Anime Battle Princess

1. Aurora Battle Princess, Perio Turquoise
2. Princess Of Battle

Readers, a lot of you are fans of Nippon Ichi Software (NIS). Me too! Most of the time! As fans, we all know NIS has its tried and true, goofball strategy RPG thing going for it, but every now and then the folks there like to try something new. Lord knows they don’t ever seem to run out of money, so more power to them. In just the past handful of years, we’ve seen roguelikes (

The setup here is largely in-one-ear-and-out-the-other, silly anime-style nonsense, with the standout detail being the main character’s brother is a duck (because video games). The duck sends you out on missions to kill things, and as the titular Battle Princess, you’re generally pretty good at doing that. So, off you go, into very gorgeous, fairy tale-esque, side-scrolling levels, beating the tar out of everything in sight. You gain more supporting characters as you progress, and one of the big hooks is the ability to bring two of them along with you, switching on the fly as you please. Options are always a big plus in games like this.

During normal levels, Battle Princess handles about like you would expect it to. Jumping, light and heavy attacks, items and special skills are all at your disposal, and you can do some crazy combo stuff once you figure out how everything works together. Pretty standard, fast-paced brawler fun. The controls seem responsive, the animations are odd but functional, and the enemy designs can be a lot of fun. Things get weird when the time comes to fight a boss, however.

Aurora Battle Princess, Perio Turquoise

Bosses are of the enormous, overpowered variety, and Battle Princess not only makes you work for your wins no matter how many levels you grind, but it also significantly shakes up the way you play the game. Suddenly, you have an army backing you up instead of a couple extra playable characters, and they are right there in the mix doing what they can to help you whittle away at the gargantuan beasties’ ridiculous health bars. It is your job, in the midst of combat, to manage your units as best you can to ensure both their safety and maximum combat efficiency.

At the press of a few buttons, you can switch up your army’s tactics, which generally controls the pace of the fight. Sometimes you need to be on the defensive to regain control of the situation, other times you need to order your people to fall back and recover, leaving you alone with the boss for a few minutes. If you keep on top of things, your army can be a great asset, jabbing away at your enemy and breaking its guard, giving you an opening to bring some major pain.

Sounds good so far, but the bosses are quite unforgiving. I’m not normally one to complain about difficulty, but the way the boss battle plays out tends to expose, then ruthlessly exploit, one of the major mechanical flaws of the game. The pace of battle and animations may seem fast of the surface, but in reality, you cannot cancel your animations to defend and they take

The Lewd +18 Strategy Game

To resolve. If a boss lands a single hit on you, you are knocked away and take considerable damage. So while you’re managing your army, you also have to play this tedious game of hit-and-run as you try to deal some damage in between bouts of guarding.

In normal play, things usually work out because enemies also have hit stun, so while you still have to be careful, you have the freedom to explore your offense a lot, as is necessary for brawlers to be fun. Boss fights have super armor until you can finally stun them for a moment, however, so the game screeches to a halt during what should be the more exciting moments. Bosses end up being less about you, the player, and more about managing your army.

Will certainly have its audience, especially those looking for more of a patient, cerebral approach in their Japanese action games. I, however, have a pretty unwavering set of expectations when it comes to brawlers, and while it comes very close, the messy boss encounters just don’t do it for me. The style is great, the characters are fun and I’m down with a lot of the ideas here, I just would’ve loved a bit more in the way of defensive options. Especially in a game that wants me to be so defensive!

Princess Of Battle

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