Many hardcore gamers are loving the influx of JRPG’s that have been gracing our shores in recent months, and we have NIS America to thank for a majority of them. Mugen Souls Z is the latest of their localized games, and I will forewarn you, I’ve not played the series predecessors so I had no idea what I was getting into when I started playing this game. That isn’t a bad thing actually as it’s good when gamers branch out of their comfort zone and into the unknown. Before I started playing though, I didn’t actually know I was leaving my comfort zone seeing that I’ve played several recent localized JRPG’s, but Mugen Souls Z, while sticking to the usual genre formula, is vastly different to me. Once again, this is not a bad thing, but I’m here so that you know what you are getting into when you spend your hard earned dollars, and this just may be what your wallet ordered.
The story begins by giving you a brief overview of the last game and how Chou-Chou, the last title’s protagonist, has set her sights on another universe to conquer, one with twelve worlds. Each one of the worlds is linked to one of the twelve Zodiac signs and the worlds are ruled by a God that shares that Zodiac’s trait. These twelve Gods were once one giant God but got broken into twelve different Gods. We meet Chou-Chou at the start of her quest to conquer these worlds, and she meets Syrma, an Ultimate God, and Nao, a hero in training. That’s where the antics begin, Chou-Chou is sucked into Syrma’s mystical coffin and her powers are greatly diminished because of it. They figure out that to restore Chou-Chou back to her former glory they must capture all the Ultimate Gods in the coffin, so that some of their power will go back in Chou-Chou. Syrma carries this coffin around in hopes of finding more Ultimate Gods to trap in it and that is your main mission in the game: to traverse the worlds in your ship and trap each one of the God’s in the coffin to restore Chou-Chou to full vitality.
The ship in the game is pretty amazing, and acts as the hub world. In the ship’s lobby you can purchase medicines, armor, weapons and so forth. As you progress through the game you unlock more shops to purchase from and more people to interact with and receive gifts from. The coolest part of the ship however is when you get to battle in it. Instead of being just a typical boring space battle, you get to fight with Voltron. Sadly the ship doesn’t transform into that historical robot, but it does transform into one that is to be reckoned with. You are given opportunities to fight as the mech, with the battle system being a turn based one and consisting of three categories to chose from: Attack, Defense and Support. They are pretty self explanatory, but the battle system makes things interesting by letting the player figure out which Attack would do the most damage. In my experience the “pierce” attack works the best and slays your enemies very easily. Defense allows you to drain heath points and special points from your opponent, and Support allows you to restore HP and SP points, allowing you to also use Reflect to bounce the enemies attack back at them. This battle system is fairly easy to grasp and you will be conquering space in the no time.
The controls are pretty easy to grasp if you’ve played any 3rd person JRPG in your lifetime so I won’t bore you with those details. The combat is also again pretty standard turned based controls: you pick what you want to do in battle then wait your turn to do it. You can attack, which deals little damage, or use a skill that generally takes more hit-points away but uses up your skill points fast and you can also run away and use items, like in other JRPG’s. What makes this battle system different to me is the crystals that are layed out on the battlefield. These crystals, which cannot be picked up or moved, have a circle emanating from them and if you stand in that circle while battling, you gain the positive or negative effect of the crystal. For instance some crystals may offer health as you battle, but be warned if your enemy is in the crystal’s circle it will too benefit from it.
These crystals make you think on the battlefield; instead of just slashing and using skills you have to get your enemy to move to certain parts of the battlefield before attacking to take advantage of the crystals power. Another unique addition to battle is that Syrma can turn monsters on the fighting ground into peons that will aid you later in the game. To turn the enemy into a peon you must make them love you by choosing what action to say to them. If you chose you can also turn them into rare weapons, or if you fail they become enraged and harder to deal with. This leads us to another way to battle: Syrma can change her personalities to help make the peons faster. Some enemies will be more prone to liking a Sadist Syrma instead of normal Syrma, which makes changing them so much easier. Once you figure that trick out, battles are easy and your ship becomes all the more powerful.
The graphics of the game are not very impressive unfortunately and while the cut scenes are nice to watch even though they’re just 2D renders of the characters, the gameplay graphics are somewhat uninspired. Wandering around the worlds isn’t really interesting, it looks the same, and you can get lost if you don’t play close attention to your map because there aren’t any markers for you to judge where you are. Seeing as this is a current gen game one would hope the visuals would be more majestic like those of Final Fantasy or The Last of Us, but sadly there are not, and leave very much to be desired. However when I was traversing the worlds I had a pang of nostalgia, some of the character models reminded me a bit of Final Fantasy VII, so while not photo-realistic, the graphics may still appeal to some. The sound and music are well done, but they are very similar to The Witch and the Hundred Knight. I heard some music chords that seemed to be pulled from that NIS release and moved over to this one, which isn’t a detriment at all as I enjoyed both Hundred Knight‘s soundtrack and this one immensely. The voice over actors from Hundred Knight also seem to find their way into this game as well. I distinctly heard some familiar voices coming out of unfamiliar faces but these actors and actresses do a great job with their lines and there is definitely no phoning it in.
Mugen Souls Z seems like the type of game you play once, for a very long time, then never again. While this isn’t a bad thing, I see no replay value to this game unless you are a hardcore JRPG fan and just can’t get enough of these limited releases. To me this a very difficult game, which I’m assuming is because I’m somewhat a newcomer to hardcore JRPG’s, so I have some challenges when adapting to their unique style of play. I met one of the first bosses very early in the game, I was maybe a level 2 and this boss was insanely built up. I got destroyed numerous times until I realized that it was time to grind, and grind I did. I would battle some foes, then return to my ship to rest and regain my health, then back out onto the field getting into more battles, gaining more and more experience. I’m not used to that in a game, it’s not how I deal with boss problems, but in this game that is what you must do: level up over and over until you are beefy, then go kick some boss brains in. To some gamers that may be a turn off, they’re in for the quick kill and move on, but to JRPG fans this is your gaming bag. Battling over and over for hours and getting as strong as you can be, until no boss can end your party.
While I am extremely thankful for localizations of unique and outside of the box Japanese RPG’s, this one may not be everyones cup of tea. I am in the newbie category for JRPG’s, I’ve wanted to get into them for a long time, and luckily life has lead me to many great ones at the moment. This one I would have been much happier to see a few years into my JRPG binge but right now I’m a different kind of gamer and my thought processes doesn’t mesh with with this type of title. However, that does not mean that I did not enjoy my time with it, nor am I saying not to try it out. Just carry this warning with you: if you are new to the genre, Mugen Souls Z will be a tough one to get you started. Perhaps picking up The Witch and the Hundred Knight would be better as it’s the same publisher and a similar game, but much easier for you to grasp and understand on your path to JRPG fandom. For hardcore enthusiasts of the genre you should pick this up, it’s another great addition to your shelf and you’ll gain many, many hours of fun gaming time with this purchase.