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it's up to our party of cute princesses to save the world in this JRPG | Asdivine Saga - Full Review

968 View2023-02-08

Asdivine Saga is another Retro-JRPG in the likes of classic Final Fantasy games like FFV and FFVI, The latest standalone entry in the somewhat popular and at the same time obscure retro-style JRPG series Asdivine.

These games are made primarily for and popular on mobile platforms. Most of the games were also released on PC and consoles but turned out not quite as popular.

🟩Pros

+The story and premise is quite intriguing

+The characters are likable and charming

+Gameplay is fun enough to keep you interested

+Different control options: touch, virtual gamepad, and physical gamepad.

🟥Cons

-The UI design and experience is mediocre

-English localization is a bit rough

A simple mercenary caught in the middle of the conflict.

Asdivine Saga starts off with the typical upbeat introduction of the main character, Vyse, an already established hot-headed fighter / mercenary by the time the game starts. It wastes no time immersing us in the story and the stakes involved. You see, Vyse lives in Nondia, a neutral territory far from the warring kingdoms of Lightoria and Zandark (“light” and “dark”, I see what you did there). Both kingdoms are trying to recruit Nondians to their cause, and Vyse is caught in the middle of the conflict.

Cute female characters

Along with Vyse you will run into three cute female characters to form your party, in a bit of a fanservice approach to the game. Celes, a princess of Lightoria, and Nisha, a princess of Zandark, plus a cute Ninja girl named Akane.

The character designs in the game are retro-chibi style in-game, but while in dialogues, there are portraits that are highly detailed and anime-looking. You can build relationships with your mostly female party members, but alas, for those who are expecting heavy romantic elements in the game, it's unfortunately not present.

There is a hidden power at play here with the two kingdoms, one that seems to be influencing both sides of the war, and it's up to our hero and his ragtag party of cute and interesting female heroes to investigate this and maybe, save the world from the horrors of full-scale global war.

Gameplay Analysis

The gameplay is retro-inspired and the setup best resembles Final Fantasy V and VI with its beautiful 2D art-style where you can roam around in the levels in traditional 2D exploration, and an overworld segment to travel across the continent. Soundtrack is decent and was treated like a proper retro-JRPG game, giving off either a melodramatic and cheerful mood, depending on the situation.

It also has an instanced turn-based combat system with attack, skill, magic, and item / throw options. Your party is on the right side, the enemies on the left.

Asdivine Saga has a Combat tactics system where you can change tactics and ‘formation’; like increasing your defense in exchange for reduced damage, or prioritizing skills and magic attacks over basic attacks. It's a simple addition but one that adds another layer to the gameplay.

While there are no strong combat elements to make this game highly memorable in the gameplay department, it still features some unique mechanics. Like experimenting with Akane to combine different items to throw resulting in different special attacks, or using fairy-like spirits to accompany heroes and boost their attacks. During the exploration parts, you can also swap characters to control them instead of the main character.

This game gives you a lot of options on how to play.

To help players, Asdivine Saga has a lot of modern accessibility features; there are different touch control schemes and you can choose to play in either pure point and click touch screen “Tap mode”, or with a virtual gamepad called “gamepad mode”. It also supports physical controllers like the Razer Kishi. There is also an auto-battle system for those who just want to focus on the story and not immerse themselves with the rather standard combat system.

The battle queueing system seen in other Asdivine games is also back and is a nice additional accessibility feature to help players track the current flow of combat, to find out which character or enemy is next to move.

The UI design and experience is atrocious and feels like a flash-game made in the early 2000s. It is even more exacerbated when playing the mobile version with big buttons and controls taking up a huge chunk of screen real estate.

There is quality, but there is also quantity:

Overall, the gameplay of Asdivine Saga is simplistic and I don’t have any complaints with it. It’s fun enough to keep me interested all throughout the experience, and easy enough to find myself focusing more on the amazing storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, it's a cliche story of a group of heroes trying to save a changing world caught in a good vs evil battle. But there is a reason that cliche is used over and over again — it’s interesting — especially when done right.

Endgame wise, there is no in-lore postgame exploration, but you can explore to the point before the final encounter, as typical with other games. You can also grind and level to your heart’s content, up to a ridiculous max level of 999. Although it will only take you around 20 hours only to finish the story, complete with multiple endings and amazing plot twists waiting to surprise you.

The English localization is a bit rough, but it does the job in getting the point across, for example, the jokes are still funny, and the tutorials are still understandable enough to be of help to the player. You can also see a transcript of the current dialogue in place so it's a nice feature to be able to go back to somethings you might have missed, especially if you have accidentally touched the screen.

Conclusion:

If you’re looking for an affordable and solid Retro JRPG experience with an intriguing story to play on your mobile phones on the go and pass the time, and won’t mind a somewhat substandard UI experience, then look no further than Asdivine Saga. Outside of quality PC and console ports like the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games, Asdivine Saga is really one of the better retro-JRPG games made specifically for mobile.

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