Written by Natalie Houghton
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is a new IP released in
Europe by NIS America which follows the story of a third year student who has
just transferred in to Kurenai Academy. Things move very quickly as you are
introduced to a number of classmates straight away, one of these is Masamune
Shiga - a wheelchair bound ace student who as it turns out, provides you with
support and intelligence during battle. You also meet Sayuri Mifune, the rather
reserved and slightly stand-offish class president who immediately gives you a
tour of the building where low and behold, you encounter your first ghost. At
almost exactly the same time, Shiga and a mysterious woman turn up and you end
up tagging along to exorcise the ghost.
This woman turns out to be Chizuru Fukurai - the CEO of
an occult publishing company known as Gate Keepers. To the legitimate world,
they publish an occult magazine every now and then, however their real job is
to take on exorcisms and exorcise ghosts for a fee. You and Sayuri join Gate
Keepers as you both have the ability to see ghosts - this concludes the first
chapter of the game.
In total there are 13 different chapters lasting
approximately 30mins to 1hr each, each chapter is a standalone story in its own
right, although they do all tie together at the end of the game. Each chapter
has a slightly different theme - from murdering vengeful spirits to ghosts who
simply want to hear a song performed before they rest in peace.
There is an incredibly wide cast of characters which
ensures that the dialogue never gets stale with approximately one new character
being introduced per chapter, there are Otaku, Yakuza, Magicians, Shrine
Maidens, Bishounen, Gay twins and even taciturn Chess obsessives. Unfortunately,
given the length of each chapter and the amount of development that each
character gets, this can become slightly overwhelming and it makes it a bit
difficult to remember who exactly is who.
From the get-go, it is quite clear that this is a very
Japanese game (good luck fitting in your name... obviously this was made for
Kanji/Kana!), your character stats include all of the usual things and a few
extras, you have to choose your specific prefecture and there was even a visual
stat which I had never seen before which as it turns out, is a very specific
eye test that only seems to be performed in Japan.
As each chapter plays out in the standard Visual Novel
fare you sometimes receive the option to interact with the scene via the use of
your 5 senses. This isn't explained at all, although depending on what
combinations you use, you can get some quite strange results and reactions from
other characters... at one point, I was licking a wall in an attempt to
investigate a ghost found at a rehearsal studio but most of the time, the path
forward is fairly obvious. At times, you will have a chance to activate your
6th sense by choosing the correct options on the sense wheel.
The artwork presented throughout each chapter is very
nice indeed, it is both presented in the standard anime style and yet also
quite realistic at the same time. Character's move fairly fluidly, hair flows
naturally in the breeze, eyes appear fairly natural and the overall actions and
stances of characters is quite realistic.
After the bulk of the story has played out, you'll get
the opportunity to return to Gate Keepers HQ which is beautifully rendered
especially when all of the characters are present, every detail is intricately drawn
and sublimely coloured. From the HQ you can save your game, load up on items
from the local convenience store, create items and weapons, equip your
characters, level up the skills of your comrades, talk to them in order to try
and improve your relationships. You can also challenge a number of never ending
randomly generated exorcisms which you'll definitely need to do from the mid-point
of the game onwards.
Each story related exorcism must be completed in order
to advance to the next chapter which are completed by subjugating the main
plot-related ghost. The battle system is only explained in a basic fashion, in
fact there is only a limited explanation of everything in the whole game which
can be quite frustrating at times as you're simply left figuring it out for
yourself. The exorcisms take place in areas that are divided up into grids,
before the battles themselves you can prep the area and strategically place a
wide variety of traps that will have some sort of an effect on the ghosts if
they come into range of the trap.
Once all of the traps (or not) have been set, you'll
enter battle. You and the ghosts take turns to move around the grid. Initially
you cannot see any of the ghosts, however your support character will provide
hints as to where the ghosts are located. Attacking indiscriminately is ill
advised as you'll incur a fee which will be deducted from your exorcism fee if
you destroy any items which are in the way. Once you've detected or bumped into
a ghost, it's up to you to take it down. You aren't able to tell where the
ghost will move to, it will only show a predictive radius of where it may move
so you've got to plan attacks strategically and attempt to make your attacks encompass
the greatest radius possible so that you have the best chance of hitting the target
ghost. It is akin to chess in the sense that you never know what your opponent
may do - if you manage to successfully hit a ghost or vice versa, the camera
will switch to a 3D view where you'll see the actual attack taking place. The
designs of the ghosts are quite inventive themselves, have you ever seen a
ghost crocodile or mobile phone?
The only option for dialogue is the Japanese soundtrack
which is limited to a few fairly standard phrases and odd words placed here and
there in the story section and a few reactions during the battle which can get
repetitive quite quickly. Soundtrack wise, most of the tunes are performed by a
rock band called The Key Project and there are enough songs to keep it
interesting - I also quite liked a couple of the battle themes, I really felt
like I wanted to kick some butt!
Overall, gorgeous artwork backed up by a solid plot and
decent soundtrack along with an engaging tactical battle system that is only
really let down by there being absolutely no semblance of a tutorial anywhere
in the game. Once you've got the hang of it, everything will be fine but for a
while, I'm sure you'll be spinning around in a daze of confusion especially as
the battle system itself is unlike anything else out there.
Overall 7/10
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