Pros:
–Offers an authentically fun Attack on Titan experience
–Fans of the anime will enjoy the anime art style and storytelling approach
–Offers multiple characters to play, each with their own unique play style
–Animations and soundtrack look as if they are taken directly from the anime
–P.S., you get to play in Eran’s titan form. Need we say more?
Cons:
–Combat can get monotonous
–Farming for minerals means killing titans, not just searching
–Targeting limbs on titans can be rather annoying and problematic
Attack on Titan has been considered one of the most fan favored anime franchises in recent years. Following steps in many ways to AMC’s The Walking Dead, Attack on Titan follows suit with similar footsteps. Humanity is in shambles due to an enemy threat only known as “Titans”. These titans come in different shapes, different sizes, different abnormalities, and even different origins. What makes them bothersome isn’t the fact they are as lethal as ever, but also the fact their hunger for human limbs is almost insatiable.
Welcome to the world of Attack on Titan where the walls are falling and you are the last line of defense that humanity has. Taking the role of multiple characters in this lightning fast game is a spot you’ll discover yourself in most of the time. Fans of the series that have been following it since 2009 as a manga and others who have followed it since 2013 know what is coming. While this game could be compared to the 2013 disaster that landed on the Nintendo 3DS, this newest adaption has managed to redeem the franchise for the better as a game. This is a commonplace issue for licensed products of the genre. But the question remains – can it portray the anime and manga narratives without relying on a bit of knowledge from source materials? That’s where we’re about to find out.
From Manga,to Anime, to Game – It’s Attack on Titan
It’s hard to justify an Attack on Titan game for the most part. Why? What the anime and the manga both did was amazing. They brought a unique look at a dystopian future and made it even more frightening by making all hope become lost. With humanity in its state of peril, there seemed no hope, but even in the darkest moments, there is light. For gaming? This light just happened to be Omega Force giving Attack on Titan a chance, which the Nintendo 3DS title did rather hopelessly.
While fun, it was troubled in every aspect of the word. But how do you do a game based on a franchise that has already had almost all its pivotal plots revealed? How do you keep with making a legit franchise into a licensed product such as a PlayStation 4 game under the same title? This is where famed publisher and developer duo Omega Force as well as Koei Tecmo come together and breath light into a franchise that’s already begun to unravel into a bigger story. Thanks to the story in place from both Manga and the Anime, Attack on Titan for PlayStation 4 wields a powerful story that follows the adventures of Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi. Each character wields their own unique set of skills that they will carry into battle.
From Eren being a power house that can easily dismantle titans to Armin who can tactically bring titans to their knees with the aid of a squad. Meanwhile Mikasa is an expert at tearing titan’s apart with multiple precise attacks when landing her combo only to be an offset to Levi’s powerful charged attacks that sends him spiraling towards titan’s in a blazing fury of blades. Luckily for many of us that have seen the anime or read the manga, this sticks true to how each character plays out, each carrying their own unique traits, and carrying them out throughout the anime. This sticks true even for players wishing to take on Eren’s titan form that just obliterates almost any enemy near by.
Attack on Titan’s Unique Combat System Carries Over Quite Well
As one would expect, the most important thing for Attack on Titan to have is the weapons and the 3D maneuverability system using the gear they do. Whether it’s the swords that break away and have their blades replaced mid combat or the pressurized gas canisters being replaced as their gas pressures lower. However, how well does zipping across the screen to replace crippling blows to titans carry over?
Omega Force pulls it off quite well for such a complex system that would be translated over into a game. Zipping across the screen manages to work quite well as players take on each titan by setting their target by R1. Doing the R1/RB press switches players instantly into a combat targeting system that allows them to choose which part of a titan they wish to dismember. Whether it’s arms, legs or simply going for the killing blow by cutting off a titans nape of their neck.
The way Omega Force has implemented this makes combat smooth, fluid, and intuitive. It shows just how much attention the team put into their developing the game in order to make it follow the show as close as possible. This even goes to say the maps feel just as good, even if players will revisit areas like the Trost District a few more times than they’d want. Luckily for those looking for detail, the cables used when moving across the cityscapes or from titan to titan feel genuinely crafted as they don’t randomly appear, but only attach to nearby buildings, trees or fixtures.
Attack on Titan’s Camera, Attack Angles, and Titan’s Can be a Pain
As one wold expect, not everything is going to be work in the players or the developers favor when it comes to the fast paced title, players will eventually find shortcomings to gripe about. Unfortunately for Attack on Titan these become apparent within minutes of playing. Some of the biggest and most troublesome underlying issues are the ones that stare you in the face while playing.
It isn’t uncommon for players to find the camera getting stuck as players drop from dead titans or buildings being obliterated by one only to find the camera stuck. This means players will often find the camera chugging along the best it can while players drop down onto the roads, between houses, or just in general becoming a problem when being surrounded by groups of titans. Luckily the game does its best to make this problem none-existent by forcing players to keep on the move using their gear. If players are good enough at it, they’ll find themselves quickly adjusting to the games odd camera situations that tend to pop up.
As time progressed in our playthrough, the problems seemed less frequent as we learned to keep moving from building to building, and combining our attacks on each titan just as quick as the one before. But another large issue is one that stares you point blank in the face while titans are laying around with their arms and legs cut off. Players will often find themselves being bounced off these monstrosities more-often-than-not due to their positioning being wrong or the titan rolling around. Sometimes it’s things just as simple as titans crumbling buildings underneath them and obscuring the players angle so that they have to maneuver to higher grounds in order to attack their target.
Attack on Titan – PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, and Windows PC.
Developer: Omega Force
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Price: $59.99 USD
Released: Available Now
Closing Thoughts
Attack on Titan is a franchise that’s hard to make games and spin-offs for due to how carefully crafted the writers, artists, and directors are. Luckily, the game fills all the needed spots whether its the beautifully crafted anime-style engine that makes the game look like a high-end 3D anime or the soundtrack that’s been pulled directly from the anime. Attack on Titan succeeds in most areas where the previous Nintendo 3DS title failed.
All though much of the screen is cluttered by the HUD, mission status, equipment menu, health, map, allies, etc, Attack on Titan is a beautiful masterpiece that shows it belongs right where it’s at on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Whether it’s players zipping across the map to the official soundtrack or watching the anime-like cutscenes that are dubbed over in the original Japanese voice-tracking, Attack on Titan is a game that won’t leave fans disappointed as they find themselves completing the main campaign.
While the game does have a multiplayer, it isn’t much different from the main game, which is nice when taking a break from the story and wanting to mow down titans with a pal or two. Overall, the game is just as one would expect and hope to see for a game under the Attack on Titan licensing allowing Omega Force to take a long awaited pat to the back as we wait to see more of the franchise come from their studio.
Our review is based upon a version provided to us by the games publisher. For information about our ethics policy please click here.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.