Exist Archive the Other Side of the Sky Exist Archive the Other Side of the Sky Box Art

Let us accept a step back for a moment and rewind time for simply a flake. Sixteen years ago, developer tri-Ace released a RPG on the original PlayStation - Valkyrie Profile. It would soon get one of the most beloved classics in the realm of RPGs non only for its intriguing premise and characters, but as well for its unconventional gameplay systems. Even though Valkyrie Profile received a few sequels, nothing seemed to quite nail what made the original ane so special.

While non Valkyrie Profile in proper noun, tri-Ace and Spike Chunsoft's Be Annal: The Other Side of the Sky is certainly aiming to scratch the itch that series has left. With series veterans Yoshiharu Gotanda and Masaki Norimoto at its helm and Motoi Sakuraba composing the soundtrack, the game'south developers have made their desires to revisit the series clear through this spiritual sequel.

Exist Archive's story starts off on a grim annotation; a mysterious accident hits mod twenty-four hours Tokyo and a few of the protagonists get wrapped up in information technology equally unfortunate casualties. Death is but the beginning of their troubles though. The master hero, Kanata, wakes up in the lush planet of Protolexa afterward his untimely passing on Earth and meets an enigmatically gentle amnesiac, Mayura.

The first few minutes are quick to get to the point, but in that location's something magical about Kanata's narration of his own decease.

Both characters eventually reunite with a few more familiar and not-so-familiar faces as they struggle to notice a path dorsum to Earth in their artificial purgatory, merely not without a few significant complications.

An evil god past the name of Yamatoga is attempting to resurrect himself; pieces of his soul are scattered in the 12 unlucky humans that were transported to Protolexa and granted all of them immortality as a upshot. Protolexa'south guardian, Amatsume, has the ability to guide the people back to World, but wants to prevent Yamatoga'due south resurrection at all costs on that planet. Meanwhile, the leader of the antagonistic Chasseur faction, Zenobia, wishes to run across Yamatoga's goal come through to fulfill her own agenda.

The plot threads in Exist Archive are initially compelling. It showcases the fragile balance of a stiff stalemate scenario that has no piece of cake answers unless sacrifices are fabricated. Characters' motivations, ideals, and backgrounds are all conveyed through collectible Essence Crystals providing glimpses of a grapheme personally in a few bits of dialogue. Their relation to other characters and the preexisting conflict are given brief spotlights again and once more throughout the game.

Exist Annal's conceptual design in writing is all fascinating. The pillars are there to support a stiff foundation, but its presentation points to where the cracks are. What starts out as a promising tale filled with deceptive hooks soon turns to a gigantic fetch quest for Amatsume. In his search for the other humans on Protolexa, Kanata and the other party members are reduced to seeking random Essence Crystals to enhance Amatsume'south power to send them back home.

A few political party members likewise suffer from joining so late into the game that I found it hard to intendance about them too. While the main story does eventually get engaging in its last capacity, the journey at that place is a slog. Thankfully, the constant cutscenes of graphic symbol interaction greatly help in making the trip there entertaining; there'southward a handful of characters that play well with i another.

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Players will be seeing the main carte du jour a lot in Exist Archive; they tin utilize Amatsume's features, speed run boss encounters for items, and access stages for plot or exploration purposes. It'south also the way in which the story is presented. Any time anything is completed in the game whether information technology be fundamental events, stages, boss encounters and and then on, they'll be dumped back into this primary menu.

Become used to this menu. You'll be using it. A lot.

This segmented approach is functional, simply not necessarily platonic for gameplay flow. At that place was an case in which a dominate approached your party and information technology pushed you back into that bill of fare to actually start the battle; any sort of emotional build-upwards was lost in transition.

Exploring stages is, every bit yous'd wait, identical to what the Valkyrie Profile serial offered - a 2D plane that leans on platforming mechanics to proceeds footing on college platforms. Progressing through the game unlocks more than tools to traverse stages easier and gain admission to previously unreachable areas. From a double bound to crystallizing enemies on the field to use them every bit propelling boosters, it controls well enough, though the floatiness of the character takes a chip to get accepted to.

Navigating areas has honestly been an unpleasant feel though. One of Exist Archive'due south major downfalls is its heavily repetitive environmental design. Though the map menu labels different places in Protolexa's regions, they're nothing more than than reskins of a pool of environments only in dissimilar times of the mean solar day or a atmospheric condition effect applied to it. Since information technology'due south technically a "new" identify though with a new map layout, players will be running around familiar looking vistas, caverns, and platforms again and once more with alternating lighting. It's a shame too since the endgame areas are all-new environments that introduced more complex map designs, just it was way also late.

Exist Archive does excel in providing a visual care for though. Its color palette is vibrant and meshes contrasting colors in a pleasing mode; the costumes of its bandage particularly stands out with persistent neon color exemplified in their portrait. Suzaku'southward outfit comes to listen in which graphic symbol designer Mino Taro playfully displays how how clothing blueprint tin can convey a character in unique ways. Thus, it was disappointing to run across the relatively basic doll-like 3D models of the characters; they're lackluster, simply serviceable and their battle animations make them a tad adorable at times.

