Koei Tecmo’s Attack on Titan game, by developer Omega Force of the hallowed Warriors series, is as faithful a reproduction of Season 1 of the anime as a video game could possibly be. Both diehard fans and newer series entrants should be excited by Attack on Titan: it revisits old plot points and favorite characters in exacting detail, with cel-shaded cut scenes that remain super loyal to the show’s look and feel. If you’ve never seen Attack on Titan, the game makes sure you play through every part of Season 1 worth knowing about -- and even a little past that, including plot points like the Beast Titan and Ilse's notebook.
But what about those caught in the middle? Not Attack on Titan superfans, not Attack on Titan supernoobs, just out here trying to play a game from Japan. How does Koei Tecmo’s take on Attack on Titan measure up?
It turns out that while Attack on Titan’s gameplay is repetitive, there’s a level of soaring, sweeping, mindless fun to it. At its best, when you’re playing as one of the legendary Attack on Titan characters and systematically hooking your anchor from a Titan’s left leg to their right arm to their nape and then hooking to another monster, downing one Titan after the next, the Attack on Titan game fulfills the promise of freedom and mobility that’s always been so tantalizing about the 3D-maneuver gear.
While the game is not difficult and you can easily recover from any minor mistakes, there is something of an art to finding your rhythm. Smaller Titans can be taken down with a single blow to their nape, while it’s advisable to slow bigger Titans down by lopping their limbs off first. Some characters have a skill that lets them chain attacks after landing one, making Titan slaying a simple, rhythmic affair. Individual Titans are rarely a problem, whether the Final Subjugation Targets that close chapter missions or the Dire Subjugation Targets that are supposed to be much harder.
Swarms of Titans can be a problem if you haven’t mastered the art of swinging from Titan to Titan, but if you have, they can crowd together all they want without impeding you. Using "Focus," which is kind of like a limit break, increases your attack power and makes it even easier to take down these swarms, especially once you unlock Eren's shapeshifting ability.
The only challenge comes from balancing side missions, where your comrades throw their distress signals up and you must run to their assistance in a set period of time. Some distress signals can be across the map from each other, and if you’re on terrain that the 3DMG doesn’t play well with, you’ll have to race on your slower horse. (Your horse can always just magically keep up with you, no matter where you zip off to, so you don’t have to adjust your pace to some straggler equine one).
While fighting Titans, completing side missions gets you access to up to 4 squad members. Squad members are rated from C to S. While you can enlist any ol’ nobody, completing side missions that involve powerful characters in distress is the best way to add some punching power to your squad. But truthfully, the only character who really uses a good squad is Armin, whose strategic abilities allow him to issue direct orders to his team as to which Titan limb to attack. As Armin, you can race around on the ground while your teammates take out a Titan you’ve never touched. Otherwise, your squad zips around in the background providing support you barely need.
To spice up the gameplay, some missions are escort missions rather than straightforward Titan-killing missions. You still have to kill Titans during your escort missions, though, and the AI for the escort targets is some of the dumbest I’ve ever encountered (cut to a hapless citizen, running at the speed of molasses steadily into a fence because it doesn’t know how to reroute). Later in the game, characters like Ymir, Levi and Conny give you optional side missions, such as subjugating a certain amount of Titans or hacking off X number of limbs. Complete three such missions and you’re rewarded with a special cut-scene involving that character. There are also “scouting” side-quests that involve completing a certain number of missions in an area.
You can collect materials from Titan limbs, and part of the gameplay involves a simplistic inventory and equipment management game. You get resources after every mission depending both on how well you did and how many material-bearing limbs you hacked off, and you can use those resources to build better equipment. Increasing your Regiment Skill by playing through more missions unlocks new equipment, but even without new recipes, you can fortify existing gear or upgrade it depending on your resources. It’s not exactly an involved system, but it’s a welcome addition to pad out the amount of things you can do in the game.
The areas are as destructible as advertised, and they vary from fields to forest to cities, but due to Attack on Titan’s limited aesthetic everything kind of feels the same. The Titans look exactly as huge and creepy and stupid as they do in the anime, all the buildings look faintly Germanic and ruined, the plains stretch out all wide and boring, and about the only variety comes from the Old Castle area or that one field area with the crazy narrow cliff passages. Repetition is just a risk of a game that’s so faithful to the show: let’s face it, the show is about killing Titans, so the game is going to be too. At least until Season 2: Attack on Politics shows up.
Filling out the gallery percentages with new info on characters or scrolling through loading screens packed with series lore is an entertaining way to spend a few hours. And once you’ve played through everything the game has to offer, I can’t help but feel like I’ll want to dive back in every once in a while just to sweep and soar through the air, easily slaying Titans as I do so. There’s an online co-op mode as well in case you’d like to do more of the same, but with a buddy by your side.
All in all, Attack on Titan is the best Attack on Titan game we are going to get. The show itself builds in certain limitations when it comes to any game’s core mechanics and aesthetic, but within those confines, Koei Tecmo and Omega Force have done everything they can to pad out a fun and appealing game that rewards fans of Attack on Titan and is accessible to new series entrants as well.
Attack on Titan releases on Aug. 30 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It will be available digitally on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita (and is already available on PC via Steam). Will you be playing?
