QCF: Black Rock Shooter: The Game

he planet Earth is almost entirely devoid of human life. What was once a thriving population consisting of billions was reduced to a mercilessly paltry 12. Hope is all but lost, and what’s left of it rides on a secret weapon: Project-BRS, the creatively titled Black Rock Shooter. Yeah, Black Rock Shooter, because she shoots black rocks, y'all. What did you expect?

The Vita struggles a little less with each passing month, and the benefit of accessing PSP games within PSN has been integral in expanding the library and overall appeal for Sony’s on-the-go game box. Taking full advantage, NIS America mines away at some of these untapped veins of PSP releases that haven’t seen light outside of the land of the rising sun, and they be on to something. While this frame of mind may seem lazy for those looking for new and optimized content for their expensive Vita, Black Rock Shooter: The Game does good to compliment the direction NIS America is taking and gives us a great portable game in its own right.

Action RPGs aren’t exactly a foreign territory for portable games, especially with the variety that’s already available in both the PSP and the Vita format, but Black Rock Shooter manages to be different in the best way. The combat places the Lolita automaton in a behind-the-shoulder perspective that’s controlled through third-person aiming mechanics regulated through a shot reticle that uses an aliasing control reminiscent of a rail shooter. Basically, it’s juxtaposed between a mix of Resident Evil 4 and Sin & Punishment. Weird, right?

However, BRS manages to execute what sounds like a weird yet interesting concept on paper into a fleshed out design that accomplishes what it sets to do.

Even though the pacing is similar to a shooter environment, the structure is a lot more tactical than it initially implies, which adds to the deceptively addictive charm of combat. As you’re positioned in a landscape of oncoming Enemy mobs, you have the immediate tension of shooting down as many enemies as you can as they return fire or menacingly approach you. Phases are dictated through an active battle exchange that’s determined through a “heat” gauge.

The gauge will fill up with every barrage of fire you launch or dodge maneuvers you skid through that dictate how many times you can consecutively use the actions before risking the possibility of overheating. Overheating, if it wasn’t self-explanatory enough, essentially means that you’ll be left vulnerable to enemy onslaught under the mercy of cooldown time before you can fully recuperate.

The other alternative to dodging or shooting is guarding. While it won’t increase your heat gauge, the meter won’t deplete the excess energy it would need to disperse either. Guarding doesn’t fully protect against damage -- it only reduces the damage inflicted from strikes, and will have to come into play when you’re unable to effectively dodge. It is in these dynamics that the fighting becomes a satisfying exercise of engagement with the combat as frenetic as BRS. 

The decision making applies an intuitive and organically effective risk/reward system when battling. The philosophy really drives the agency when fighting because of all the varying conditions that can affect your odds of success. Be it different enemies and enemy combinations, or passive conditions that enfeeble or enhance, these dynamics actively change up your tactics in response, which yields gratifying results.

BRS continues changing up combat with customization and its approach to stat advancement that layers the core leveling system. BRS offers a number of slots for passive skills and attack skills. The attack skills are a bit misrepresentative, as it isn’t exactly limited to offensive abilities, but additional conditions and skills that range from defensive measures to enfeeblement. Making the calls between the vast list of options you’ll accumulate adds to the attention in your strategy, and even adds a layer of new strategies to experiment with when your comfort zone is challenged by a particular type of enemy.

The depth never really comes full circle. Combat may have its ever-expanding layers of nuances that make it interesting, but the formula is still, at its core, a bit repetitive. BRS endures from its sharp structuring thanks to the challenges and elements that cater to its portable format.

Aside from gained experience points at the end of each scuffle, you’re able to achieve meta objectives belonging to an assortment of challenges. Completing these challenges rewards you with abilities, perks, or stat bonuses, and will be unlocked through contextual plot progression or free-play. Most of the challenges can be a bit one-dimensional since they range anywhere from hunting specific enemy types to sub-standard fetch quests. However, things change up and take on some dimensions that will cater to anyone who’s familiar with Xbox 360 achievements. Some of these more fleshed out challenges include when you’re tasked with avoiding damage in some way or completely or defeating enemies with only one specific ability. For example, speed runs. The challenge factor successfully extracts some extra content out of the game when the challenge itself can be exciting, though the majority in between these becomes a reality of monotony as the game progresses.

The usually unforgiving architecture of your standard JRPG is completely absent, as there’s no penalty for failing battles other than lost ground, lack of items, or obscure grinding to accomplish beyond what challenges offer. The mission layout makes the experience incredibly easy to pick up and play. Other than the battle elements, though, there’s very little else left to BRS. The maps aren’t particularly innovative other than simply serving the purpose for terrain to cover, and movement simply acts as a interim between combat with little else to do other than some contextual navigation movement that involves elevation or some other arbitrary environment change. The overworld is pretty lifeless beyond the purpose of a battlefield.

Visually, the game pumps out the models and graphic designs that play to the strengths of the PSP engine, but the texture mapping can still be hard to look at from time to time. The authenticity of art in the style of BRS is done with respect towards the show’s flash, and emulates accordingly through direct gameplay in an enjoyable way. The soundtrack is the standout star for BRS presentation, and captures that cyber-Goth anime tone nicely with catchy beats and breakdowns from time to time.

Black Rock Shooter: The Game may fall victim to its unassumingly generic appearance thanks in part to the saturation of anime-styled JRPGs, but it’s one of the most ingeniously designed titles to hit the genre recently. The combat hardly suffers from tedium. And when it does, the game is structured to be an effective palate cleanser that makes picking it back up from previous game play runs a seamless feat -- for the Vita, you can do a whole lot worse. BRS is definitely worth the price of admission.