Speaking of its battle arrangement, tri-Ace has also taken the formula of Valkyrie Profile'southward gainsay Dna and expands it in intelligent ways within Exist Archive. Battles take place with up to 4 members assigned a face button; they take up arms with their Xeno Factors thanks to Yamatoga's power. Turns are split into Assail and Guard Phases and an activeness bar dictates the amount of times a player tin unleash attacks or defend against incoming attacks; this bar replenishes in betwixt phases.

Players tin configure a character'southward assail string in relation to their class-type. Near classes are able to execute three different attacks while mages tin can only assign ane attack to a face button, but they have full access to their arsenal via the magic bill of fare during battle.

Be Archive's boxing tempo is aggressively delightful. Characters, aside from mages, are allowed to attack every bit many times every bit they want as long every bit the activeness bar has not been completely depleted. It accommodates a wide diverseness of playstyles that players are complimentary to experiment with incessantly. Boxing formations can exist rotated mid-combat with characters at the front more than prone to attacks while those at the rear are plain less prone to getting hitting at the expense of reduced attack ability.

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Attacking and overkilling enemies carry a lot of benefits as well. Special super attacks called Demon's Greed have their own separate estimate in which several tin be stocked at once and fired off in quick succession. Experience crystals tin can besides driblet from additional hits that raise the experience multiplier at the end of combat encounters. Item drop rates and the Risk item-quality multiplier can also be more easily increased on downed foes that are continually existence hitting; call back of particular driblet rates & Risk as opposite sides of a coin. One affects the probability that an item will drop while the other influences the quality of the driblet.

Each character has their own set of quirks. They're not all amazing, but their interactions become a long way to making each of them endearing.

The battle system is thrilling and mastering a playstyle that suits you is a reward in itself. It was amusingly gratifying to sweep an enemy horde with Ranze's spear to build up the Demon's Greed gauge to actuate Mitsuhide's area-of-effect attack to knock all the enemies over. Then, Kanata and Ranze sweep into downed horde to reap the benefits. The sound upshot of weapons hitting a large amount of enemies at once has a satisfying grinding clang to it that feels excruciatingly devastating.

Much like its repeated environments, enemy designs as well suffer from largely being recolors of the same creatures in one case more. They also accept recycled attack movesets and patterns that hit slightly harder.

There'southward too a Learning feature that weaves characters' affections with one another toward a probability that they inherit a skill from some other person they're on favorable terms with. This opens up the ability to not only switch classes, merely besides learn that course's moveset, assail extensions, and support skills besides. This allows players to allocate skill points into completely different things for characters and somewhen have all of them learn from one some other in a domino-like fashion.

Fiddling with the inventory is a bit of a nightmare in this game. Though Amatsume eventually opens up a shop with basic equipment, the chief manner of upgrading weapons, armors, and accessories all depends on upkeeping the bonuses that the drop rate and Risk provide throughout consecutive battles. This ways that every time you complete a dungeon that you've fought a lot in, expect a gigantic pile of weapons, armors, and accessories to wade through and checking to run into if in that location're any worthwhile upgrades to your current setup for each graphic symbol.

This would be a whole lot easier to bear if the game had more quality-of-life options that perchance let players sell items in dungeons. There is an pick for a character to automatically equip optimized items, but it's unreliable when aiming for a specific stat to boost or equipping proper defenses confronting specific ailments or enemy types. I usually had to spend an additional 5-x minutes afterward every dungeon to make sure my offensive and defensive arsenal were always the best that they could be..

All of Exist Archive's characters are highly customizable. You can pretty much have anyone serve whatever office as long as you're willing to piece of work for information technology.

With an boilerplate showtime playthrough time of 45-55 hours, a New Game+ that contain a few secret challenges, and multiple catastrophe paths, Exist Archive is a RPG that has long legs to those that autumn in love with its gameplay. Information technology'due south refreshing to come across a highly competent protagonist like Kanata calmly analyzing situations in an rational manner. His perspective helps keep things balanced amid the bizarre company he surrounds himself with.

The English voice acting does a splendid chore bringing out each graphic symbol's personality, though Yamatoga and Mitsuhide'due south performances peculiarly stood out to me. There is besides a Japanese vocalisation option likewise for those who desire to heed to the original voices. You really tin't get wrong one way or the other. Nigh every piece of dialogue is voice acted too!

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Information technology's important to note that the game's PlayStation iv version runs at 60fps, while its PlayStation Vita analogue is capped at 30fps. Visuals between both are virtually identical, though the Vita exhibits slightly longer loading times in some cases. Exist Annal lends itself well to gaming on-the-go as a dungeon run can be knocked out in 30-45 minutes usually.

I constitute Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Heaven to be a lovely little RPG that rides on the wings of Valkyrie Profile despite noticeable flaws. Its narrative hooks are undeniably riveting as it presents an unconventional premise of a flimsy stalemate that's gear up to break down at a moment'south notice. With a fast-paced battle system accompanied by 2nd platforming sections, this successor to Valkyrie Profile is a fairly proficient game barred downwardly by a monotonous overall fetch quest that revisits reused dungeon designs for many hours.

7

Versions tested: PlayStation 4

Disclaimer: A copy of this game was provided to RPG Site past the publisher.

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Source: https://www.rpgsite.net/review/5007-exist-archive-the-other-side-of-the-sky-review

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