System: DS
Rating: E for Everyone (10+)
Price: MSRP = $29.99
Synopsis: Passing through a small, isolated village searching for employment, ninja Izuna manages to anger all of its 6 gods who subsequently punish the villagers as well as Izuna’s closest family and friends. In order to set things right, blustering, arrogant, flirtatious Izuna uses her ninja skills to hack her way through monster-filled dungeons to reach these gods and literally knock some sense into them.
Overall: 6.9 / 10.0
Break it down/Diffuculty/Learning Curve:
- Graphics: 7.0
- Story: 6.9
- Music: 7.0
- Gameplay: 7.6
- Replay value: 6.0
Difficulty: Hard
Learning curve: Not long, once you learn how to survive better, get stronger and stop dieing, which leads you to lose all of your items and money. Still, difficult game.
Family Factor:
NINJA DISCLAIMER!!!: Make sure your child can handle frustration and terribly upsetting defeat very well. I’m not kidding. When you die in this game, it’s a horrible death only because you lose all of your items and money (both of which are very important to progress in the game). Dieing is often unexpected and therefore incredibly maddening that all of a sudden you have nothing, and have to start all over again. You can store items and money in the warehouse, but that’s if you can make it in and out of the dungeon. After a while, dieing becomes less of an issue, but it still happens. There are a couple of tricks to help avoid this, which I’ll share at the end of this review.
Other than that though, this game might be good for someone who is a fan of Naruto, or a Japan-o-phile/otaku anime fan. The game’s text is translated, but what’s interesting is that the voice clips are still in Japanese. For instance, when you speak with a character, they will great you with a certain phrase in Japanese, whether it be “ohayo gozaimasu” (good morning), “otsukersama desu” (you must be tired), or my personal favorite “USOU!” (lies!/no way!). I’ll have a list of translations at the bottom of this review, too.
Something else that’s cool for the anime fan is that the game instruction manual includes official game art, which are really small preliminary sketches of in-game characters.
And although Izuna is a bit of a flirt, but I wouldn’t say she’s a bad influence. It’s even funny to watch her try to get her way by blowing kisses.
Just beware that although this game is fun, it’s horribly depressing at the same time.
Review:
An interesting, albeit repetitive adventure. The game’s manual outlines the flow of the game, which totals 5 steps that are repeated 6 times.
1. Find friends/your boss
2. Gather info/prepare to enter dungeon
3. Enter dungeon
4. Power up weapons while in dungeon
5. Clear dungeon
Rinse, lather, repeat.
The game’s controls are as simplistic as the plot. The A button attacks, B lets you dash, and holding L will bring up a shortcut menu that allows you to chuck projectiles at enemies.
As with all Atlus games, the battle system always, always, always has some little quirk to it. Although Izuna is an action-oriented game, it’s also turn-based in the sense that for every step/move/action you take in a dungeon, your enemies also move a step towards you, or attack you. This is tough when you’re surrounded by five monsters and get attacked by each of them once every time you throw a punch or shuriken (this is also where the frustrating “death” thing comes in). However, you’ve got certain talismans, which are little slips of paper with spells written on them, at your disposal, and those can usually help clear a room of monsters easily.
Music and sound is nothing to marvel at, and the small sound-bite sized voiceovers might be annoying because they’re in Japanese, not at all translated, and therefore incomprehensible to most Americans.
Related games: I'd have to look into other "dungeon hack" games to come up with an exact related title. But other games by Atlus have the same quirky spirit as Izuna, like Riviera: The Promised Land.
#### Tips/Necessities for Success ###
--NEVER EVER EVER turn the game off immediately after you get a "game over." Doing this risks corrupting your data. I did this after I had progressed halfway through the last dungeon and I was not a happy camper.
--ALWAYS carry a spare weapon.
--Always bring an extra Fukugen talisman so you can repair your weapons on the go.
--Always carry an extra Kikan talisman so you can teleport out of the dungeon at any time.
--Always stick a Kikan talisman to your strongest weapon(s). As long as its there, the weapon will be transported back to the warehouse when you die.
--If you find a Fukugen/Kikan talisman, keep it, so if you survive you can stockpile them in your warehouse
--At a certain point in the game, the talisman shop will open and you can purchase Kikan talismans for 10,000 coins (relatively cheap). Do this often.
These should make the game a little easier. Hope this helps!
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