I spent the majority of my time in Nights of Azure reading text. Normally, that would be a problem with an action RPG like Nights of Azure. There are combo systems and a unique combat hook that would imply that the game cares more about its combat than its story. In this case, that cannot possibly be true. Where Nights of Azure suffers from monotony and a lack of variety in most of its design, it often flourishes in being an endearing love story between Arnice – a half-demon-half-human knight serving the Curia – and Lilysse – a soon-to-be Saint. Unfortunately, endearing only goes so far…
I never found myself particularly interested in the narrative for Nights of Azure. In it, Arnice is a knight who has sworn to carry out the orders of the Curia and protect Lilysse until she can save the world from the Ruler of the Night. It is dangerous to go outside at night, because that is when monsters come out that were created from the torrential downpour of blue blood from the Ruler of the Night. That is what was left behind and now Arnice and Lilysse must try and stop the remnants of evil once and for all. So yeah, it is a Japanese RPG.
What is most interesting in Nights of Azure is its focus on the relationship between Arnice and Lilysse. Friends for a long time, they recently stumble upon each other and their paths become entangled as Lilysse is chosen to be the next Saint. With Japanese voice over and only text translation, there are moments when the game feels like it has lost something in the translation (and there was one moment near the end of the game where it literally was missing some translation), but what is lost is made up for in the voice overs. The conversations between the two protagonists are extremely personal and help build the foundation for their characters’ relationships.
Unfortunately, this is when I have to stop celebrating the game’s character-driven story as the game frequently decides the only thing that matters is the relationship between characters. Lilysse is a klutz who is often relegated to the sideline with the major focus being on Arnice (who players control) and her struggle with being willing to lose Lilysse in order to save the world. It is a struggle that is only defined in that Arnice and Lilysse constantly see each other half-naked in their dreams (and the place where you level up) and that must mean they have a very special relationship that might mean losing Lilysse is not worth saving the world.
I’m boiling it down to its essentials, but the game doesn’t really covey the foundation of their relationship as important. It tells the foundation of it through side content that each detail a moment in their history where one cared for the other. This is not a game that cares about making you feel for the characters’ individual plight but more in the current fragility of their relationship – a fragility that never really feels palpable. And how much does Arnice really care for Lilysse when she absolutely refuses to eat a cupcake made especially for her (a running gag throughout the entire game that is never funny and shows how contrived the relationship can feel at times)?
What is worse is the game’s combat has the same superficial problems. On its surface, it has some cool ideas: monsters can be collected and join a four-member party that will help players out during combat as they hack-and-slash their way through enemies. Until the final boss though, none of the game’s mechanics feel crucial to beating the game. I simply summoned a full party every time I started playing a dungeon, and then jumped into the fray alongside my monsters. I had a monster that could heal who I would use maybe once a dungeon, if that, and when it came time to fight a boss, I might lose one monster but they respawn after a couple minutes that I never felt like the mechanics were well thought out. There’s even a 15-minute time limit on dungeons because of something having to do with exposure to the night being bad, or something. But what happens when the timer runs out? Well, that only happened to me in the final chapter where the timer ran out and the game saved all my progress and when I went back to the dungeon I just continued like nothing had happened. It was just an arbitrary number that meant nothing. It was given narrative context but had no consequences.
That is the major issue is that on its surface Nights of Azure seems like it will be complex and rewarding. You can change your party loadout in between each mission as you rest in the Endo Hotel (your hub between dungeons) and can have multiple loadouts. There is even an arena to test out your combat skills. Plus, each monster and Arnice can wear equipment that will affect their strengths in combat. None of these things ultimately matter. Each monster has its own special ability that can be used, but it doesn’t use enough SP from the SP meter to be considered finite. In fact, I would just spam all my monster’s special abilities at once on a boss or tougher enemy and that would often deal incredible amounts of damage.
But how about Arnice’s combat abilities? It is a hack-and-slash game, which means that you are pretty much relegated to a few button commands. I could swing my sword quickly, charge at enemies, dodge, or use a special attack. Those commands can be combined to create combos that are very limited. There are four weapons which players receive, each with varying attacks per command, but this highlights another issue with the game. Nights of Azure only surfaces new abilities every once in a while. I found many of its tutorials to be clunky and navigating menus was made a little more annoying because the options commands were under were either mistranslated or just not cared about enough.
Arnice does get a cool devil-form due to the blue blood coursing through her veins, which allows for players to become more powerful and provide a little extra damage to enemies. Add that to some of the bosses which require some reflexes to get out of the way of attacks and Nights of Azure provides some stimulating gameplay. Unfortunately, there really is no need to pay much attention to any of these mechanics because there’s no grand reward for it. Loot drops after beating bosses and enemies, or opening chests, but even that is often pointless and far too frequent in appearance.
Many of Nights of Azure‘s problems stem from a refusal to tell the player anything. I’m convinced the game never told me I could guard, and if it did, it only did it once and never felt important until the very end of the game. It wasn’t until the final boss that I even realized I hadn’t been blocking, ever. It wasn’t until I looked at abilities I could get from leveling up that I saw I could have new weapons besides the daggers that were told to me and the sword I had the entire game. Turns out I had a hammer and gun already but was never told what button to press to use them, or even that I had them.
There are some really neat things in Nights of Azure that make for a compelling game – unfortunately, it finds itself constantly at odds with itself. It wants players to use multiple monsters, but it never justifies switching out your party. There are four different weapons Arnice could be using, but the game never tells you when you have two of them. It applies an SP meter to combat, but it never feels like I need to use it all. The game is easy, repetitive, and above all else, self-destructive. Everything is working against each other, and the only part of the game that feels cohesive is its relationship between Arnice and Lilysse – a relationship that the game doesn’t care to build, only to highlight.
A review copy was provided by Koei Tecmo for the purposes of this review.