Croixleur – Review
We don’t often get a chance to play a so-called doujin-game, Japan’s equivalent of indie-gaming, in English. Mostly because that part of the industry reaches for far geekier places than most people are willing to go.
Not to mention they often depend heavily on the anime-industry, a scene that’s far from being widely accepted, let alone embraced here in the West.
Enter Croixleur, a short arena-hack & slash-game with a preference for cute (probably underage) girls wielding magical swords.
Story
Don’t expect Croixleur’s story to match the plot of even a half-decent anime. This is the story about two estranged childhood friends, one cheerful, and the other haughty. Both are competing in a trial to become a Sword Sorceress. You play as Lucrezia -the cheerful one. Goal of the game: ascending a tower within 15 minutes and dispatching the monsters inhabiting every floor.
Graphics
Doujin-games usually tend to play it safe, as does Croixleur. The game depends heavily on the current style of anime, meaning its visual style looks generic and bland.
I swear I’ve seen these characters at least a dozen times before, probably in just about every fantasy-styled Japanese cartoon that aired over the past year.
Combined with the ever-repeating scenery that -along with the game’s enemies- switches colors every so often, it creates an experience that never truly entertains. At least not visually.
Sound
Synthesizer-tracks and tunes that borrow heavily from the Japanese pop-scene accompany Croixleur, but at no point does the soundtrack manage to set itself apart.
Close the game, and you probably won’t even remember if there actually was any music at all.
Gameplay
There is virtually no variety in Croixleur. As Lucrezia you battle your way floor after floor, every single one containing the exact same three enemies, only with a different colour.
It’s an age-old trick, replacing characters with a version that’s slightly more pink than the previous one. It’s also lazy and a sign that you shouldn’t expect too much from a game.
Which turns out no different this time around. Every level is just the same circle over and over again, with no noticeable difference. Along the way you collect coins to level up, a process that has no discernable effect. Neither do the ten different weapons you pick up. While each of those might have its own special attack, every single one of them uses the same triple-hit attack and does the exact same amount of damage.
A game touting itself as a unique brawling-experience should know better.
As such, Croixleur is a game that gets boring almost right away. It seems to copy the same generic-clichés and shallowness that plagues modern anime.
Add to that an incomprehensible control scheme that uses escape as the default start-button when using a keyboard and that -when using a gamepad- refuses to use the complete 360 degrees of directional controls -evidently halting movement when you’re not holding the right angle- and you get a game that is hard to recommend to anyone.
Conclusion
A mediocre game priced accordingly. Low value, low cost. While, as a concept, the brawler action sounds promising, the actual combat is too shallow to entertain past the initial three attempts at scaling Croixleur’s tower. More combo’s, a control scheme that made sense and some actual depth to the story, could have turned this game into a hidden gem.
As it stands, it’s just a weak attempt to cater to a small group of Japanophiles and gamers in search for something unique. Both groups, however, are left wanting. Keep your money, there are far better games out there for both anime-lovers and those who want a change of pacing.
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