Usually around February, game releases start to slow down a bit, and save for a few choice gems that are dying to find their way to your shelf, the real important releases aren’t until March and April. With this much needed breather from current game releases, it’s a great time to catch up on titles we might have missed, or just passed over for whatever reason. Much like my October impressions of Front Mission 5, I wanted to do some impressions of a game that has been out for some time now.
Banpresto has been popular in anime and gaming circles for years now, because of its Super Robot Wars (スーパーロボト大戦) series, also known as SRW, which pits robots from popular and virtually unknown giant robots movies and series against each other in an SRPG (Strategy RPG) environment. With so many iterations in series, it’s obvious to see that the Japanese gamers loved the series and its many sequels.
Soichiro Morizumi, a director on many of the SRW projects, joined Monolith Soft, creators of Baten Kaitos and the critically controversial Xenosaga to work on its first SRPG entry. This epic would include characters from the history of both Namco and Capcom, in a battle royal of massive proportions. That game is Namco X Capcom.
It’s no surprise that Morizumi directed Namco X Capcom, as the game has much in common with the famous SRW franchise. The game is primarily an SRPG, where players move their army around the map to battle enemies, and sometimes collect items. Movement around the map is quite quick, and battles take place on a separate screen. Taking Front Mission’s AP system a step farther, unit attack order is based on AP alone. Instead of giving the entire enemy team a turn, and then the player team, turns tend to go back and forth, depending on that given character’s speed.
Right before a battle, players have a choice of using Skills that will buff a player’s stats, or debuff an enemy’s, or using Items, that are usually used to heal injured units. Unlike SRW, where units have to be repaired using money at the end of a skirmish, units in Namco X Capcom automatically heal between battles, which makes the game a lot easier. Unlike SRW, though, the battles in Namco X Capcom are of an Action RPG nature, allowing players to use button presses to execute specific attacks. Once in battle, players use the circle button to execute attacks, using the directional pad to modify what move the character performs. For instance, left + circle does a different attack from right + circle.
Also, depending on how long your attack chain juggles the enemy in the air, the given ally will get extra experience, or items. Each unit also has a set of moves that, if all performed during the fight, will garner the unit either extra HP, or MP. When enemies attack units, players engage in a Simon Says-like button pressing game, where players must hit the correct direction on the d-pad at the right time.
The sheer number of characters and cameos in the game is astonishing. Everyone from Gilgamesh (Tower of Druaga) to Ken Masters (Street Fighter) make an appearance in the game. Some units consist of a pair of characters. Pairs usually don’t consist of two characters from the same game, and instead, usually pair up characters from different, but stylistically similar games, such as Bruce from Biohazard Gun Survivor 4, and Regina from Dino Crisis. Usually, though, the most powerful characters seem to be those who aren’t in pairs. Characters like Jin Kazama, Ryu, Ken, and KOS-MOS all have incredible power, and most also have the ability to increase movement speed, allowing them to travel far distances in a single turn. These two factors together make for essential characters that players will be using again and again to dispatch particularly difficult enemies.
Namco X Capcom is definitely not without its problems. Strangely, many of its problems are unique to Namco X Capcom, not existing in the SRW franchise. One of the major problems is unit count. A mere 5 hours into the game, the player will already have a healthy supply of units, numbering in the double digits. Front Mission 5 limits players to six unit, both for difficulty purposes, and to streamline levels. Turns are short, enemies move very quickly, and players have to concentrate less on unit management, and more on tactical fluidity.
Namco X Capcom’s copious unit size leads to several other problems. In many levels, the enemy count isn’t proportionate to the ally unit count. Even if you start a level with a single unit, swarmed by 10 or even 15 other units, you can bet that in 5-10 turns, the cavalry is going to arrive, effectively making the level a cakewalk. Because ally unit count is so high, as long as you swarm the most powerful enemy unit, there’s little chance of losing an encounter.
Level length also becomes an issue. By the time players reach the 10 hour mark, total unit count, enemy and ally, will reach almost 30, making one round of turns extremely long. Coupled with the fact that players have yet to add the entire character list to their roster, the possible length of future battles can be quite daunting. The game itself is also incredibly long, clocking in at almost 90 hours.
Players able to endure the long, easy battles, might be in for quite a surprise when they realize the game isn’t over as quickly as they had hoped. While fun, Namco X Capcom has a strong chance of outstaying its welcome, not remaining enjoyable until its final conclusion. For those with love for either Namco or Capcom, though, will enjoy the cameos, self-referential dialogue, and the huge roster of heroes.
Namco X Capcom is a game that, for the ￥1900 I paid for it, is worth the price the admission. Most players will probably never finish the game, but the hours they get out of it before finally putting it down will have been more than ample.
Namco x Capcom is also somewhat import-friendly, at least in terms of the gameplay - there was an Asian edition that had an English manual. However, while I did enjoy playing it, because I don’t know much Japanese I don’t think I’d be likely to try playing it again unless there was some kind of translation FAQ or storyguide.