God Wars: Future Past Review

by Maximillian Ringgenberg | July 13, 2017 9:00 am

Developed by Kadokawa Games
Published by NIS America
Reviewed on PlayStation 4 (also available on Vita)

 

There’s been an absence of isometric, tactical RPGs in recent memory. Kadokawa Games’ latest project, God Wars: Future Past, intends to scratch that itch with a Japanese themed story that blends tactics with visual novel elements. How well does it compare to its spiritual predecessors? Read on to find out! 

The story itself in God Wars: Future Past is a little more than enough to justify the combat system. The moments of exposition are kept brief enough that you get ample information without paragraphs being said. If you have any familiarity with Shinto deities many of the names and terms will sound familiar. The story takes place in Mizuho, a fictional version of feudal era Japan. The story starts with an animated cutscene of a young girl being sacrificed to a volcano to quell the angry spirits for upsetting the balance between nature and spirits. After this scene, fast towards 15 years later to a young maiden trapped in a shrine. This introduces us to our protagonist Kaguya and her protectors, Kintaro and Kuma. The three set off on an adventure to find her missing mother and help restore peace and balance to Mizuho. The story is standard anime fare.

Along the way Kaguya and crew will engage in battles, meet new comrades who aid in said battles, and work towards restoring Mizuho. The game play is a turn based tactical RPG where action occurs on a grid. The turns are not side by side like Fire Emblem. Turn order is determined by the characters’ speed stat. Each combatant gets the ability to move and perform actions involving attacks, skills, items, or going on stand by.

God WarsUtilizing terrain is important as it can grant you advantages or disadvantages. Characters can use weapons or magic depending on which class they have equipped. Victory is usually achieved by routing the enemy entirely or defeating a specific unit. Use of skills, engaging in combat, and using items effectively will grant characters experience to give them higher character levels, Job levels, and Job points. Each character can equip two classes and a unique class to each character. Kintaro for example is part of the Kiribito class, which grants him certain skills in combat to use with his starting weapon axes. As he uses those skills, his job level will increase allowing him to learn more abilities and use existing ones more efficiently. The job system grants plenty of customization and allows you to build a team that can more than handle itself.

God Wars: Future Past does have a few issues between the main combat and the job system, however. In combat character movement speed is VERY limited and it causes things to drag a bit. I feel like the earlier battles could have been twice as fast if the characters could move a bit more. There can be entire turns where no combat is actually performed. While you can use that time to start up buffs, it can take two to three turns in some instances before you engage. 

God WarsThis is partially alleviated later with equipment that can increase movement speed but it is still not sufficient in later parts of the game. The other issue is that using specific classes requires use of certain weapons. This means if you have certain equipment that you want a specific character to use for its benefits, you must have the corresponding class which not all characters can use. While this is understandable it is also a limitation to creativity.

[1]

Moonlighter Switch Review[3]

During story segments, God Wars: Future PAst  switches between a visual novel style and use of in-game character models. I personally enjoy visual novel style storytelling, so this didn’t bother me too much. The overall character designs are quite good. They have a lot of detail and finesse to them, but I imagine a handful of the designs would be hard to actually cosplay because of the excess of clothing for some. However, in combat the use of almost chibi-like models with a lower amount of detail can be very distracting. The animations are often reused and spells aren’t much of a show stopper. The stages themselves, while built well from a tactics and color standpoint, generally feel very bland.

God Wars

Musically, the game has a very good score overall. The use of a variety of instruments is used with a primary focus on traditional Japanese instruments.The compositions are well made but the use of songs is heavily repeated. The song used for the map is the same as the character customization menu. This did cause a bit of burn out. Also, I played through the English dubbed vocal track and I found most of the acting to grate on the nerves a bit. It’s hard to play with a character for 25+hours and have the voicing not stick after a while.

 

Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/moonlighter-review/
  2. Video Games: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/category/reviews/video-games-reviews/
  3. Moonlighter Switch Review: https://www.confreaksandgeeks.com/moonlighter-review/

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