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.
Once
you’ve put together your rag-tag group of fighters it’s time to put them to
work, because Zetta isn’t going to be doing a lick of anything. Instead he will
simply be “Inviting” everything to the battle, and he’ll be bringing the guns
to the knife fight so to speak. Makai Kingdom
delivers the delicious twist in battle, this time you’re not just summoning
minions to do your bidding, you also can summon buildings which offer stat augmentations
and vehicles that your army or even your enemies can pilot and dole out massive
amounts of damage. This all takes place on a free roaming battle system, there
are no grids here. This can at times makes for a little bit of crowding when
trying to do large chain combination attacks but it works out very well and is
very easy to navigate.
If
you find yourself at a loss during the main game, you are more than welcome to
spend time power leveling in the random dungeons that you create. As you do battle
and defeat enemies your characters will acquire mana, which is the building
block of each character and wish that they would like to see come true. When
you make a wish on Zetta you can make a new character, create a building at the
cost of their life, or make a new dungeon to explore. The dungeons that are
created are based upon the level of the character that makes the wish, the
higher their level the stronger the monsters you will face and the rarest items
will be up for grabs. Which is something you will want to keep an eye out for,
rare items mean bonus points when you are trying to create characters, and
there is a little bit of balancing to do, keep a weapon that gives your mage
godly intelligence? Or do you sacrifice the item to make the little witch’s
successor? There are no easy answers here but sometimes that’s just part of the
fun.
If
you’re into NIS
games then without a doubt you know their graphical stylings. Games like Makai Kingdom
look like they would be perfect for a GBA or DS port and quite honestly I
wouldn’t be surprised if they try to do it sans voice acting tracks. Makai Kingdom is not going to make
anyone with an HDTV setup proud to show it off that’s for certain, but the game
has its charm in its looks. Once you get over the very dated looking graphics
you’ll find that you did indeed purchase a quality title. On the sound front
you’ve got solid voice acting with a Japanese language track to boot and a
pretty good soundtrack that at times has epic sweeping moments and melancholy tones
at the other, and then there is that funky dance techno thing that they like to
do from time to time which works but feels seriously out of place.
If
you’ve played Phantom Brave and felt very pressed for both time and energy with
each map then you’re going to love the more leisurely pace that Makai Kingdom takes. It’s a fabulous
strategy RPG that does everything that NIS is known for and that is to provide
and entertaining experience with a well written story that doesn’t mind being
off the wall and downright bizarre. If you can look past the dated graphics
you’ll find a game that ranks up there with Final Fantasy Tactics in terms of
playability and sheer quality. If the graphics are holding you back then by all
means, skip this one, but don’t go whining to your friends about wanting to
play this game only to have them give you the whole “I told you so,” line as
they lend you their copy, if they are willing.
