Attack on Titan 2 - Final Battle - PS4 Review

The Attack on Titan series is a series well known for its brutality and the fact that it doesn’t hold its punches. Designed by Omega Force, the makers of some of my favorite titles as everyone knows how much I love a great musou, they’ve gone the route of creating another “reverse” series like Bladestorm. With Final Battle adding in new modes and elements to the already existing Attack on Titan 2, fans of both the game and the series can now enjoy the events of the third season as the anime preps for its final fourth season early next year.

Talking with Robert before we both decided to dive into the Final Battle, me on the PS4 and him on the XB1, he told me that I should really play the first before going into the second. Generally I would agree with this statement, and in this case that’s exactly what I did. This allowed me to see just how far things have come between the first and the second with its refinements. So if you’ve been holding back, if you import your Attack on Titan data into Attack on Titan 2, you’ll receive a $50,000 spending bonus which helps a lot early game.

Now while this is a review of the newer content, I want to take a moment to praise the team for the core content’s addition of a custom character. Attack on Titan doesn’t really deviate from the script and short of what’s being shown on screen there isn’t a lot of material that gets played with which is why the custom character was so perfect. They fit into these lapses of screen time. Having graduated from the 104, they weren’t in the top ten which would mess with the story. Instead, they were still recognized and accepted into the Scouts earlier than the rest allowing you to see the in between events. My only issue with this is that it doesn’t carry onto the new content which instead goes back to how the first one was and seeing the events through each character… starting with everyone’s favorite… Armin.

The new chapters, even if they no longer contain your custom character, are fun but they lack the magic of the original “two seasons” worth of content. Gone is the hub that let you interact with other characters forming friendships and gaining skills. Gone is the resource gathering to make new weapons. Instead, you now have a timeline of events that is formed up into story and combat modules. Following a straight line, you can go through two combat modules before one story or the inverse. It streamlines the telling but with how much effort had been put into the original content, I can’t help but feel like the content was rushed even if it is smoother than the core’s.

Another issue that came up is that there’s a bit of a lapse between what is told in story, in combat, or not at all. I hadn’t yet watched season 3 and if you haven’t, you may want to hold off on things until you do. The story is fairly good at keeping the overall events in check but then sometimes it skips over what seemed to be a minor detail when in fact it was the mother of all content. To avoid spoilers, I’m going to say that you need to have watched about eight episodes of the third season (which I’ve now watched) and it’s before you get a hold of the Lightning Spears which are also a new feature and damned impressive.

The Lightning Spears are a new weapon developed by the “mad” but awesome inventor Hange to pierce the armor of the Armored Titan or Titans like him. These things go BOOM and the best part of them is, once you have them available, you can launch it into a Titan’s leg and the Titan will be gone. That’s it. Superoverpoweredawesomeness is what it is but like all amazing weapons, it has a catch. The catch in this case is that it’s only available when you’ve clicked on L3+R3 like a super musou or Kratos’ Rage Mode or Dante’s Devil Trigger. It’s limited but is it ever worth it and it was loads of fun to have once the tutorial for the weapon unlocks it.

Finally, there’s the Territory Recovery Mode which is a lot like the original scouting missions that you could take on in the story mode. It adds a lot more to do because unlike the original scouting missions, you now manage a base and personnel that can be added into your squad so that you can take them out with you in turn. Better than that, you can use your custom avatar, the gear you’ve developed, and the superoverpoweredawesomeness that are Lightning Spears.

Attack on Titan 2 - Final Battle is worth it. It adds in a whole new story and multiple fairly beefy modes to keep someone occupied for quite some time. Will there be an Attack on Titan 3 to cover the final season next year or will this title get an upgrade? We’ll just have to wait to find that one out but in the meantime, happy Titan hunting!

