The Alliance Alive Review
アライアンス・アライブ
アライアンス・アライブ
There was a lot of mixed sentiment over Furyu's last 3DS RPG, Legend of Legacy. Unfortunately I didn't end up playing it at all, so I'm not going to be able to do comparisons between it and Furyu's latest entry, The Alliance Alive. So, this review will be from the viewpoint of someone who picked the game up without knowing anything about the problems with LoL, just as someone who enjoys RPGs in general.
Galil and Ursula, adventuring in the world where it never stops raining.
The Alliance Alive has 9 protagonists, set in a divided world where a thousand years ago, the Mazoku race split the earth and sky apart, essentially splitting each continent from each other and covering the once-blue sky in a dark purple mist. A powerful force known as 'The Black Current' populated by powerful water monsters makes sure the continents stay separated. Our 9 protagonists also begin the adventure separated in different groups which will eventually meet up.
The game starts with Ursula and Galil, the daughter and adopted son (respectively) of a resistance leader in a human village. On their world, mazoku are the rulers and their underling youma enforce their rule, a sort of racial caste system treating humans as third-class citizens. Also members of the resistance are Barbarossa, a youma who joined the resistance after Ursula's father saved his life, and Renzo, a laid-back jokester of a resistance member. Working separately under the sponsorship of a local mazoku magistrate is Gene, a pragmatic human man who tries to work within the system to secure as nice a spot for himself as he can, and Rachel, a cheerful human girl who tags along with Gene on his missions and tries to push him into doing the right thing.
The game starts with Ursula and Galil, the daughter and adopted son (respectively) of a resistance leader in a human village. On their world, mazoku are the rulers and their underling youma enforce their rule, a sort of racial caste system treating humans as third-class citizens. Also members of the resistance are Barbarossa, a youma who joined the resistance after Ursula's father saved his life, and Renzo, a laid-back jokester of a resistance member. Working separately under the sponsorship of a local mazoku magistrate is Gene, a pragmatic human man who tries to work within the system to secure as nice a spot for himself as he can, and Rachel, a cheerful human girl who tags along with Gene on his missions and tries to push him into doing the right thing.
Vivian and Tiggy are the best characters in this game and I will fight you if you disagree.
At the same time, on a different landmass, an eccentric and curious mazoku fox-woman named Vivian drags her servant and protector mazoku dog-man Ignace down to human settlements to contact a researcher whose work Vivian is interested in, the equally eccentric genus Tiggy, who fights in a robot suit and is doing research on a variety of things including The Black Current. A sequence of events will find these different groups united in common cause as they explore the long-separated landmasses and work towards finding ways of reuniting the world.
What this means in terms of gameplay is that you'll start off with small teams at first and get a feel for each character in battle, before everyone unites and you need to pick your main party of 5 out of the whole group.
What this means in terms of gameplay is that you'll start off with small teams at first and get a feel for each character in battle, before everyone unites and you need to pick your main party of 5 out of the whole group.
The Alliance Alive has large world maps which the characters travel across, and combat can be avoided by avoiding contact with enemies on the map. Starting on foot, you will upgrade your travel capacity as the game goes on, starting with a hang-glider of sorts that only lets you glide from higher to lower ground, and eventually ending up with everyone's favorite JRPG vehicle, the airship. I enjoyed this sort of gradual progression, which makes the first world you start in feel huge at first, and maintians some level of danger while traveling for most of the game.
As part of your work, you'll also help strengthen the 'guilds', five organizations that specialize in different areas (such as information, battle, symbol arts, etc.). You can build new guild towers and recruit NPCs to assign to various guilds to level them up. While under the influence of nearby guild towers, various support effects will help you in combat, so it's a neat side quest that helps you in your main task as well.
As part of your work, you'll also help strengthen the 'guilds', five organizations that specialize in different areas (such as information, battle, symbol arts, etc.). You can build new guild towers and recruit NPCs to assign to various guilds to level them up. While under the influence of nearby guild towers, various support effects will help you in combat, so it's a neat side quest that helps you in your main task as well.
Adjusting formations. Different positions and placements give different bonuses and penalties.
The combat system in The Alliance Alive is turn-based, with maximum-5-person parties. Characters can specialize in certain weapons and magic (some characters are better suited for some choices than others, but I never found it to be too big an issue using 'suboptimal' combinations). In addition, each character has a spot in your custom created 'formation', where they can be at the front, middle, or back, and can be in attack, defense, or support stances. Each of these options has significant ramifications in combat - for example, positioning an attack-stance character at the very front means some of their close-range attacks will do more damage, but being in front also makes enemies more likely to attack that character, so you may need to weigh the benefits vs drawbacks and decide to put your attackers in the middle or back row depending on how brittle they are.
Characters don't 'level up' in the traditional sense, but they do gain HP and SP occasionally after battles, and accumulate 'talent points' which can be spent on combat buffs. New attacks are learned on the fly in battle, a character will suddenly 'learn' a new attack mid-combat and be able to use it from them on at any time. One mild annoyance with this system is that the exact numbers behind the scenes that determine when your HP/SP goes up or when you learn new attacks is hard to grasp, although 'just fight the strongest enemies you can handle' usually works well enough to advance. Each character can also go into overdrive, at which point they become able to unleash their most powerful attack - with the downside that it breaks the weapon they are using, making it unusable until it is repaired. This is a much bigger deal in the early game, later on it becomes much easier to repair your broken weapons, but it's still a nice decision to make (when it's safe to break your best weapon and fall back on your sub-weapon, or to only break your sub-weapon for less damage but the ability to keep using your main weapon, for example).
