Saturday, 25 July 2015

Under Night In Birth Exe:Late

Gamespot Score: n/a

My Score: 7.5

(+) Pros: - Incredibly fun base fighting mechanics, - Fighting looks impressive, - Varied cast of fighters, each with their own unique style of combat, - Easy to learn, hard to master, has a fair amount of technical depth, - Basic lore and story are very interesting on their own, - Great soundtrack, - Net-play options are good, replay theater included, - Solid amount of unlockables can keep you playing for quite awhile.

(-) Cons: - Lackluster single player modes, - Bare bones story-telling when compared to many modern fighting games, - Lack of a tutorial or challenge mode.

Gameplay time: -

When it comes to anime fighting games, "Under Night In Birth Exe: Late", or simply UNIEL, is one of most highly regarded ones by the community. At least by the ANIME fighting game community...and for good reason. "UNIEL" is easily accessible to newcomers, its character cast is bright, colorful, varied, has a ton of bishoujos, bishounens, and even f**king MONSTERS added to the mix. Plus, the fighting feels fast, fluid, and most of the time, it looks flashy as hell, with colorful, powerful looking attacks filling up two thirds of the screen. Indeed, for a 2D fighter, it looks damned impressive, and the way the characters move is just awesome to look at, especially as they dash/fly around the screen like super humans. When "UNIB" first debuted in the arcades I sure as hell wanted to give it a go, but since it's japan only, I was disappointed. I was one of the first to jump up and down like a little kid when "UNIEL" was to be localized and released in English.  However, due to some life issues, I delayed buying "UNIEL"...but here I am. So, let's break down the console release of the game. Enter the night of "UNIEL".

Average High schooler Hyde Kido is an unfortunate kid. He is sucked into the hollow night unwillingly and was attacked by a Void. He is saved by an immortal In-Birth named Linne, and she explained the nature of the Night to Hyde. Hyde then awakens as an In-birth bearing the Insulator, a sword that is able to negate certain EXS abilities to some extent. After training and working his butt off, he finally wanders into the Hollow Night to pursue Linne, who's after a goal of her own with Waldenstein, her long time companion. There, he learns the true meaning of participating in the Hollow Night, as he runs into multiple In-Births, each with EXS abilities of their own, each fighting for their own reason.

Gathers under night!

As a fighting game, anyone would want to just jump STRAIGHT into the fighting of "UNIEL". "UNIEL"'s base mechanics are amazing, some of the most impressive ones within the available pool of 2D fighters. Like most anime fighters, this one focuses on mobility, air dashing and the like. "UNIEL" is a 3 button fighting game, with a heavy emphasis on taking to the air. I mean, D + forward launches you airborne towards your opponent. There are lots of universal mechanics in this one, like the GRD system and how to utilize it. Battles don't last too long as many characters tend to go at each other like a bunch of hounds, and since there are few turtle type characters, matches are intense, fun to play and to watch at the same time.

As mentioned earlier, "UNIEL" looks impressive. Sure, it may be a 2D fighter that still uses sprites, but on THAT front, it looks great. Many characters have very visually appealing move sets, like in "Blazblue", everyone goes f**king crazy when they start shooting out explosive waves from their swords or start to fill the screen with their huge AOE attacks. To make things even more ridiculous, some of the characters have very unique ways to move around, because of their physique (Merkava & Wald in particular), they look even crazier than other characters on screen. In terms of 2D fighters, "UNIEL" sure looks better, or at least as good as, than most of its competition.

Not enough swords in your fighting games? Here you go.

When we talk about fighting games, we need to talk about the fighters. "UNIEL" has a decently sized roster of 16 characters, and all of them are, once again, unique in their own way. We've got some characters who look a little same-ish in terms of character design (I mean, school students with swords & knives? I'm sure I can name more than a few of those), but when they take to the field, they all play very differently from one another. Be it an all-rounded shoto, a rushdown or keep-away character, this game has a combination of all types of characters, and then some. Most of their unique traits separate them from the rest of the game's cast, making exploring each and every character a new journey that's worth taking.

We've got a beginner friendly character in Hyde who has a little bit of everything in his move set. Linne is just set to rush at her opponents non-stop, try to mix them up and hit them with fast combos. Carmine is very controlled based with his blood moves, and Orie's mid-ranged pressure with Thanatos is great. Characters like Vatista and Hilda play their own kind of keep-away games, while guys like Waldenstein and Akatsuki just want to get in your face to hit you for tons of damage, despite their lack of mobility. The game changes with every character, and on the play field, everything you face off against is different. Then there's the GRD mechanic, in which every single character has their own unique way of utilizing it to win the fight in their favor. There's so much to take into consideration here.

Pew pew lasers. Yes, we have lasers.

Like quite a few Arc System Works games (though "UNIEL" was developed by French Bread, so technically, this is my first French Bread fighting game) of late, "UNIEL" is one of those games that's easy to learn but hard to master. I mean, anyone can pick up the controller, mash A for a super easy baby auto combo that does damage, but to dive deep into the game and learn the intricacies of "UNIEL" is where the fun is at. There are quite a few terms to the game, and you'll want to master everything you need in the training mode since this game doesn't teach you a whole lot on its own. It just gives you the basic BnBs from the auto combos and off you go, you're own your own, "UNIEL" doesn't hold your hand if you want to discover your own, custom made combos or do the hardcore ones.

