered. I'd recommend this for anyone who actually enjoys Bleach. For those who aren't, it's a fun little distraction. Beware for squee moments during the beginning of the game.
Protip:
-Items are hard to come by so make the most of them. You can get them sometimes when you defeat enemies and during Free Time.
-During Free Time, plan out your moves. You only get to keep panels you land on, not panels you pass through.
-You might hit a major snag in Chapter 9. During that battle, I suggest you make use of the suspend save function if Chad's El Diretso doesn't hit. Trust me. You'll WANT it to hit each time.
-If you're having a tough time, remember that free battle (accessible from the system menu on the pre-battle set up screen) is your friend.
---
Rating:
Graphics: 3.5/5
The sprites are well colored and true to the character design. The static images are alright but nothing that blows me out of the water. The fighting games had better renders for the action scenes.
Gameplay: 4/5
Some people complain about it being slow but as I mentioned, I don't mind that all too much. The SRPG scenario is simple enough and what can I say, Free Time is pretty fun because of the scenarios that pop up.
Soundtrack: 3.5/5
Voice acting isn't so grating and the background music is pretty nice. Heavy use of some rock rifts during fights. Seems they recycled sound clips from Dark Souls...
The Look and Feel: 4/5
Everything's right there. The top screen is used during battles as a map and to display stats and levels of whatever your cursor's on which is pretty handy considering the SRPG setup.
Rating: 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment