Review #180: Project X Zone

 Thank you based Namco. I think...

 Oh, Project X Zone, how I had longed for thee. There were so many fan favorite characters from Capcom, Namco and... some from Sega(Really, they could've made better picks. Shinobi(Joe/Hotsuma/Hibana/Jiro)? Kiryu? Sonic?), all joint together in one game. It seemed like a dream come true. Seemed.  Project X Zone is a game I'm glad we got, but I doubt it's the game many of us wanted....

 Project X Zone is an Strategy RPG in which you battle. And only do battle. Quite literally, it's the only thing you do in the game, have a battle, go to the preparation menu, engage in another battle, rinse and repeat. There's a story that ties everything together, but it's really, really stupid. Firstly, it focuses on Monolith's original characters, which are terrible. The three males are disgustingly overdone, and the three females were made just for fanservice sake, I don't care about these cardboard characters, so stop shoving them to the forefront. There's also the fact that you'll battle the same 15-20 bosses throughout the entire game, and every time you defeat them "Gee whiz, look at the time, got to go". "I bought them enough time.", "Everything is going according to plan, gotta go" and the such. The story is terrible, it has a misguided focus on the original characters that nobody bought the game for and the villains are as corny, cliched and stupid as the get. All we needed was so dumb thread connecting the characters we know and love, if the story is so dumb, you don't need to bring it up on every friggin' chapter.

 As previously mentioned, there's nothing in the game to do but battling. The game also flows in a strictly linear fashion, you can't replay older stages or train for levels or items, which I guess means you could potentially get yourself in a unwinnable scenario with no items, even though the game is pretty generous with them. The game has 41 stages or 'chapters', and each chapter is a battle. Initially battles are pretty short, but after stage 12, every chapter will last between an hour and half an hour. You are allowed one Interim Save in case you really need to go, or want to abuse the RNG. At the start, I liked stages being swarming with enemies and lasting so long, but the game is very repetitive and gets pretty boring after a while, making these hour-long chapters very unwelcome. Speaking of enemies, you always have control of up to 21 units(Some chapters will separate the party) and will face up to 90 enemies, sometimes in waves. As tedious as it is, I admit at first it feels pretty... epic, huge battles against huge numbers. Regardless of the daunting numbers, the game is pretty easy overall, bosses will attack and counter with attacks that will take about 2/3 of your life bar, but you get many opportunities to heal, and healing items are plentiful, so it evens out.

 The game's Combat system is both its best feature and its worst. Characters are divided into Solo and Pair units. Pair units are the ones that do the brunt of the damage, and you can pair them up with Solo Units, that you call upon with the L button to perform an attack during your turn. Pair units have 4 attacks, a Super Attack, can call a support Solo Unit and call a Support Attack from nearby friendly units, if available. There's also 'Skills' that you can use on the field, which include healing and buffing, which consume 'XP', a gauge shared between all units that is filled by dealing and receiving damage. All four normal attacks are performed with A+Directional Input, attacks are flashy and look amazing, as both units attack in tandem, using very familiar moves if you are invested in the unit's franchise. The objective is to keep an enemy unit juggled with your attacks, if they touch the ground you will lose your combo, which means losing the Experience bonus, and later in the game, even normal enemies will have "shield" gauges, which restore upon touching the ground and allows them to nullify some of your hits. It sounds awesome, and it sounds fun, but... imagine doing more or less the same combos to over 60 enemy units per battle, and animations are lengthy, particularly the once-impressive Special Moves, as fun as the combat is at the start, the battles just get tedious. After chapter 30, even most Normal enemies will be able to take more than a full round of your attacks unless you use an unskippable Special Move.

 And that's the game's problem, by chapter 20 you will have seen everything the game has to offer, except the last boss. Quite literally, the bosses you fight at the start of the game are the same bosses you will face up to Chapter 41. They will use the same attacks even. And you'll be doing the same combos over and over and over again. One thing I didn't like is that every now and then the party will split, which I don't really mind, but so will the Solo Units. Sometimes finding a Solo Unit that has good synergy with a Pair unit isn't easy, and it isn't nice when that gets shuffled around and then you have to remember how you had them paired, for when the party reunites. On the bright side, the game is very lengthy, I clocked over 46 hours, so you'll definitely get your money's worth. The most advisable thing to do is not to more than one or two chapters per day(that's 2-3 hours of gameplay!), spread your time with the game to try to avoid letting repetition sinking in.

 The game looks fantastic, sprites are detailed, and the animation is very smooth. One thing that bothered me is how much fanservice they put in the game. Whenever you use Special Moves, you get close ups of the characters, and while the guys end up looking badass, most females have the camera sliding through their thighs, or focusing on their bouncing breasts. There's also lots of lines focusing on fan service. It's funny, because most of these games aren't known for fanservice, which makes you wonder just who the intended audience for this game was? The music is phenomenal, having remixes of  well known music from throughout the involved franchises, very cool. Voice acting is pretty decent, Japanese only, and while I'm not sure if every role is reprised by the original voice actor, the franchises I'm familiar had them.

 At the end of the day, I am glad that we got the game, it sets a precedent for crossovers like these, it allows Namco(and other companies) to test the waters. However, as much as I like getting the game, it is not a very good game. It's passable, it's fun in small bursts, but it's so misguided in focused, so limited in approach and while the combat is fun, at first, it can't carry a 40+ hour game by itself.
 4.5 out of 10.