The game has double jumps (triple jumps for Linne), cancels all around, multiple air dashes on certain characters and veil off canceling, if you want to make use of all of that, good luck. If you want to get down to the gnarly details, "UNIEL" DOES have a good amount of depth, and trying to get your character to pull off a decent combo that can consistently do 2500 damage or above can be quite difficult (IMO if your own BnBs can do about 2500 damage without any meter, you're good to go online). You can try out your new found combos against the AI in the arcade mode or any of the other single player VS modes in the game, like the Score Attack, Time Attack or Survival modes (though I'll be real with you, the AI in this game isn't really tough, even on the highest difficulty).

Ladies and gentlemen, Hyde Narukami and Orie Kirijo
(props to those who get it).

Speaking of the arcade mode, that's only damn thing in the game closest to a story mode, and because of that, I am incredibly disappointed. Why? Because what's there in the arcade mode, is SO damn interesting. The world of "UNIEL" has an insane amount of potential, and I think that if the game had a dedicated story-telling mode, it would be epic. There's so much that we don't know about, and yet, what's there is just good enough to keep you interesting. IMO it serves as a wonderful base for world building, in case French Bread or Arc System works decide to work on an ACTUAL story mode in their future console installments (come on, we all know UNIELST will eventually get its console counterpart). There's so much about the characters, factions and different interactions that can actually turn into an ACTUAL, full blown story mode, where everyone acts in the same Night and their actions actually turn into consequences for other characters. Now, wouldn't that be f**king fantastic?

Besides that, the game has a wonderful, WONDERFUL soundtrack. I'm talking almost Daisuke Ishiwatari's level of awesome, and I f**king love the "GG"/"BB" soundtracks too. The character themes in "UNIEL" are absolutely lovely, and each one of them sparks their own story about the character they represent. While "BB" themes are mostly metal/rock centric, the style of music here in "UNIEL" is quite varied, though most of them have a decent amount of electro/synth. They could have done more to add in some more VS themes, because Cross Thought was f**king amazing (Hyde Vs Linne? Orie Vs Gordeau? Orie Vs Merkava? Seth Vs Linne? ANYTHING?! Come on guys!). I'm always one that LOVES to get pumped during his battles in a fighting game, and "UNIEL"'s OST certainly helped (unlike something like..."Dengeki Buko Fighting Climax". The OST in that game was non-existant).

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Like most fighting games in the current generation, "UNIEL" does spot some decent net-play, with decent options like lobbies, private matches and the like. Also, it lets you train in the training mode while waiting to match up with an opponent (again, many fighting games have this nowadays), and it even has its own replay theater for you to view your matches against your opponents, so that you can study matchups more effectively. Besides that, the ranking system is fairly common, nothing too out of the world here. Playing online and everything else in the single player modes gets you IP, which allows you to purchase certain unlockables.

And when you talk about unlockables, this game has quite a lot for you to purchase. "UNIEL", for the good of the user, instead of charging DLC for EXTRA F**KING colors (f**k charging for extra color palettes, that should NEVER happen), allows you to UNLOCK these colors for free IN the game using IP, which you can gain fairly easily. Each character has 10 pre-existing colors and another 20 to buy, honestly, some of these colors are fantastic. THIS, is what the game does right. Other than that you can also purchase multiple icons and plate themes to customize how you represent yourself online before a match. Then there's the gallery, where you can purchase art work of all sorts, fan art, official art and even guest illustrations. Unlocking everything does take quite a while, which encourages more play time.

Trip over a loli, that's fine.

When it comes down to what "UNIEL" doesn't do right, there's actually a fair bit of things to talk about. While the fighting is bloody fantastic, some of the most fun I've had in fighting games for a while...the console port of "UNIEL" is solely lacking in single player content. I mean, seriously, look at "Blazblue" games, or even "Mortal Kombat" games, the amount of single player in those games are EXTENSIVE!  Here, we have a basic ass arcade mode, VS CPU mode, score attack, time attack and survival. I guarantee you, you'll play those once or twice and you're done, because there's no challenge or incentive, at all, plus, they're too damn easy, the AI in this game doesn't do much, even on the highest difficulty. Because of the lack of a proper story mode, story telling in arcade is BARE BONES, there's nothing to even look out for! Also, no tutorial? For a game with quite a bit of technical requirement, not having a tutorial is pretty f**king bullshit. Also, no challenge mode to learn combos, you basically have to figure everything out yourself. Better get researching.

"UNIEL" is a solid, fun fighter for those who enjoy 2D fighting games. While the fighting is amazing, the console port leaves quite a bit to be desired, more specifically a proper story and tutorial mode. It also lacks any of the content that previous Arc System Works have provided, making your experience a little bit bare bones. It sure tops the likes of "MVC 3", but against other fighters in the current gen, it loses out in terms of content. Its a shame, because the story has amazing potential and I love the combat in "UNIEL". Still, if you just want to head online, break faces or play locally with friends, this one is fantastic and I can wholeheartedly recommend it if only for that reason.

Happy Gaming!