Developer: Kadokawa Games
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch
Tested on: Switch
God Wars The Complete Legend – Review
The hero monomyth is possibly one of, if not THE only storyline that can exist. From Harry Potter to Sisyphus pushing the rock, and back to your childhood books about friendly gnomes. With so many different kinds of stories, how can they all be the same even though you’ve read quite a few of them, and they’re all different? That, my friends, is the power of the hero monomyth. It is not about the individual story, but about the grand overarching story. Not the names of the locations and characters, but the story beat. How does it fit in with God Wars? Lets find out.
Story
Based on the ancient Japanese story of the Kojiki, God Wars follows the story of Kintaro. A soldier from a small village in Feudal Japan, who rebels against the local powers that be after a famine. When he gets to the local stock however, he finds Kaguya, one of the girls whose whole life revolves around their religious duty to be sacrificed. Taking pity on her, he decides to help her on her final quest to find her mother. In the story you’ll encounter guards trying to stop you, oracles to lend you advice, and mischievous gods to throw you off your path.
This is where the monomyth comes in. The general overarching story, the monomyth states, cannot change all that much. All stories are the same. The hero, Kintaro, receives a supernatural call to aid, for which Kaguya is responsible. They start their journey, and meet the oracle, that gives them the supernatural item, the mirror, which helps them through their struggles to come. From there on, they encounter their major trials, which they need to overcome in order to advance their story, but while this is going on, they also gather up a party of misfit allies to fight for them. As you can see, every story beat follows the hero’s adventure perfectly, with only some minor substitutions, this could have been the story of Harry Potter for instance. This is not to say that it is a bad story in any way, just that there is nothing new or refreshing to it.
Graphics
God Wars is a game produced by Kadokawa games, in Japan, and released by NIS, and NIS America in the western world. As we come to expect from the company that gave us titles such as Lunar, Lunar 2, and Lollipop Chainsaw, the graphics of God Wars are exquisite. The game features an art style based on traditional Japanese Wood carving and ink painting art. Along with the beautiful artwork on the game’s map, shop, and fight screens, lots of attention to detail is also given to the smallest things you can imagine. Archer characters for example don’t shoot their arrows through walls if they are higher or lower on the map, instead aiming their shots in an arch for that added bit of realism. These kinds of flourishes are all amazing to behold, though they pale in comparison of course, to the fully rendered anime cutscenes. These cutscenes all deliver important parts of the story, which requires showing not telling, or where the bounds of dialogue end.
Sound
When playing God Wars, one of the things we noticed is that all, and yes, we do mean -all- dialogue is voiced. Not only are the story specific cutscenes and dialogues voiced, but so are the shopkeepers, shrines, and even the minor enemies. Not only that, the quality of the voices is amazing as well. All of the character actors sounded well fit for the parts, as well as not delivering any over the top deliveries of lines you get from a lot of the more fan-service-y games that come out of japan.
As well as the great voices that were part of this project, the music is just amazing. It really draws in that feudal Japan feeling. Based on the interesting sound of the Shamisen, the music that plays is what western audiences have come to know as traditional Japanese music. This really aids with the immersion of the title, as well as giving an underappreciated instrument a new audience it may not have had before that. As well as all the attention to detail that is given to the music and voice work in the game, the staples of video games of course also exist, and the sound of footsteps, bowstrings, and clanging metal does not lag behind from the rest of the audio during your adventures.
Gameplay
As a tactical RPG, God Wars does away with a lot of the complicated systems that swamp the genre lately. Instead of going broad with a lot of different systems that become confusing quickly in an effort to distinguish themselves from other systems, it keeps it simple with just a single, deep jobs-based system. This jobs system allows all characters to take each job, with a character-specific job for uniqueness. This makes the game really easy to get into for new players to the genre, but leaves something to be desired for players that are intimately familiar with this type of game. During normal combat encounters there are some other changes that also makes the game a little more easy for new players, such as a 90 degrees view besides the genre-defining isometric angle, and a damage average to expect from that attack. You can purchase blessings from shrines that last one fight while also upgrading the shrine for future blessings. And lastly, there’s the generic shop that sells items to give some small boosts to your fighters.
Conclusion
God Wars gives an interesting look at one of Japan and Shintoism’s oldest legends, but that’s all that it is, historical fiction in a game form. The cut down systems give players enough to get through the story, but not remotely enough for gameplay after the campaign ends. Being based on an established myth allows very little storytelling freedom, which forces the game to become somewhat like a book with some combat elements in it. As stated before though, it does make it an easy place to start in the genre, which is where this game’s value lies in the TRPG space.
God Wars The Complete Legend - Review,
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