Toukiden: Age of Demons Review

JRPGs and RPGs in themselves are a very divided genre. Either you love them, hate them or haven't played enough to decide. I’m one which hasn’t really dabbled in them enough to make judgement on what I think of them. However, Toukiden: Age of Demons may be the one to change my judgement forever. Will this game make me love the genre or hate it?

As soon as I loaded the game up, it felt very much like another game I reviewed, Soul Sacrifice. The world has been oppressed by a force known as ‘Oni’ for thousands of years. Eight years prior to the beginning of the game, an event known as ‘The Awakening’ happened, in which an extremely large amount of Oni appeared very rapidly. Most of the land was overwhelmed, except the Holy Mount, the Slayers’ main headquarters, and several villages that surrounded it. Slayers were quickly posted to each village to defend the towns with their lives and create a border around the Holy Mount. The most volatile of the villages that border the Holy Mount is Utakata Village, and that’s where the game takes place.

The story of the game is very well thought through and does very well in hooking you in. The characters’ reactions to in-game events always help the effect that what you are watching is actually happening, and there were many times in which I felt sorry for the characters’ predicaments.

You play as a character that you create. You get to decide what they look and sound like along with their starting weapon of choice. Each weapon is different and has a varied style of play. One weapon, the Gauntlets, is a melee based weapon primarily used to inflict large damage, but is slower than your other options, whilst the Chain & Sickle is a moderate damage close-mid range weapon that can also be used to propel yourself forwards to get into the fray quickly. If you don’t like your look you can change your hair once in-game, or if you’re unable to get to grips with the weapon you chose, you actually start off with all the weapons in your armoury, so you can just change it there. Or if you’re fine with your starting weapon of choice, do what I did and sell them all for some quick money at the start of the game.

The Oni are vicious demons which (with the exception of a few) attack any humans on sight. They let off a foul substance called Miasma, which warps time and space. Where Oni are common, there is a large amount of Miasma. Miasma is fatal to humans, meaning you can’t stay in an area with present Oni for very long (this acts as the game’s time limit on missions). Most Oni are mindless, and attack with little strategy, but some of the larger ones have a plan. For instance there’s one large Oni which waits until its prey is fatigued before attacking, whilst another can even lay traps for Slayers and kill them off like that. After fatally wounding a human, an Oni will devour them, taking their soul with them. The more souls an Oni devours, the more powerful it becomes. Some Oni can get so powerful to the point where they are able to regenerate parts of their own body that have been severed off. However, they can be absorbed through Purification, an ability which Slayers have, which stop them from regenerating, and the limb is replaced by a temporary Miasmatic aura. This, however, can still act as a limb, meaning you are not completely safe if you de-limb a large one, so you still need to finish the job. These larger Oni act as boss fights in the game.

There are many different type of Oni, ranging from your basic Imps, to an Aurwing, an Oni with wings that is able to temporarily fly. And of course, the larger Oni which require a lot more precision and control. These larger Oni are almost impossible to down on your own, as the purification process of Oni limbs takes a long time and any interruption will cause it to be halted. Taking too long to purify a severed limb will mean it will grow back, forcing you to sever the limb and repeat the process again. This works in the games favour as it allows a change to most games where you just have to attack it until it stops moving, or the good old ‘swing your sword at the big glowy parts until they stop glowing’.

Due to the high amount of Miasma, all fighting grounds have had time distorted in them, meaning each area is from a different era, or Age. There are six Ages in total, and these are all related to a different period of time in the land, such as the Age of Grace, which is an ancient area with a lot of old relics within, and the Age of War, which is a desolate, molten landscape. Whenever you enter a specific area, it’s very similar to Soul Sacrifice, in which it’s a job of going in, completing the task, and getting out. Tasks vary from killing a single large Oni, to killing X amount of smaller Oni, or even securing certain sectors of an Age. Each Age is split up into multiple sectors and you can only access the necessary sectors of an Age when doing a mission, meaning you can’t end up side-tracking from where you need to go, which is a problem I do tend to have in a lot of games, so I was very thankful for that feature.

