When you bring one of the most popular anime franchises in Attack On Titan, and the developer behind my favorite game of 2014 in Spike Chunsoft, together to create an action game where you slice up giants using dual swords and an awesome set of grappling hooks, it’s hard not to get excited. This was the case when Nintendo and Atlus announced that a localized version of Attack On Titan: Humanity In Chains was on its way to the Nintendo 3DS, putting us on the frontline in the war against the Titans, human-like giants that have feasted on humanity to the point of near extinction. And really, considering that the franchise has produced a live action movie, car commercials, and even its own line of fragrances, is anyone surprised? With such an exhilarating concept, swinging around cities and bringing these monsters to their knees sounds like it was tailor made for gaming. Unfortunately for Humanity In Chains, the title’s strengths are overshadowed by its shallow game play, limited campaign, and visual shortcomings.
AOT retraces the steps of five characters up until the end of the first season of the anime. Taking control of Eren Jager, players will get the chance to relive key battles from the main story, while unlocking a total of four other characters along the way. Told through still frames and a surprising amount of spoken dialogue for a game meant for a cartridge, it doesn’t mean much when the Japanese voices aren’t subtitled during missions. I still don’t know what they’re saying when I select them, but I’ll guess it’s something full of angst, stoic, or involving food.
Primarily, each Scout Regiment Member is tasked with eliminating the titular Titans, with slight variations thrown in the mix, (such as protecting allies, keeping powerful enemies at bay, or collecting items throughout the environments.) Using their Omni-Directional Mobility Gears, (sets of steam powered grappling hooks strapped to their waists,) each character can speed through environments, latch onto enemies and maneuver into the perfect spot to attack their weak points. While there’s a bit of a learning curve, once you get movement down, killing Titans is highly rewarding. Part stealth, part action and part rhythm, attacking involves charging at the monsters at a distance. As your character gets closer, a ring closes towards the center of the screen, prompting you to attack once the ring is in the red, or critical zone. If timed properly, you’ll slice off the limb or neck you’re targeting, resulting in either a stun or a kill depending on where you were aiming. Miss, and you’ll do significantly less damage and dull your blade, eventually forcing you to switch out the weapon and leaving yourself vulnerable in the process. In addition, if you flick the left stick while attacking, this starts a spin attack, which will do more damage and cut through counterattacks, but with a much smaller critical zone. It’s a give and take.
Admittedly, this combat style is an accurate depiction of what the anime is all about when you consider that the goal is to cut the nape, rinse and repeat, but after the shock and awe of pulling off such amazing kills, it becomes easy to see where the game play goes wrong. The timing for critical hits will sporadically change speed, throwing off the needed timing to pull them off. To make matters worse, the spin attack is all but useless since the prompt rarely reaches the critical zone before the attack connects. Especially when normal attacks are more than enough to land a one hit kill, there’s rarely a point where you need to use it. What’s worse is that positioning is harder than it needs to be due to some horrendous camera controls, which constantly move against the character and need to constantly be reset. Thankfully, New 3DS or Circle Pad Pro owners can use the second stick, which is an absolute must if you expect to keep your handheld from getting thrown against a wall.
Oh, and did I mention that this is pretty much all you do throughout the entire game, which is contained in small, blocks of land surrounded by invisible walls? It’s disheartening to see so much city in the distance with no way to explore it. There are a few missions here and there, like one in an open field, where you need a horse to get around on with no buildings to grapple onto, or taking command of Eren’s Titan form, breaking down the fights into a straight brawl. The problem is that there are literally only a handful of these missions, and most of them can be completed in minutes. In the Titan stages specifically, these are easily beaten by mashing the two attack buttons while occasionally blocking, lacking any real depth that we would hope for in a giant on giant brawl.
These flaws are only made worse by the fact that most of the missions are repeats of each other since most of the character’s stories intersect, with little to distinguish the characters aside from looks. In fact, aside from Eren’s Titan missions and Sasha’s item collection quests, the cast are essentially just copies with different skins. The ONLY difference I could find was that Mikasa and Levy can escape being grabbed on their own, while everyone else needs to be rescued by an AI ally, (which they are surprisingly good at.) To top it all off, even with repeated missions, I was able to finish the story in about three or four hours with almost all A+ ranks on the first try, which would have been even shorter if I didn’t get stuck on an item collecting quest since the gleam on the ground is almost impossible to see.
Humanity In Chains‘ only saving grace is its multiplayer World Mode, where you take the character parts you unlock in story mode, splice them together to make horrifying mixes of your favorite team members, and take on more difficult quests either alone, or with up to three other friends. Here, team members can customize their gear, level up their stats and fight enemies in new ways, including guns, which help give an upper hand against these stronger foes. At least, they’re supposed to, but Titans at a distance tend to spaz out, with their, (and ONLY their,) framerate dropping to the point where it looks like they’re part of a flip book. Between this, the bland environments and the huge amount of pop in, it’s safe to say it won’t win any visual or technical awards come year end.
Still, there’s fun to be had in World Mode. In fact, I can’t help but feel that the story mode was an afterthought, considering I rarely had to switch blades, and never healed or refilled steam there, whereas it’s a necessity in World Mode as missions get harder. If you can get a group of friends to play either locally or online, the hardcore fan will likely have a good time, but there’s little reason to do so otherwise.
If we could describe AOT‘s problems in a more concise way, it would be that it’s marred with repetition and a lack of depth, further hindered by some big visual glitches and very little to do. Couple that with its abrupt non-ending and painfully short length, and all you’re left with is an entertaining multiplayer mode that will do little to entice anyone outside of the most devoted fan of the series. If you can find a group of otaku to play with, you might find some fun, but otherwise, I’d pass on Humanity In Chains. If this is the future humanity has to look forward to, extinction isn’t looking so bad.
tl;dr
+ Rewarding core mechanics
+ Multiplayer has numerous customization options, unique missions and exclusive weapons. Fun with a group!
– Repetitive, one note attacks that don’t work some of the time.
– Terrible camera controls that almost require a New 3DS or CPP to make playable.
– Repeated missions with little to no difference between characters, contained in small areas that are rife with invisible walls.
– Ugly graphics made worse by odd framerate dips and way too much pop in.
– A three-four hour campaign with no real resolution, an abrupt ending and only partially subtitled Japanese dialogue.
Final Score: 2/5