Attack On Titan seems like the kind of license that would be perfect for a video game, right? Based on the anime and manga series of the same name, what could be more exciting than soaring through the air and cutting down these towering giants? Unfortunately, past iterations haven’t had much success in delivering a satisfying adaptation to our screens, but that all changes with the new Attack On Titan from Koei Tecmo and Omega Force. Known for their work on the numerous Dynasty Warriors games and spinoffs, their expertise when it comes to creating large scale battles shines through with one of the most exciting games of the year, licensed or otherwise.
Closing in for the kill.
If you follow the anime, you’ll know that the show has been stuck in limbo over the last few years after its initial 26 episodes, so forgive me if the plot sounds familiar. For those who might be introduced to the series for the first time through the game, Attack On Titan focuses on the last of humanity, most of which was wiped out years before by the sudden arrival of the Titans. These seemingly mindless creatures feed on humans, and pushed those who were left behind to build a new settlement separated by three walls. Eren Jager, Mikasa Akerman and Armin Arlert, childhood friends who live within the outermost Wall Maria, have their worlds torn apart when a sudden Titan attack led by the never before seen Colossal Titan, results in the wall being breached and their parents being killed as a result. Deciding to enlist in the military as retaliation, the trio prepares to take the fight to the Titans, becoming humanity’s last hope for survival.
When looking at how easily the humans are decimated throughout the series, Attack On Titan almost feels like Dynasty Warriors in reverse. Between Attack Mode, (where the story takes place), and Expedition Mode, (side missions that focus on obtaining new materials and gear), the core game play revolves around the player stepping in the shoes of one of the Survey Corps members as they traverse one of many maps, slaying dozens of Titans while helping squad mates in need. Capturing the feel of the show and its soldiers’ unique method of movement thanks to the Omni-Directional Mobility Gear, using these grappling hooks to fly through the air at high speeds is as satisfying as it looks. The controls admittedly have a bit of a learning curve as you memorize how to grapple, speed up, lock on, focus on one of five body parts, issue orders to your squad, and close in for your decisive blow, but once it all comes together well. Cutting down enemy after enemy results in one of the most thrilling game play experiences so far this year.
Sasha Blaus holds her own against James Woods here.
Once on the battlefield, your main focus is to follow the red marked objectives to advance the story. Usually involving taking down multiple Titans, you’ll find yourself in a bad spot if you run out of gas for your gear, or if the twin swords you use for attacking wear out. All it takes is one mistimed attack, a lack of speed or a set of dull blades to be grabbed by an enemy, and if you’re not fast enough with your reactions, you’ll be food in no time. Thankfully, the field is littered with support soldiers who hand off more supplies when approached. As barbaric as it sounds however, the only way to know what they’ll give you is if you let them get eaten. Yes, much like the show, death is all around you. These NPC’s will often be killed, with a notification in the corner making you feel extra guilty about it by letting you know each time. By killing a Titan who’s consumed an ally, they’ll occasionally drop their corpse, which is marked with an icon showing which item their body will reward.
Yep. A lot of people die.
If you want someone more reliable on your team, story characters will often signal for help with side objectives, ranging from helping them turn the tides in a losing battle, escorting them to a point, or triggering traps on the field. Once aided, they’ll join your five person squad and attack alongside you, bringing more items with them and triggering traps in the process. Often stronger than the generic NPC’s you can recruit, once a squad is in your control, you can issue generic commands like having them guard you, fan out to attack multiple nearby targets, or focus on the area you’re attacking for a devastating group attack. In typical Dynasty Warriors fashion, important characters like your side quest recruits will comically “flee” the battlefield when defeated instead of getting killed. Which is strange since getting killed usually means getting eaten, so watching your squad be swallowed and chewed only to say they were tired of fighting and retreat right afterwards, is unintentionally comical. I mean, flee to where? You’re dead, man!
Speaking of friends, while Attack Mode is strictly single player, Expedition Mode lets players team up online to take on more difficult quests for the sake of money, new equipment, and the needed materials. Each set of missions is divided by a section of the map, each of which needs to be scouted throughout its nearly 100 missions. Not restricted to the story, these quests have the freedom to offer up some insane challenges to any Survey Corps member brave enough to take them on, and while expedition missions can be tackled solo, you’ll start to regret it once the difficulty ramps up. The reward is worth the struggle though, since the only way to unlock new weapons, Mobility Gears, scabbards, and eventually horses, is by playing through these missions. On the flip side, you can only unlock new characters for this mode by progressing through Attack Mode, so you’ll want to play both side by side if you want to steadily progress without trouble.