The game’s currency is ‘Haku’, which can be extracted from the bodies of dead Oni and severed body parts of larger Oni. You also receive these as rewards from missions and quests. At first, you will earn little Haku, but later in the game you will find yourself with plenty of Haku to get you whatever you need. Also the shop system works differently than it does in most games. You have very little to buy at first, but as you buy and sell at the shop, you earn Patronage. The more Patronage you have, the bigger of a selection is available to you. Patronage increases slowly and the items that are on offer are even slower, meaning you earn shop items actually rather slowly. This may sound bad, but it keeps you coming and going to the shop practically after every mission to increase your Patronage and the shops selection.

Occasionally when killing Oni, the soul of one of their victims can get released, and absorbed into yours. These souls, called ‘Mitama’ are all that’s left of deceased heroes from long away. They can offer you help, but only when equipped into a weapon. There are different types of Mitama that each offer different boosts and abilities, such as a health-orientated Mitama who gives you abilities such as creating a circle which slowly regenerates all allies (and yourself) within its reach, or an attack Mitama, who gives you abilities to increase your attack damage or leech life from your opponents when you attack. Not only this, but they also offer passive boosts, such as increasing your health, or improving your stamina regeneration. You can upgrade your Mitama’s with the Shrine Maiden by using Haku, but you can only upgrade it so much before you  exhaust her abilities. Upgrading a Mitama can give you additional passive boosts, or it can increase the amount of times you can use their Abilities in a mission. At first you can only equip one Mitama in your weapon, but upgrade it with enough use, and you can have extra slots in which you can use a Mitama’s passive boosts, but not its main abilities. Some Mitama are scripted, but most are unlocked randomly. The Mitama add a unique spin to the game which works effectively in the games favour, meaning you have to choose which Mitama to use by what enemies are on the mission you’re about to do.

Before accepting a mission, there is also an assortment of quests you can do. These may be to help your fellow Slayer kill some Oni because he is behind on his quota, or they may be to retrieve a specific item for someone. Quests can reward you with extra storage space, special items or Haku. You can only accept five quests at a time, but all quests remain open, meaning even if you can’t accept them, they will remain there until you can.

The gameplay still remains enjoyable, even later in the game. At first, you will just go forward and slice at things (or smash them) but later you can see the opening of enemy attacks and be able to dodge them and use your weapon more effectively.

Each of your allies feel like they are actual people. Each have their own way of responding to situations, both scripted and not. For instance there was one character that, whenever I went down, would immediately stop what they were doing and help me up, whereas another character would finish off what he was attacking before he came to my aid.

At first, not many of your colleagues will trust you, but as you progress through the story, you can grow your bonds with characters, and this can be tracked by visiting someone in the village. Everyone will be ‘Acquaintances’ when you first meet them, but as you go on more missions with them and do quests for them, your relationship with them strengthens. There are several times when having conversations with people in which you have the choice of how to respond. This is normally to respond in a nice, polite way, or a cocky, arrogant way. While these change how the other person responds, it has no impact on future gameplay and is mainly on there for allowing your character to be who you want them to be.

There has been an attempt at using the PlayStation Vita’s Features, and it’s been partly successful. You can use the front touchpad to activate ‘The Eye of Truth’. This allows you to see enemy health and the weak spots of Large Oni. However, it can also be activated with ‘Select’, which I personally found a lot easier. You can also use the different corners of the rear touchpad to activate your weapon combos, which I found a lot easier to do, as the alternative was to maneuver my fingers round to press X and O at the same time, which is easier said than done, especially when you need to think fast. However, no attempt has been made of the Gyroscope within the PSV system, although in all honesty, I can’t see how it could have been used with it being a burden.

The graphics also look great. The frame rate never dropped and the game plays just as smooth as it looks. Each Age looks beautiful in it’s own way and an effort has been done to make the game look nice, and it sure worked.

The music also does credit. The happy, cheerful theme for when you're wandering around the village, to the more upbeat themes of the larger Oni, to the themes of the Ages. Each Age gives of a hint of despair, overwhelming odds, yet at the same time hope, that not all is lost, not yet. This outcome is very effective and contributes towards the game well.

Overall, Toukiden: Age of Demons is a brilliant game. It’s not like me to be so hooked on a game, and as I’m not really the one to like RPG games, the fact that Toukiden got me gripped to my PSV is astounding. A must-have for anyone with a PSV. Don’t have a PSV? Go buy one, just so you can play this game.