Over the past few years PlatinumGames and Sega have partnered to bring us crazy games like Mad World, Bayonetta, and Vanquish. Platinum has proven that they know how to put on the crazy while still creating engaging gameplay to go along with it.
Platinum's new game Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchy in Japan) continues their track record of sheer craziness. Much like Bayonetta and Mad world Anarchy Reigns is a brawler/action game. Interestingly enough it takes place in the same universe as Mad World and even focuses on some characters from that game, like the main character Jack.
Anarchy Reigns was set to drop in the U.S. July 3rd and Europe a few days later, but now it's TBA in both territories. Just like all of Platinum's previous games Sega is publishing this one as well. It's no secret that Sega is in dire straights financially, so it's entirely possible that the game will only be released in Japan now. Platinum has stated multiple times that the game has been localized in it's entirety, so that information is keeping my hope alive.
Lucky for Japan their release date has not changed and the game will be released there on July 5th as planned. It's lame that it may not come out here, but the Japanese version is ripe for importing if you're into that kind of thing. For some odd reason the game will have the option for both English voices and text. Much to my surprise the demo that was put up on the Japanese PSN today had those English options as well. I immediately downloaded it, because I had to find out what it was all about.
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| You can change it all to English! |
Combat
First and foremost Anarahcy Reigns is a brawler, so the first thing I did in the demo was rush over to the training mode. I've watched my fair share of gameplay videos and I was eager to find it the gameplay felt as good as it looked and in my opinion it does.
Like most other brawlers Anarchy Reigns uses two main attack buttons. If you push square your character will bust out with a weak attack and if you push triangle they'll go with a heavy attack. Creating combos is easy and they can get up to what seems like four consecutive hits. One, two, or three weak hits and then a heavy hit will make up a majority of what you're doing. You can vary the timing of the button presses and add directional inputs to change the attacks even further. This is basically how all brawlers work, but it's similar to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta in the way that your skill matters. If you get good enough you can do some really cool stuff. Learning to juggle opponents and how to get them into aerial combos seem to be a key parts of developing skill.
This video shows off a bit of training mode.
When you're fighting normal enemies you pretty much tear them apart. After two or three hits they'll explode and you can turn your sights to the next target. However, when it comes to fighting other characters and bosses it gets a whole lot more complex and fun. They won't just sit there and take your beatings. They'll hit you back and they'll hit hard. Blocking works well and it doesn't seem easy to abuse. Holding down R2 will set your character in place and they'll block incoming damage from the front. If you take too many hits the guard will break and you'll be susceptible to a lot of damage. If you notice your opponent start to block you can grab them out of it as well.
The battles in Anarchy Reigns can get pretty hectic and blocking doesn't always work. In fact if an enemy hits you from behind you can be in pretty serious danger. Platinum took this into consideration and added a few things to help deal with those hectic situations. The first is the ability to do an area attack in exchange for some of your characters health. The attack will blow away all enemies around you so that you can escape and potentially avoid a great deal of damage.
If you're doing well enough in the battle an aura will appear around your character. If you then click in both sticks you'll enter rage mode. When in rage mode you'll attack much faster and be allowed to use your killer weapon without penalty. To use your killer weapon you'll need to hold the L2 button in conjunction with the light and heavy attacks. Attacking with the killer weapon is way more powerful. You can also use the killer weapon without rage mode, but it will take away your health.
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| Each character has a weapon. Jack uses a chainsaw, while Leo uses crazy leg swords. |
The combat is well done and it seems like Platinum is trying to promote skilled play. Mashing buttons will do some damage, but if you time your hits and know what you're doing you'll kick some serious ass.
Single Player
I'm going to be honest when I say that I don't know what the hell was going on in the story of Anarchy Reigns, but I didn't care at all! It was straight up insanity.
The game is going to feature two different campaigns, white and black. In the black campaign which I tried out first you play as Jack the main character from Mad World. It began with a ridiculous FMV video which looked beautiful. Blacker Baron, the pimp from mad world, and his consort Mathilda have tracked down Jack in order to take him down.
This might sound a little bad, but I feel like this game is how Japanese people imagine American culture. Blacker Baron has an oddly high pitched voice and he says mother fucker, or fucker almost constantly. To top it off he has a grill that says fuck you on it. It's all ridiculous, but I love it. To make things even more odd almost all of the in game music is rap. With how weird everything is it all fits together well. The world they've created feels unique and definitely shows off a very Platinum style.
