2005: Dan’s List of Vita RPGs

This is one of those posts I write specifically to respond to something someone asked me recently where Twitter or chat messages aren’t a particularly ideal solution to give an answer. In most cases, though, people other than the original person who asked can also get something out of my response, so I post it here.

In this case, my good friend Dan Lipscombe enquired as to whether I could give him any Vita RPG recommendations.

Well, of course I can!

Here goes, then. Some Vita RPGs that are either well-regarded or that I have personally enjoyed. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means!

Persona 4 Golden

This is the one everyone recommends, and with good reason; it’s great. Even if you played the original Persona 4 on PlayStation 2, Golden is worth playing due to its amount of additional content and tweaked gameplay.

If you’re unfamiliar with Persona 4, it’s a combination of murder mystery, school life simulator, dungeon crawler and Pokemon. Taking on the role of a transfer student to a school out in the sticks of Japan, you start investigating a spate of strange murders that sees people disappearing then showing up a few days later hung upside down from television aerials. It’s up to you and your school friends to discover the truth behind what is going on, which is far stranger than you might expect.

Persona 4 Golden is an excellent game that has transcended its originally niche appeal to become a truly mainstream title that most people have heard of by now. It’s well worth playing through to completion — though be warned, it is long. Like, 80+ hours long, even if you don’t do much of the optional side content. It’s a journey well worth taking, though, and the lengthy slog makes the characters’ personal journeys all that more meaningful.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth

There are three Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games on Vita. There’s no real requirement to play them in order, since they’re self-contained stories that don’t really have anything to do with each other, but playing them in order will give you a better understanding of the characters — plus an appreciation for how the series has continually grown, developed and changed for the better over time.

Neptunia’s concept is based on anthropomorphised game consoles going about their business in the land of Gamindustri. The three games’ stories veer off in different directions, but there are usually strong anti-piracy messages involved, along with commentary on not forgetting the past, the futility of fanboyism and general satire of both games industry and anime culture.

The Neptunia games are occasionally clunky, sometimes balanced questionably and not the most technically impressive games you will ever see — but my God, are they ever charming and delightful, not to mention rare examples of comedy and satire in games actually working well.

Hyperdevotion Noire

A spinoff of the main Neptunia series, Hyperdevotion Noire focuses on PlayStation personification Noire and gives the tsundere princess her own personal story. Unlike the regular Neptunia series, Noire is a strategy RPG a la Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. A wide cast of characters, each of whom personify a well-known Japanese game series (such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Resident Evil) all have unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and “gimmicks” in each stage force you to think a lot more strategically than “charge at the enemy and cut them down in order”.

I’m not normally very good at strategy RPGs, but Noire is accessible, fun and enjoyable — plus it continues the series tradition of good humour, charm and satire, and Noire is absolutely a strong enough character to carry her own game.

Demon Gaze

If you liked old-school dungeon-crawlers on PC — I’m talking stuff like Wizardry, Lands of Lore and Might & Magic — then you might want to give Demon Gaze a shot. Creating your own custom party of adventurers, you venture forth into an array of dungeons to battle terrible demons, capture them and make use of their power.

In between your adventures, there’s a delightful little soap opera going on in the inn that you and your party call your home, with a cast of colourful characters getting up to all manner of mischief. It’s a lovely blend of the narrative-centric approach that more conventional Japanese RPGs tend to take, and the mechanics-centric, challenge-heavy nature of first-person “gridder” dungeon crawlers. It also has absolutely gorgeous artwork, and an unconventional but enormously catchy soundtrack that makes use of Vocaloid voice synthesisers.

Operation Abyss

I haven’t actually played this one yet, but it’s on my shelf; given that it’s from the same folks who made Demon Gaze, though, it’s a fair bet that it will be similarly good, and the people I know who have played it have enjoyed it a whole lot.

Trails in the Sky

Technically a PSP game, this is downloadable and playable on Vita, and well worth your time. Following the adventures of Estelle and her adoptive brother Joshua as they attempt to become full-fledged “Bracers” — essentially state-supported mercenaries — Trails in the Sky is a sprawling adventure with a beautifully crafted world, some wonderful writing and a fun battle system.

The game blends the sidequest-centric nature of Western RPGs with the more linear storytelling typically found in Japanese RPGs to great effect. The sidequests each have their own little stories and characters to explore, and really help the world to feel truly alive.

Criminal Girls

This one won’t be for everyone due to its relatively explicit sexuality, particularly exploration of sadomasochistic themes. If you can deal with that sort of content, though — along with the fact it’s very obviously a PSP port — Criminal Girls tells a fascinating tale of personal redemption for a colourful cast of characters as they come to terms with traumatic experiences from their past and attempt to move beyond them.

