Thursday 17 April 2014

Simple 2500 Series Portable!! Vol. 13: The Akuma Hunters - Exorsister

The first thing you should know about this game is that it bears no relation to the early 90s series of comedy/horror/porn films starring famed comic creator Ippongi Bang. I hope you can get over your obviously grave disappointment.
It's actually got more in common with the Oneechanbara series being, as it is, developed by Tamsoft, and featuring a group of attractive women engaging in combat with horror-themed monsters. Also like the Oneechanbara series, the game has only a few maps,
each having several missions taking place in parts of it. The game has a big flaw that its more famous sister lacks though, which is that most hated bugbear of modern action games, endless grinding. While the Oneechanbara series does have experience points and levelling up, the player's progress isn't particularly impeded by their low level, Exorsister requires re-playing stages over and over to grind for the materials to sell so you can play a stronger weapon that will reduce the awful slog of the next one.
When you do manage to save up for an adequate weapon, the game is a fairly entertaining (though repetetive) beat em up. You go about the stage,
beat up monsters (who do look pretty cool, and there are a fair few varieties of them, too), and while they're unconcious on the ground, you exorcise them. Each weapon has two stats: AP (attack power) and RP (I assume this means rosary power?), their functions are fairly obvious: attack power indicates how much damage the weapon does when attacking, and RP indicates how quickly monsters can be exorcised with the weapon equipped.
Fighting tough monsters, who will have three main advantages over the player, such as lots of health, lots of.. spiritual health(?) and an entourage of goons to protect them,
is simpler than it seems at first. You just need to stay locked on to the target, and wail on them, dodging out of the way when they look like they're going to attack. When they're down, the best way to exorcise them is to charge the spell up close (which makes it charge much quicker), then run away from the crony monsters before casting it, so they don't interrupt it with their attacks. And don't bother killing the cronies until you kill the target, as they'll quickly respawn.
Anyway, although I've enjoyed this game, and spent a good few hours playing it, I can't call it a good game or really recommend it. The fact is that the grind of having to repeat stages to get equipped for the next ones is just so boring, and there are much better things to do with your time than waste it on that kind of rubbish.

1 comment:

  1. There's a free demo of this out there. I tried it, it was pretty painful to play. It almost makes Oneechanbara look like Ninja Gaiden Black. The graphics are horrible even by PSP standards too.

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