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Omega Force
Publisher(s):
Koei Tecmo America
Genre(s):
Reverse Musou
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
Nintendo Switch
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Attack on Titan 2 - PS4 Review

Attack on Titan 2 is an excellent evolution to the traditional Musou style of games, however this most recently release in the Attack on Titan franchise should have been the first release. Set during the same timeframe as the first season of the anime, and therefore prior to the first title released on PlayStation 4, Attack on Titan 2 takes all the right steps to enhance an otherwise dull style of gameplay (Musou). With new base-building features, a fantastic character customization tool, and brandishing a unique point of view on an otherwise well-known story, Attack on Titan 2 manages to hit all the right buttons while bypassing the overwhelming repetitiveness of a traditional Musou title. Future titles in the franchise now have a lot to live up to, and that is an excellent thing.

I struggle greatly with Musou titles like Dynasty Warriors, Arslan: The Warriors of Legend, and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (to name a few), which is a shame since I tend to really enjoy the franchises that find themselves made into Musou titles. Gundam, One Piece, Fist of the North Star, Attack on Titan, Arslan, and the Berserk franchises all come to mind. The overwhelming majority of Musou titles tend to be flashy yet incredibly dull with repetitive and boring combat, piss-poor stories, and objectives that are solely based around backtracking (go to this point, turn around and go to this point, turn around and go to the original point, now back to the point you were just at, etc.).

Fortunately the first Attack on Titan game, which was uniquely fast-paced and brought some variety to the table, did not let me down in being the same boring old Musou. Attack on Titan 2, fortunately, further deviates from the genre with its base-building, squad/relationship management aspects, and more robust RPG-like features. If and when (I hope) the franchise continues evolving, before too long I see it becoming more of an action-RPG with base-building feature and less a Musou title and if/when that happens, I will rejoice to the heavens. There are few things I despise more than Musou games…

Visually speaking there is very little difference between the first and second games, though I do believe that framerates are better (it dipped a few times, but nothing problematic) and it is most certainly a cleaner looking game by way of draw distance. There are little things that can be noticed too, like a breeze of wind or the spray of blood, which is pleasing to the eye. I did struggle a few times with camera angles, since it tends to want to be rear and slightly up a bit (so it looks somewhat "down" on your character) and this can get you into some tricky spots as you attempt to lock onto the arm or neck of a massive Titan while you are within one of the great many corridors that you might find yourself in.

While I can argue a case for why this fits into the concept of the game, it is still really bloody annoying. What was not annoying, but rather somewhat exciting, was that the map of the various "last bastions of humanity," like Trost and the various walls, are identical to those found in the first Attack on Titan game, which takes place after Attack on Titan 2 so the continuity with regard to the physical locations is nice.

Prior to playing Attack on Titan 2 I did another run through the first Attack on Titan and I believe that may have been a mistake, as throughout my playthrough of Attack on Titan 2 I could not shake a strange feeling. I later found that strange, uncomfortable feeling to ultimately be disappointment. I already knew where the story would end up, even if the journey is a little different and from a slightly different perspective. I already knew what was coming next. The first game inadvertently, and innocently, spoiled the second game for me, which is why I am fully of the opinion that this game should have been the one to be developed and released in 2016, not the Wings of Freedom.

Do not get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the first game, as well as this one, but the swapping of stories is just downright weird and as such had me thinking of the old game more so than the new one. A shame, too, since both are excellent. I would strongly urge that if you have not played the first then you continue holding off and play this one instead; from there move on to the first one (called "Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom") as it may make a little more sense. Try not to make my mistake, which was to play the first then immediately start Attack on Titan 2 up, because it will throw you for a definitive loop.

Outside of the fact that Attack on Titan 2 takes place well before the events of the first Attack on Titan, Attack on Titan 2 makes all of the right moves (even if they tease you with first-person views of using the omni-directional maneuver gear in the cutscenes) and shows that a title based on a shounen anime can mature with its fanbase; to me that was shocking as I was expecting it to be more of the same. After all, most Musou titles tend to be mediocre rehashes of the previous title. I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, instead I was greeted with a new experience around nearly every turn. Attack on Titan 2 is, without a doubt, the proper maturation of an immature genre. Well done Omega Force and Koei Tecmo, well done…

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Omega Force
Publisher(s):
Koei Tecmo America
Genre(s):
Reverse Musou
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
Nintendo Switch
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Robert

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