Liberation Maiden Game Review
PRODUCTION INFO
Liberation Maiden is part of a Nintendo 3DS game series of four called Guild01, developed by Level-5 and, specifically for Liberation Maiden, Grasshopper Manufacture. The games were originally released in Japan on May 31, 2012 as a bundle with a demo of Time Travelers, which was also made by Level-5. They were later all released in the Nintendo eShop separately. Besides the fact that they were all developed in the same studio and released at the same time, none of the games have anything to do with each other in terms of plot, story, or characters. In March 2013, another batch of games called Guild02 was released in Japan, and later North America and Europe as well.
STORY
100 years into today's future, we see the second president of New Japan, Shoko Ozora, fly into battle in order to defeat a dark enemy called Dominion. Dominion is a separate organisation which is trying to take over the world, and it's Shoko's job to stop it from reaching its goal. She must protect New Japan using a mech suit designed specially for combat which is named Kamui after a mythical being of Ainu legend.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Don't expect much for story or character development. In fact, you can completely scrap the plot and this game will still serve its purpose. It's a very short game that can beaten within a couple hours, and it's not especially difficult. The final boss took me a few tries, which isn't too bad.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very similar to Kid Icarus: Uprising in that it bruises your palm no matter how lightly you grip the 3DS, forcing you to take breaks in the middle of levels just to heal the pain in your hand.
For those who have played Kid Icarus: Uprising, the controls are almost exactly the same as that in Liberation Maiden. For those who haven't, you use your dominant hand to target enemies with the stylus. Your other hand is for holding the 3DS and controlling how you move with either the joystick or the ABXY buttons, depending on which hand is dominant.
You fly in a mech suit, shooting all enemy forces you come across. The more you shoot, the more energy you gain, but you can only shoot targeted enemies. Each level contains several enemies for which you must explore in order to find and kill. Once you have finished destroying everything, a boss called a Guardian Spirit appears. You can no longer explore at this point, but only fly in circles around the Guardian Spirit. You must get through numerous stages in order to defeat it, which becomes increasingly harder and more time-consuming in each level.
OPINIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Liberation Maiden isn't an incredibly bad game, but it's certainly not a good one. It's too short to be worth anything over $3 and the pain you get in your hand when holding the 3DS is irritating. The graphics, however, are very beautiful. I feel that this is a case of a developer choosing visuals over gameplay for priority in the hopes that it will look attractive enough to gain an audience.
The gameplay isn't horrible, though. If there was some way you could play with only your dominant hand while your other hand lightly holds the 3DS, maybe it could work. Perhaps this could even make good use of the 3DS's motion sensitivity. But as it stands, it's just too easy to clutch the handheld with all the power you can muster without even realising it.
At least the gameplay doesn't suffer as much as the plot or characters, though. Level-5 may have thought up enough backstory to write an entire visual novel, but that didn't come out until after the game. Admittedly, $5 is too cheap for deep storytelling in video games, so I shouldn't be expecting that much, but really... Couldn't they have added a little more information on the characters and setting? As a player, I don't even know why we are under attack, or how it became my duty as the president to deal with something that would normally be left to the military. In fact, shouldn't my safety be a major concern right now at New Japan's time of need? They won't have a leader if something happens to me, and I'm one of the first presidents of New Japan, for crying out loud!
If you actually did like the gameplay for Liberation Maiden, I highly recommend Kid Icarus: Uprising. If you are looking for a better cheap game in the eShop, I suggest Sakura Samurai.
RATING
2/10
