A Celestial Weapon is a complete Rm2k3 game that is in the process of being remade (and completely updated) in MV.
Ok since this modern adventure is complete, I decided to try it anyway!

In this game we play as Vincent, the protagonist that must be in the team at all times! Vincent is a simple government employee that become involved in the real protagonist operation. Sophie, assisted by her friend and bodyguard James, is the real protagonist, and she's suspicions on the government's actions so she enlist Vincent to investigate the situation.
Ok, here's what I liked, that we aren't the predestined hero or the strongest party member: Vincent is a quite weak (even if he owns a sword, but ok!) and initially not so useful (He's a decent fighter, still his abilities aren't exceptional and you have to find them first!), but this is something new and I appreciate the originality!


James is looking out of the window, but he's probably imagining to strangle Tania!

What I liked less is how he's easily convinced by the two other party members, in the end he seems a typical silent protagonist, but he's also less motivated and he seems to simply get along with their plan... that, as you can guess, ends badly for him too! At least this gives him some motivation to follow Sophie and the other companions they will encounter during this adventure.

A Celestial Weapon may be defined as "Final Fantasy meets James Bond". Our characters move inside an apparently modern world fighting both monsters and human troopers and robots, to uncover the truth that the evil government is hiding. As you can expect each character belong to a different class (and use each one a different weapon type): James is a warrior, Richard is a medic, Jared is a gadgeteer, Tania is a thief, Sophie... has no special ability at all but she can equip some powerful weapons like the assault rifle (that lets her attack four times before the other party members can act! Pity is available only later).
And what about out protagonist Vincent? Uh he is a Blue Mage (see? Exactly like in Final Fantasy! Anyway for some reasons I've been quite unlucky with drops!).
But I forgot the strongest party member and secondary protagonist, Heather! She's an invaluable party member because despite being a weakling she is a mage that can cast elemental attacks (like lightning, ember and so on) that are extremely powerful, especially if you guess the enemy elemental weakness (the term "glass cannon" is perfectly fitting).


Unicorns and ogres will taste the power of my assault rifle!

Graphically the game is not too bad: mapping is in my opinion quite good, dungeons and towns are ok, I am really impressed that you can enter almost every building, and these are well furnished and organized! Yes, unexpectedly, since in most cases you have no reason to enter these places (no, you can't loot the poor citizens!).
I also liked the charsets and the facesets used, nothing exceptional but the edits are nice and do their jobs. I liked less the homemade battlers and enemies that look a bit rough and out of place compared to other sprites used (like the monsters), anyway I appreciate the effort, considering that there is a different animation for each weapon equipped.

But how is the game? This is a typical adventure in which the party travels the map visiting various points of interest to advance the story, stopping at the various village to rest and restock consumables and buy new gear. And wander the map fighting random encounters that provide money and experience points! After the crater part is in fact suggested to grind since things will become harder as you progress. Nothing new or particularly original, but it works! Just remember that you can save anywhere on the main map and that's good since if you mistakenly go in the wrong direction you will probably encoounter enemies that are too strong for the actual party level.

I especially appreciated the presence of the journal, that lets you read (and remember) the next objective, and I admit that before receiving it there was a bit of difficulty to understand what I was going to do next (I am talking about the escape from the government building) anyway I managed to do that. What I missed was the presence of an items that let you change the party at will (and not only at save points) like in other game. I also found strange that you can immediately see all the party members on the party organization screen, including those you will meet later! And another odd thing is the price of the weapons, Vincent swords costs a lot more (three times the weapons used by the other characters at the same level) than the other weapons and they aren't even that powerful!


Oh no! This sounds very bad! Let's go now!

Verdict
A Celestial Weapon is a linear adventure that I am forced to rate as average even it's not ad average game! I mean, there are many things I liked and some I disliked, and I only has the game freezed once when I tried to re-enter Canaburg (the character was stuck in the middle of the city on the world map). There are also some typos, in some places you can walk over the open lockers (and also find some invisible walls in some areas), but all that I could find were imperfections that still don't turn this into a really bad game.

The story itself is not bad, I really liked some moments (again, others instead were a bit... weird, but uhm still nothing out of place or too horrible), the graphics (for the most part) and the music too.
So what? This game is by no means parfect, and I know that lots of improvements were already done on the new MV version: for example I've seen that the enemies and battlers will be less original but prettier (well for example here I'd have used some 90's arcade game sprites for the opponents, like they did with Ryuukishi no Me 2 and Heaven&Hell part 3, two games that share a similar modern setting).

This game gets a 3/5, an average rating for a not so average game, but a nice and interesting game unfortunately marred by some flaws that I am pretty sure won't be present on the remake. A remake I'd be curious to try when ready!


Wow, they are as perceptive as blind turtles! Good for us, then!