The Therapist Gamer

Toukiden 2

I'd never heard of Toukiden or it's sequel until a bit before I'd bought it, but word on the street was it's a sleeper hit that's surprisingly good.  It's got it's strengths but overall it's . . . okay?  I guess?

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The main format of the game is that it offers a huge open world with a variety of giant monsters to fight in epic battles.  The giant boss monsters are pretty impressive and are fun to fight - each of their body parts can be destroyed and you can salvage parts of their body for crafting purposes.  They each have unique move-sets and you need to adjust your play style to be effective against each one.  

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One of the main attractions is that the whole game is playable with friends in teams of up to four people.  I didn't have the chance to try this out because I don't know anybody else with Toukiden 2, and because I didn't have PlayStation Plus at the time and thus can't play anything online.  I suspect many people will be in a similar position to me.  Some of my thoughts on the game may be colored by the fact that I didn't experience it to its fullest, but I figure it's fair criticism if it would apply to a large sector of gamers.  If you don't have anyone to play with then the computer will provide you with some companions, though for the life of me I couldn't tell you the specific benefits they offer to the team.

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And therein lies the essence of one of the biggest problems with the game - it's just too cryptic and convoluted.  I think certain of these issues may be less severe with a Japanese audience, but I found gameplay mechanics to be more complicated than necessary.  For example, the special moves you can perform are based off of which "Mitama" inhabits your soul.  A Mitama is the soul of a fallen soldier and you collect them when you defeat strong monsters.  But even if you have a Mitama equipped you can't get certain bonuses - you have to unlock them by performing specific actions.  You can learn what these actions are by finding them in a menu.  You also have a "defensive Mitama" that can provide specific bonuses, but again, you need to look through a menu to see what effect they have.  If you want to switch Mitama it doesn't automatically unequip the special moves associated with them and you'll have to figure out what changed and adjust things manually.  If you didn't understand any part of what I just wrote then you're going to get frustrated with this game, because honestly I just did a better job of explaining things that the game does.  It gave me a headache.

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Even combat systems are convoluted.  For example, you can break the limbs off of the monsters you fight, but a spirit limb will almost instantly grow where the physical limb was so the monster keeps fighting as usual.  You see, the spirit form of the monster lives on and can still do damage to you just like the regular limbs.  You can permanently banish the spirit limbs with a special move, but it also doesn't really seem to make a huge difference to the overall fight.  Why is it like this?  Why can't the limbs just be broken off?  I will say, though, that some of the later monsters are pretty creative - I recall one instance where I permanently removed a creature's leg and it just started walking on it's hands and had a new move-set.  Some of the later monsters also have a "second form" and this adds a welcome change of pace to the battles.

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This might sound like a small complaint but it really annoyed me: many moves will cause the entire monster to glow a certain color for a while.  For example, some moves might make the monster turn purple.  So basically what's going on is that the artists and modelers rendered these huge, creative monsters to fight and all you usually see is a glowing purple blob.  It's just a shame.

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Despite the convoluted gameplay systems, I thought the most important system of all - the combat - was too basic and spread too thin.  So there are probably a dozen (or more) different weapon classes that each have their own combat style and moves.  For example, a sword fights differently than gauntlets, spears, or daggers.  In this regard the combat is impressive.  However, unless you constantly change play styles you'll find that each weapon only really has a few things to do.  There's basically a strong attack, a quick attack, and a special attack, and you can combine them in a few different ways.  And that's it.  For dozens of battles that last maybe ten minutes each.  I think it would have been better if they focused on fewer weapon options but made each one more engaging to use.

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Strangely, you can't change weapons or armor whenever you want.  Just found an amazing sword?  Well, you can't use it.  You have to return to the village first.  There's no real reason given as to why - it's just annoying and pointless.  Similarly, the world is filled with "Miasma" and you can't stay out in it for too long or else you'll die.  It's not a big threat, but every 45 minutes or so you'll notice your Miasma meter and say, "oh, I guess I need to go back to the village and then come back."  It's also annoying and pointless.  Maybe it has something to do with playing co-op, but if that's the case then it shouldn't apply if someone is playing in single player.

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Effort has clearly gone into the story but I think people are just as likely to enjoy it as they are to find it predictable.  A lot of the story feels forced.  For example, at one point you find out that a character lost a daughter, just a few minutes later you find out that another main character is the daughter, and then a few minutes later the whole issue has been resolved and it didn't really make any impact on the larger story.  The actual idea of those two characters being connected is interesting, but it isn't explored in any sort of meaningful or thought-provoking way.  Minutes later there is another inconsequential "twist" in the story.  Overall, the ideas are much better than the execution.

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You frequently make dialogue choices in the game but they don't impact things.  The only thing that's different is the next line of text.  For example, after a big victory your comrades will praise you, and your "dialogue" options are: "be proud" or "be embarrassed."  The responses are things like "You have a lot to be proud of!" or "Oh, you're so modest."  It's just tedious and isn't really engaging at all.

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Despite my criticism of Toukiden 2, it is strangely compelling.  There's a lot to like here, and it can be pretty fun to get locked into a huge battle with a dynamic enemy.  But there's just something lacking throughout the entire game.  I think someone with a focused creative vision just needed to sharpen all of the rough edges and we'd have a great game here somewhere.