Nippon
Ichi Software seems to have some bizarre fixation on the underworld, demons,
and all the things that usually come after a not so righteous life. All of
their titles have something to do with this strangely interesting yet
disturbing place. Makai Kingdom is
no different a title, with its entertaining cast of well acted characters, and
delightfully twisted yet charming story about the place at lot of people dread
to go when it’s their time, it does everything that a Nippon Ichi title is
supposed to do, and that is entertain to the best of its ability. It does this
even with the dated graphic style that a lot of people use as ammunition as to
why these titles are not viable for the current generation.
At
the heart of Makai Kingdom is an
excellent story about the most freakin’ bad-ass overlord to ever rule a
netherworld, the powerful, almighty, and downright cocky Zetta. His whole
netherworld that he was perfectly happy gaining power in has suddenly been
prophesized to be destroyed, of course when you’re a ‘bad-ass’ you don’t stand
for this kind of nonsense so what does he do? Goes to find the source of this
insurgency and put an end to it. Unfortunately his oracle, Pram, and her
prediction could not be thwarted as Zetta’s netherworld is returned to its base
form, the Sacred Tome, and Zetta himself being the sole survivor of this whole
calamity is now reduced to the very thing he tried to protect, literally. With
Zetta reduced to the Sacred Tome the only thing that can be done is slowly
rebuild and start anew, with hilarious results as his former apprentice/lover
makes an appearance along with his long time rival and a few other overlords
who are happy to see Zetta get what he deserves.
This
game follows the same principles of previous NIS titles; give the player as much freedom
as possible on what is routinely a constrained battlefield. If you have played
through some of NIS’
catalog then you’ve gotten the hang of what’s to come here already, but for the
uninitiated I will give you a quick rundown. With Makai Kingdom
you are given a lead character, this character will act as your liaison since
Zetta is kind of going nowhere thanks to being the Sacred Tome. With this
character you will navigate the non-battle segments of the game, this means
going through your netherworld to go shopping, place buildings, recruit troops,
and then some. Battle
and storyline bits are a hop, skip, and a jump through the Makai Portal. This
will take you to your menu selection screen where you can choose the battles
you will be fighting.
Fighting
and all its wonderful little nuances is what makes this game so much fun, like
past NIS
strategy titles, it has been a formula that is always being refined and always
improving. Makai Kingdom is a perfect example of
this. Those out there put off by the confinement system of Phantom Brave will
find a sweet bliss in knowing that your characters aren’t on the battlefield
with borrowed time. Makai
Kingdom does things a
little differently. When you are creating your characters and building your
army, you are confining them into things found in the midst of battle. A lot of
the times you will see weapons and or plants or other objects lying around and
these are the building blocks of your army. Each item you find has a different
confining ability, some items may raise intelligence making for an excellent
mage, others may raise hit points and defense making for a massive tank. Another
very interesting twist is the way the battlefield itself is shaped, no longer
confined to just one section the battlefield will continue to grow until you
have accumulated enough “points” to clear a stage, this is done by destroying
the ‘key’ that keeps each area hidden, or you can just throw an enemy into the
new zone and it will be built. The more points you accumulate the better your
prizes will be at the end, so sometimes you will have to gauge the severity of
the situation, do you keep pushing your luck trying to find a more powerful item
or do you suck it up and take the W? It’s a very deep system that if I took the
time out to explain it all you would want to find me and kill me for posting it
all for you to read, but as they say trial and error are the best experience so
give it a shot and you’ll be pleasantly surprised, especially when you find, a
box.
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