Criminal Girls is noteworthy for its exploration of “trust” through both its narrative and its mechanics — I wrote in more detail on this topic here.

Akiba’s Trip

Not an RPG in the typical sense, Akiba’s Trip is most akin to Sega’s Yakuza series in that it provides an open world that covers a relatively small geographical area — in this case, Tokyo’s Akihabara district — and a ton of things to do, plus a nigh-unparalleled sense of atmosphere thanks to its detailed world.

Thrown into the underworld by your discovery of — and recruitment into — the ranks of the “Synthisters” (essentially synthetic vampires), it’s your job to find out where this scourge has come from and put a stop to it — while simultaneously keeping your little sister happy, taking photos for tourists and attempting to end up in the arms of one of the game’s lovely leading ladies.

Akiba’s Trip has fun brawler-style combat with a huge selection of upgradeable weapons ranging from baseball bats to bus stop signs and computer monitors. Combat involves smacking Synthisters around a bit until they’re in a position where you can grab their clothes and rip them off them, which exposes them to sunlight and, in true vampire tradition, causes them to combust.

Steins;Gate

This isn’t an RPG at all, but if you own a Vita (or PS3… or PC) and haven’t read this extraordinary visual novel, you need to right now. Blending real-world urban myths (such as the legend of John Titor and questions of what CERN are really up to with that big underground particle accelerator) with a creative yet plausible interpretation of how time travel and parallel worlds might work, Steins;Gate follow the adventures of an impressively unreliable narrator as he tries his best to stop something horrible happening to someone he cares about.

Here’s a full review of it.

There are tons more great RPGs and visual novels available on Vita, but I’ve rambled on for over 1,200 words now, so that should be enough to get you started. Hope you enjoy at least some of these!

1919: #WaifuWednesday – Shin (Criminal Girls)

The temptation to pick another Senran Kagura girl this week was very high indeed — I’ve just finished the main story of Shinovi Versus and there are, after all, 25 very interesting female characters in that game. But since I’m planning on doing a more comprehensive Senran Kagura writeup over at MoeGamer later this week when I’ve finished all the side stories in Shinovi Versus, I thought I’d mix things up a bit and show a bit of appreciation for the girl who currently graces my Windows wallpaper on my living room PC: Shin, from Criminal Girls on Vita, which I beat a few weeks back.

Spoilers ahead.

Shin, real name Makoto, is based primarily around the commonly used anime trope of the hikikomori, or shut-in. A renowned, well-known and somewhat notorious MMO player who was viciously bullied in real life for her interests and passions, Shin had, over time, retreated from society to live in her own private world where she felt safe. She’d done this to the exclusion of everyone around her — going so far as to lock herself inside her room and only eat whatever food had been left outside for her.

When you encounter Shin for the first time in Criminal Girls, none of this is apparent. She simply seems like an overconfident “leader type”, wanting to boss everyone around and, as the oldest member of the group, believing that her opinion carries a considerable degree of weight. Her “leader type” personality is even reflected in her game mechanics; by herself, she’s not very formidable, but most of her power comes from her “Operation” skills, which partner with at least one other party member to effectively deliver multiple special attacks in the space of a single turn.

Over time, her facade slips, however; she continually makes poor decisions that put the group in danger, and throwaway comments she makes gradually reveal her otaku side. It eventually becomes very apparent that she’s trying desperately to be someone that she isn’t, and that by hiding herself away she’s hurting the people around her.

The main thrust of Criminal Girls’ story surrounds the player’s attempts to “redeem” the titular girls from their past sins, to prevent them being incarcerated in Hell and giving them another chance at life. Shin’s sin, then, is that of neglecting others; she personifies the Deadly Sin of Envy. She envies those who have a normal life and is embittered by her drop-out, shut-in existence; the arrogant persona she initially displays is both a reflection of the character she played online and of who she thinks she “ought” to be — a persona she believes to be more likeable.

As the girls and the player character come to trust one another more, though, Shin starts to open up. She’s more honest and less confrontational, though she still bickers with the rather spoiled Kisaragi; the two are more similar than either of them would care to admit. Most importantly, she learns through others accepting her that it is also possible to accept herself without being ashamed; there’s no need for her to cut herself off from her problems and hide away. In doing so, in fact, she had simply made matters worse; the longer she was alone, the more she believed she needed to be alone, and so her resentment and envy towards “normal” people grew.