And while the assumption would be that each character would be exactly the same, Attack On Titan does a great job of making each main character feel unique, playing up their character strengths. Eren obviously has his Titan Form, where he can temporarily transform into one of the monsters and tear them apart with some basic melee combat abilities, but when characters like Levi and Mikasa feel significantly better at sword fighting thanks to their unique abilities, or Armin making up for his lack of strength by being the only person who can issue individual orders to his squad thanks to his tactical brilliance, each playable character delivers a small, yet noticeable difference to how you’ll approach combat.
Each character is unique, but only Eren can one hand grab Titans that look like babies.
In both Attack and Expedition Modes, you’ll wind up with extra material drops by attacking marked limbs on Titan bodies, or earning an S rank at completion. Coming off as simple enough at first, obtaining S Ranks often felt more frustrating than it was worth. Finishing the stage fast enough and addressing enough side requests were both fine, but it’s easy to get knocked down a rank because you didn’t kill enough Titans. In my confusion, I noticed that in many cases, you’ll have to hunt down and kill nearly every Titan on the map, no matter how out of the way they are compared to the rest of your objectives. Feeling like a battle against my own annoyance, there’s little in the game more disheartening than getting your rank dropped because you didn’t kill those two guys hanging out in the opposite corner of the stage, especially when rare materials are on the line.
As much as the ranking can bring down your spirits, it’s a nitpick next to some of the bigger issues with Attack On Titan, most of which bog down the main game too much. For starters, while delivered with the same solid voice acting, beautiful visuals, and stellar presentation as when you’re in the middle of the action, the story is hard to stay interested in since it’s a story we’ve seen told so many times. This isn’t the game’s fault, but it’s impossible to be excited about sitting through the Female Titan finale for the third time. Fortunately, the game goes above and beyond in this respect, adding in part of the next story arc after the credits roll as a set of bonus post game quests. Within the main game, some of the missions feel more drawn out than they should be. If we break down the anime and make an action game out of the actual fight scenes, there’s very little to explore, (which was a big reason why last year’s game fell short). To compensate, small moments that were either glossed over, or took up all of two minutes of screen time on the show, will be expanded into whole missions in the game. It’s easy to see where the developers stretched things out to create a more “full” gaming experience, but for every great level we get, it also ends up being tied to slow story progression.
You’ll be thankful for your crew when you’re inevitably caught.
But most importantly, as fun as the game play is, Attack On Titan falls into Omega Force’s most consistent complaint. This game is far too repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, the satisfying flash of a perfect attack, the occasional zoom in on your character before they deliver the killing blow, and the spray of blood that douses your character in a brutal crimson rain never gets old, but most of the combat revolves around you doing the same thing repeatedly for the 10 hours or so that the main story takes to complete. Add in a few more for the post game content, and another 10-20 minimum for the Expedition Mode, and the shine will definitely wear off over time. The game does try to throw in new elements with horseback levels, where your faithful steed will accompany you while traveling across areas with few buildings to latch on to, Titan Mode levels, where Eren fights hand to hand with some satisfying, yet few attacks as mentioned earlier, and bosses that require you to wear down their body before their weakness at the nape of their neck will be exposed, but it’s not enough when these brief moments are quickly replaced by the standard combat. It doesn’t help when occasionally, especially in small, enclosed maps, the camera loses all sense of direction and flies around faster than a Maneuver Gear ever could. Combined with the (appreciated) grapple physics that will drop you if your hooks become obstructed, and some minor slowdown when battles get hectic, and you end up with a great game with some minor technical hiccups.
Despite the repetition, Attack On Titan is one of the most enjoyable anime adaptations I’ve played. By capturing the style and brutality of its anime counterpart and successfully adapting it into an adrenaline rush of a video game with its satisfying, fast paced action, it won’t be hard to find plenty to love. Fans of the series itself, or even an action gamer who’s never heard of the series, (if any exist at this point), would do well to pick it up and take up arms against the Titans. With online play to keep the battles going long after the credits roll, a distinct cast of characters, and plenty of content to unlock throughout, Wall Maria’s tragedy is definitely our gain.
Final Score: 4.25/5