Characters don't 'level up' in the traditional sense, but they do gain HP and SP occasionally after battles, and accumulate 'talent points' which can be spent on combat buffs. New attacks are learned on the fly in battle, a character will suddenly 'learn' a new attack mid-combat and be able to use it from them on at any time. One mild annoyance with this system is that the exact numbers behind the scenes that determine when your HP/SP goes up or when you learn new attacks is hard to grasp, although 'just fight the strongest enemies you can handle' usually works well enough to advance. Each character can also go into overdrive, at which point they become able to unleash their most powerful attack - with the downside that it breaks the weapon they are using, making it unusable until it is repaired. This is a much bigger deal in the early game, later on it becomes much easier to repair your broken weapons, but it's still a nice decision to make (when it's safe to break your best weapon and fall back on your sub-weapon, or to only break your sub-weapon for less damage but the ability to keep using your main weapon, for example).
A vanguard formation, with one tank in front, three attackers in mid, one support in back.
I liked the character models in combat - the style is very cute, and each attack has a unique attack animation, some of which are quite cool. I thought the character designs and art direction in general were good. You can choose which party member shows up while you're walking and sometimes characters will have different responses depending on who your party lead is. For most of the game, I played with the foxgirl Vivian in front (definitely because I appreciated her deep characterization and not just because I love foxgirls and watching that fluffy tail swish back and forth).
The combat balance was pretty decent. While I felt like a couple spots were a bit of a bore with too-easy enemies, most of the game keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, and the midgame bosses can be pretty brutal. The last boss was disappointingly easy, but up until then things were going well, which is good because there are no selectable difficulties. One neat thing is that there's a 'you must lose this fight' boss in the beginning of the game, but there's a New Game+ so if you do that, you become able to beat him and it triggers an extra ending.
The combat balance was pretty decent. While I felt like a couple spots were a bit of a bore with too-easy enemies, most of the game keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, and the midgame bosses can be pretty brutal. The last boss was disappointingly easy, but up until then things were going well, which is good because there are no selectable difficulties. One neat thing is that there's a 'you must lose this fight' boss in the beginning of the game, but there's a New Game+ so if you do that, you become able to beat him and it triggers an extra ending.
Hey, aren't you supposed to be BLIND? Can your symbol arts simulate vision so well that there's no downside at all?
The story and characters are a mixed bag. Some characters get far more focus than others (I felt like Vivian was the main character of the game - Galil, despite being the 'party face' for important decisions and cutscenes, has some of the least development of anyone). The funny interactions between Vivian, Tiggy and Ignace were a favorite of mine. There were some big missed opportunities - one major story aspect (minor spoiler, but it happens right at the beginning of the game) is that Ursula gets blinded and has to wear a (really badass) blindfold for the game. Her being able to continue participating in combat is handwaved away by explaining that she can sense her surroundings using her symbol arts, which is fine, but her blindness is basically never ever brought up again and there are several times in the game where she seems to have better sight than the people who can actually see, pointing locations out with her finger without even mentioning symbol arts, like they just forgot about it entirely.
I guess what I'm saying is, each character has their quirks and they stick to them, don't expect a whole lot of charcter growth for the majority of the main characters (some of them do grow, though, and for those it's nice to see). The story is basic JRPG fare, very cliche, but not offensively so. Still, the characters and world are what you should be here for, don't expect too much from the main saving-the-world story arc.
I guess what I'm saying is, each character has their quirks and they stick to them, don't expect a whole lot of charcter growth for the majority of the main characters (some of them do grow, though, and for those it's nice to see). The story is basic JRPG fare, very cliche, but not offensively so. Still, the characters and world are what you should be here for, don't expect too much from the main saving-the-world story arc.
The party menu screen.
There is no voice acting, and the game does not make use of the 3DS' 3D functionality outside of a couple menus. These are subjective things that some people like and some don't, I'm just listing them as a neutral thing for informational purposes. Another thing worth mentioning is that this game is Cero A (all ages rating in Japan). Actually, it's the first Cero A game I've reviewed on this site! It's safe fun for the whole family - I'm not sure what it will get in other regions but it's hard to see it getting higher than T/13+ even in the west.
The game length depends on how much side material you do. There are 3 optional characters to recruit, and there's the whole guild leveling side stuff too. If you rushed through you could probably finish in 20 hours, but it took me around 32 hours to beat it with all optional characters recruited and grinding to be able to get the bonus NG+ ending.
The Alliance Alive is a solid, good JRPG. It probably won't blow you away, but if you're looking for a JRPG with that classic overworld feel and enjoyable characters, The Alliance Alive is definitely worth checking out.
The game length depends on how much side material you do. There are 3 optional characters to recruit, and there's the whole guild leveling side stuff too. If you rushed through you could probably finish in 20 hours, but it took me around 32 hours to beat it with all optional characters recruited and grinding to be able to get the bonus NG+ ending.
The Alliance Alive is a solid, good JRPG. It probably won't blow you away, but if you're looking for a JRPG with that classic overworld feel and enjoyable characters, The Alliance Alive is definitely worth checking out.
Overall Rating: 8.1/10 B-
Reviewer & Review Date: Mellow, August 3 2017
Version: Japanese (3DS)
Release Date: June 22, 2017 (JP), Unannounced (NA/EU)
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Version: Japanese (3DS)
Release Date: June 22, 2017 (JP), Unannounced (NA/EU)
See All Reviews