Those of you who know me well will surely not be surprised to hear that I found Shin to be one of the most relatable characters in Criminal Girls. While I haven’t gone to the lengths she has — I’m fortunate enough to have a good circle of friends (both online and off) and a wonderful fiancee who tolerate, understand and accept the things I’m interested in — I can very much empathise with her feelings of isolation, the suffering she endured while she was being bullied and her envy for people who seem to be able to go about their business “normally”. I’ve been through some of the things Shin has been through — though fortunately in my case it didn’t involve a literal trip to Hell and back — and as such she occupies a special place in my heart.

A toast to you, then, Shin; you were one of numerous reasons I’m glad I made that journey through Hell.

1881: Path to Redemption

I’m in the process of finishing up Criminal Girls: Invite Only on Vita, and I’ve been really pleasantly surprised how good it ended up being. I’m planning on writing something a bit more in-depth for MoeGamer when I’ve beaten it properly, but I thought I’d share a few thoughts on here for those who don’t visit MoeGamer, or for those who just want to hear some disjointed ramblings about it now.

It’s easy to write Criminal Girls off as an oversexualised mess of an RPG, with a gratutiously exploitative minigame in which you spank, electrocute, drip liquid on and tickle a series of young women posing in suggestive positions. And indeed, even with the “pink mist” censorship introduced in the Western release of the game (and the loss of the girls’ voices in these sequences) these sequences are pretty clearly sexual in nature: everything from the poses they’re in to the provocative outfits they wear and their reactions after you’ve, uh, finished — all point to something that while it isn’t outright explicit, is certainly rather close to the, if you’ll pardon the expression, bone.

But, as with most material of this nature, it bears further exploration, and doing so reveals something a lot more interesting. Why are these sequences there in the first place? From a gameplay perspective, you’re expected to complete them in order to unlock the girls’ new abilities through five different “tiers”, with each tier involving a slight variation on the touchscreen-based minigame. From a narrative perspective, you’re “motivating” these girls — who are dead and in Hell, but being given a second chance — to try harder in their struggle for redemption, though in the original Japanese script, still audible through the Japanese-only voice acting, the wording was おしおき (oshioki: punishment) rather than “motivation”. If we’re being super-picky, we’re not actually spanking, electrocuting, dribbling on and tickling the girls themselves; in the minigame you’re removing “temptations” from their bodies via various means, and the removal of these “temptations” allows them to take a step closer to being free of sin and becoming “Blameless”.

Interestingly, the girls’ reactions to this treatment changes significantly throughout the course of the game. Early on, they react with fear and anger when you approach them with the intention of indulging in some “motivation time” and clench their teeth in pain afterwards; by the end of the game, however, they’re starting to sound like they’re actually enjoying themselves, even going so far as to praise you in some instances.

This can be interpreted in a number of different ways, not all of them positive, but given the themes of the game’s narrative as a whole, it’s pretty apparent that this is symbolic of the growing level of trust between these “delinquents” and the player-protagonist self-insert character. By the end of the game, they trust the player-protagonist completely, and are aware that the removal of their temptations brings them closer to redemption, in turn making them more powerful and more likely to succeed. A turning point in the story comes with all of the main cast confronting the sins that landed them in Hell in the first place, and it’s only through the bonds of trust they’ve built between one another and with the player-protagonist that they’re able to make it through this experience unscathed.

I’m yet to see how the story reaches its several conclusions, but I’m very interested to find out. It has been, for sure, one of the most unusual role-playing games I’ve played for a long time, both in gameplay and narrative terms, and one that I feel I’ll be remembering for quite some time after it’s left my Vita.

And no, not just for the kinky pictures.

1859: Invite Only

Been playing a bit more Criminal Girls this week, and I’m enjoying it a lot, despite its flaws. (Said flaws, if you were wondering, include somewhat repetitive dungeon design, an encounter rate that is a little too high to be comfortable, battles that take a little too long/move too slowly/both and the strong necessity for grinding that will be required to unlock all the girls’ abilities.)

The absolute best thing about it is its atmosphere. Although the in-game visuals are PSP-level pixel art (sharply contrasting with the high-resolution character portraits, battle graphics and other visuals), they’re evocative and distinctive, and the individual sprites have a lot of character about them, particularly in idle animations. When combined with the music and background sound, the game has a wonderfully palpable sense of menace about it — entirely appropriate for a game set in the depths of Hell.

In fact, the atmosphere and presentation bring to mind another game: Corpse Party. Criminal Girls is a (relatively) traditional RPG compared to Corpse Party’s visual-novel-that-looks-like-an-RPG nature, of course, but in terms of atmosphere the two are quite similar. There’s a sense that something unpleasant could happen at any moment, and a lovely juxtaposition between the often light-hearted banter between characters and the unpleasant things that are going on around them.

