Outlaw City

Outlaw City used to be "Generation City", but it's hardly that now. A whole bunch of kerfuffle regarding the state power company Generation Corp and a radiation leak later, and now crims, anarchists and bad boys are flocking to this huge power-generating city to get their slice of some delicious anarchy. Anaryu and Krisanna created this, and compared to their previous exploits it's a bit of a dud. 800 downloads!? That's small compared to some of the other download counts these two fish have fried up. Anaryu/Krisanna are the pair behind Aetherion, Avarice and Boutalles, each wonderful games specializing in lavish worldbuilding and complex mechanics and systems. And when I say complex, I mean complex. This game has a learning curve, people. Don't expect beginners to pick this up and just have a fun and dandy time. This crap takes work.

Story

Anaryu and Krisanna are good at worldbuilding. You take Sahra, our main character, whose name sounds suspiciously like Sarah. She meets some chick named Mystic who is apparently like an alien or something. Yeah, so Mystic gets you in trouble with the Feds and you're now running from them through sewers and random mansions and crap. The story plods along at a moderate pace, although I felt like sometimes it was getting boring and a yawn was creeping its way through my tepidly moistured lips. It feels like the story could be boiled down to: a lot of crime happens! And it's up to you to fight it! And yet the story pretends to be so much more, when I couldn't care less about the main characters than some random stranger on the street. Real character development is important, people! I wanted some in this game, but got hardly any. Very few moments highlighted the weaknesses and strengths of the characters, and most of the conflicts and disagreements felt superficial. That said, I didn't hate the story, I just felt I could have been connected with it in a more visceral way.



The dialogue is decent, and the characters play off each other seemingly well, even if they are pretty shallow. I think it's a cool overall concept that the Generation Corp planned a mass mutation of an entire city to confirm the rapid prototyping they do in their labs on a larger scale. That's pretty frickin' sweet. But moments like the initial narration (uck!) feel overwrought and really melodramatic, and some just plain feel weird and out of place (if they're blocking my house, then why do I have to go all the way back to the sewers? No explanation, not even a lampshading comment to explain why, other than "that direction is blocked, go this way"?)

The other thing about the story is that the NPCs come off as hollow and shallow personalities. None of them say anything interesting about the world, all they say is "buzz off!" or "get away, you creep!" But there are some really really good character monologues that I appreciate though. There is a particular line I enjoyed, spoken by Sahra who says: "Outlaw City is a place where your actions are how you're judged. Acting in ignorance is no excuse here." I thought that was a particularly beautiful line, and everytime I heard an insight lucid like that, my heart leapt in artistic agreeance.

Graphics

The graphics and mapping of this game make it really easy to get into the story. The city mapping gives you a sense of really large scale, and that these buildings are really tall and these roads are really wide. The entire game, as well as very nearly all of Anaryu/Krisanna's games, oozes of presentation values and polish. Battles look cool with good animations, even if they are sometimes too long in duration. I sometimes found it sometimes hard to orient myself because a lot of the buildings looked the same, and the cities are a bit bare map-wise. There is a lack of interest points in the map, and everyone inside feels like lifeless robots.

Additions such as the ring menu were a bad idea. Whenever your charactere is close to the edge, when you call the menu the ring menu disappears off the side of the screen. It's hard to use, and it's one of the menus that shouldn't have really taken off in the first place. I'm not even convinced it looks good, to be honest. It definitely isn't practical.

Gameplay

Perhaps the definitive measure of Outlaw City's merit is in its gameplay. When you play you get the feeling that the story often takes back seat to the gameplay, due to the massive amount of systems, rules and altered custom battle systems that this game uses. MP is replaced by stamina, which recovers each turn. I found it a shame that there was no visual number for the stamina bar, because I often needed to measure it against my spell costs. This means that HP and Stamina regen levels replace old item healing and bottled heals. So you'd buff your character with some kind of "restoration" buff, and that will heal them instead of using a potion.



Let me tell you how much I love the buff system in this game. It reminds me of the Flash Game "Sonny". The buff system in that game is legendary and one of the best battle systems I've seen in gaming, period. Anaryu/Krisanna have removed the "item" command and now damage is caused by the player's "stress" (whatever that means, I'm still not sure). There is an advanced skill learning system, where you can buy skills, and customize how strong they are, or how much stamina they build. The game really only picks up in quality of gameplay after the 1-hour mark, when you receive your third party member. That's when the actual strategy begins. The game also requires a lot of micromanagement regarding skill customization, in the skill learning system. The battle system is standard turn-based, with a sexy Sahra using "Dark Thrust" because it sounds sexy, doesn't it?

But... the game uses ATB. I have a hatred towards ATB as a system because you have to wait for the bar to fill up to have your turn, so it wastes a lot of time and efficiency. Then, once the onus is on you to move, the only thing that bar does is tell you to "hurry up with your strategic decision" which I hate being told to do! I'd rather take my time and make the right decision, thank you very much, instead of being rushed into making a poor decision. It's a bullying tactic, and I think it needs to stop, Outlaw City. I said stop bullying me and stealing my lunch, kid. And stop bugging me with those friggin' random encounters. Frig them.

I oftentimes wished there was a way to distinguish between moves that deal a lot of damage and those that are focussed on reducing evasion and other stats. The only moves that are important, it seems, are either high damage dealers or self healing/protection buffs, which grants a whole set of moves useless. Buffs are cool, but sometimes they seem to do nothing. i.e. defensive auras won't defend me much at all from enemy attacks. But I found that most minor battle gameplay niggles disappear when there were 3 or more heroes, and these things get balanced out.



There are several puzzles in the game, one being the sewer spike puzzles, where you must step on buttons to reveal spikes and then dodge them. They are nice because they test your memory, but they are not nice because STUPID SPIKES. These are also coupled with a few mind-bending riddles that sometimes really don't make any sense at all. I couldn't decipher any of the clues, often because they were just too cryptic for me to even understand.

"Remember to *prime* all but *two* valves *all the way*. Else make sure the *whole halves* are *less than more*." I mean... seriously? How am I supposed to figure out what that means without any help. But I did end up learning a lot from the battles. Recovery Aura is useful and you should use it whenever you can. Arcane Wave is high cost awesomeness, but it also makes you *really* weak. I wouldn't recommend it. Use buffs whenever possible, especially shield buffs. Use stimulants wherever possible. They are so plentiful, and they do almost nothing except help you survive. The ATB works such that whenever you are choosing a move, time stops. Except when you're in the player's main menu. So go into one of the submenus, and time will stop for you.



The Verdict

There is something respectable about the amount of innovation that Anaryu/Krisanna aspire to in their games. I respect that Outlaw City attempts to be unique in its dissection of conspiracy theories, and superhero fables. The ambitious gameplay systems are exceptionally fleshed-out, while providing a healthy challenge. The music is nostalgic, and the sound effects fitting.

Overall, Outlaw City is a unique game that deserves as much attention as its brother and sister projects, and perhaps should be on the favourite lists of many battle junkies out there. A superhero story with political intrigue, and tons of great gameplay, worth the hours spent into it.

• Presentation:7.5/10 || A few niggles, but mostly very strong polish on this game.

• Graphics:7.5/10 || Beautifully mapped, even if sometimes weirdly dysfunctional.

• Story:6.5/10 || Story was unique, but lacked interesting character development.

• Gameplay:8.5/10 || Deep and customizable, not for everyone though.

• Lasting Appeal:8.5/10 || Makes its point of being different and unique.

Overall: 7.7/10 || Unique superhero tale with strategic gameplay