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| Jack is the main character if the black side, and Leo is the main character of the white side. |
After a bit of talking a fight between Jack and the Baron takes place. It's what you'd expect, a battle. Near the end an event occurs that has bombs dropping down onto the stage. When you win you'll be given a score, which will translate into what level of medal you get. Platinum medals are the highest honor and it seems that the more points you get the more stuff you'll unlock in the game.
On the white side you play as the cyborg Leo and his story is a lot less ridiculous. He walks out of a bar with his friends and is ambushed by a bunch of thugs. You then transition to gameplay, which allows you to roam around the immediate area. There are enemies to fight in order to get points, but the true goals are the pillars of light. Each pillar is a mission. Green pillars are free missions that you can do over and over to get points, while red pillars are main story missions. In Leo's he fights a weird lizard man.
The look into the campaign isn't very deep, but what they showed has me very interested. Like all of Platinum's work the story seems to be bat shit crazy and I can't wait to see what else it has in store.
Multiplayer
I thought it was weird that Anarchy Reigns was going to have a large focus on Multiplayer when I first heard about it. Now that I've played it I still feel that way.
Games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry need precise timing to pull off the more advanced maneuvers and Anarchy Reigns is absolutely no different. When you introduce lag into the equation it loses some of it's functionality. Then when you add in four opposing players it loses even more than functionality.
I realize that I'm an American playing on a Japanese demo's server for an unreleased game, so I'm willing to cut the multiplayer a little slack, but I wasn't too keen on what I played.
The demo has two available modes for play. Death match, which has four players in a free-for-all and team death match, which has two teams of four players. I only played a few games of team death match, because that's what quick match throws you into. I played five matches and in four out of those five matches my team was mercilessly slaughtered.
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| This was basically happening to me the entire time I played multiplayer. |
Whenever I would spawn I'd find the nearest player and try to attack them. It almost never worked out in my favor. I'd try to block, but the delay made it so I didn't start blocking before they got me into an insane combo. There were times when I'd get into a fight with someone and it would go fairly well, but then I'd instantly die when someone attacked me from behind. Since the camera is positioned behind the back it's almost impossible to tell when someone is coming up from the back.
To add to my woes I would get double teamed a lot. If two people attack you at the same time you're screwed. As far as I can tell there is no way to get around it. One person will combo you, then the other and it'll continue in an endless cycle until you're dead or they choose to leave you alone. This wouldn't be a problem if each team member fought someone, but I had a lot of people disconnecting. People were also using items to instantly kill me, which was getting extremely frustrating.
Before I played the game I expected the multiplayer to be pure chaos and it is, but not really in a good way. I kept getting super frustrated, because it felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do. The same solid base mechanics were still there, they just weren't working at the speeds I needed them to.
The last match I played I ended up doing fairly well, but that was because half of the other team dropped out for some unknown reason and were replaced with computers who didn't move at all. When I was fighting people in that match everything seemed to be going well. At first I thought that the problem was just me, but it seems to be that whatever team gets a kill first either shuts out or decimates the other.
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| A lot goes in in a match of Anarchy Reigns. |
In each multiplayer match you'll accumulate points, which seem to go towards some type of unlock system that isn't really present in the demo. At the start of a match you can pick an ability for your character that modifies something about their moves. There are only a handful to choose from in the demo, but there are a ton of locked boxes that I assume you get by gaining a whole bunch of points in the retail version.
I know I sound fairly dismissive of this, mainly because I am. The concept of a multiplayer brawler just doesn't play in my mind. The fact that I'm an American playing on a Japanese server doesn't help at all. If the game ever does come out in America I'll give the multiplayer a fair shot, but right now it's not looking too hot from my perspective. I'll try it out some more later this week to see if my opinion changes any. If it worked properly it could be super fun, because the core gameplay is fun.
Conclusion
I've been looking forward to Anarchy Reigns for a long time. I wasn't expecting it to be anything spectacular, but I came away from the demo liking it a whole lot. The combat is simple, but seems to have a lot of depth to it. It's not exactly like Bayonetta and DMC, but it's similar. In fact it reminds me a lot of God Hand. Even the overall style of the reminds me of God Hand.
It sucks that it's not coming out here in July anymore, but it sucks even more that it might not come out here at all anymore. Sega isn't even going to be showing the game at E3 and it's completely finished. This may be the first game I ever import, because I just have to see what the final product is like.
The demo is definitely something you should try out if you've been interested in this game at all. It's really easy to set up a Japanese PSN account for free and you'll have no problem finding the demo. On the 360 the demo is restricted to Gold users right now, but tomorrow a free weekend is starting so you'll be able to pick it up then.
I recommend giving it a try. It's fun at the very least.
-Manny
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