The characters keep things interesting, too. At the beginning of the game, you don’t know anything about them, aside from their personalities. Initially, there’s Kisaragi, who is seemingly full of rage and obsessed with materialism; there’s the shy, childish Alice, who is one of the most adorable characters I’ve ever had in my party in any game ever; there’s the determined, tomboyish Sako; and there’s the obviously older, man-hating Ran. As the game progresses, additional girls join the group, and they each have their own distinct personalities — and, presumably, dark pasts — to discover.

The setup is immediately intriguing. Why are these girls in Hell? Why are they getting a chance to redeem themselves? Why have you been brought in to lead and “motivate” them? What do you get out of the whole situation? (Aside from being able to perv at the girls in a variety of costumes while you spank, electrocute and do various other S&M-ish things to the “temptations” that infest their bodies, of course, which is probably reward enough in itself for many people.)

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions yet, but I’m enjoying the process of discovery. And this is one thing Criminal Girls does well. The dungeons may be somewhat blandly designed, but it’s satisfying and fun to explore them and find their hidden treasures. Discovering how new skills work after a successful “motivation” session is enjoyable and interesting — particularly with the game’s idiosyncratic battle system, in which you simply take suggestions from the girls rather than micromanaging them. And discovering more about what is shaping up to be a very interesting cast of characters is providing plenty of incentive for me to want to push onwards and find out the truth.

I’m enjoying it a lot, then. It’s keeping me entertained enough that I now have copies of both Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 and Hyperdevotion Noire — both highly, highly anticipated games for me — and haven’t yet popped them in my Vita for even a quick look yet. And I fully intend to see it through to the end before I indulge myself in more Neptunia than I know what to do with!

1855: Redemption

Having Platinumed Akiba’s Trip — and a lot of fun it was, too, thanks very much — I started on my next non-Final Fantasy XIV game, Criminal Girls.

Criminal Girls drew some attention when it was first announced due to some seriously lewd scenes in which the player character “motivates” the titular girls through some touchscreen-based S&M play. It then drew some further attention when it was revealed that the localisation would seemingly obscure these scenes with pink fog and cut out the somewhat… suggestive voice acting. (As it happens, the voice acting is indeed gone, but as you progress the pink fog does fade away, revealing what’s underneath.)

As so often tends to be the case with games that draw attention for their pervier elements, however, Criminal Girls has plenty of interesting stuff going on that doesn’t involve spanking. It’s a 2D, retro-style RPG of the 16/32-bit mould, and thus far — I’m only an hour or two in so far — it seems to be most intriguing.

At the game’s outset, you, as the participant narrator-protagonist, find yourself newly employed by the forces of Hell and presented with a selection of young female “delinquents” who have the opportunity to be redeemed and resurrected if they can successfully pass the “four trials” and climb the tower in which they’re incarcerated. It’s your job to escort them on this journey and see where things go from there. Along the way, you’ll fight monsters, solve puzzles and, as previously mentioned, indulge in a bit of naughtiness in the name of “motivation”.

So far so Japanese. Thus far it’s an intriguing setup, with the four initial girls not immediately revealing why they have been incarcerated or what their “delinquency” involved. There’s also a suggestion early on that things are not quite going as expected in Hell, with the “convict” monsters showing up in places where they’re not supposed to. Doubtless all will be revealed — in narrative terms, pervert — as the story progresses, and I’m interested to see how it goes.

What’s probably the most interesting thing about Criminal Girls is its combat system. While nothing particularly fancy presentation-wise — in fact, it’s one of the most visually bland combat systems I’ve seen, although the chibi representations of the girls are cute — the execution is the intriguing thing here. Unlike most RPGs, where you have the opportunity to micromanage what every party member is doing, in Criminal Girls you only have four options each turn, and that determines what the whole party will be doing. The available options are determined by which abilities the girls have learned through “motivation” sessions, and simply what they feel like doing on any given turn. Initially, the girls will simply refuse to do anything, but as they’re motivated they’ll unlock more and more abilities, and each turn it’s simply a case of deciding which of the four suggestions the girls offer you is the most appropriate: do you go for an all-out attack with multiple members, or do you allow an individual to do something a little more special? So far it’s simple, but I anticipate it becoming a very interesting system as the game progresses and more abilities open up.

I can’t say a lot more about it yet as I’ve only played the opening section. I’m looking forward to discovering more about it, though; perviness aside (which I have absolutely no problem with, as you know) it’s shaping up to be one of the more unconventional takes on the RPG genre I’ve played for quite some time.