Namco X Capcom
Posted on November 21, 2005
When I was in Japan several ridiculous video games were released. The sequel to Katamari Damashii. Mushiking. Several Megaman Battle Network games. Somehow only one caught my eye though, a merging of two mammoth game companies into the most star studded strategy RPG of all time. Namco X Capcom. All the best characters from the respective companies blockbuster properties being mashed into one nonsensical story? Sounds fantastic to me! I had no idea what I was getting into. 75 hours of gameplay later, I’m still not totally sure.
Everything about this game lends itself to exaggeration. I could say this game has “a million” characters and takes “20 years” to finish, but I am going to take pains to use the actual numbers. That way the true madness behind this game will become completely evident. The game works like any other strategy RPG (ie. Final Fantasy Tactics), so let’s start out by listing the controllable units.
Reiji Arisu & Xiaomu (Original characters)
Shion & M.O.M.O. (Xenosaga Episode 1)
KOS-MOS (Xenosaga Episode 1)
Mitusurugi Heishiro (Soul Calibur II)
Taki & Waya-hime (Soul Calibur II, Bravoman)
Stan & Rutie (Tales of Destiny)
Judas (Tales of Destiny 2)
Gilgamesh & Kai (Tower of Druaga)
Tobi Masuyo & Hiromi Tengenji (Baraduke, Burning Force)
Taira no Kagekiyou & Tarousuke (Genpei Toumaden, Youkai Dochuuki)
Valkyrie (Adventures of Valkyrie)
Kurino Sandragora & Sabine (Adventures of Valkyrie)
Bravoman & Wonder Momo (Bravoman, Wonder Momo)
Jin Kazama (Tekken)
Heihachi Mishima (Tekken)
King & Felicia (Tekken, Darkstalkers)
Armor King (Tekken)
Klonoa & Gantz (Klonoa Heroes)
Hori Taizo (Dig-Dug)
Demitri Maximov (Darkstalkers)
Morrigan & Lilith (Darkstalkers)
LeiLei & Fong Ling (Darkstalkers, Resident Evil Gun Survivor 4)
Bruce & Regina (Resident Evil Gun Survivor 4, Dino Crisis)
Ryu (Street Fighter)
Ken Masters (Street Fighter)
Chun-Li & Cammy (Street Fighter)
Sakura Kasugano & Karin Kazuki (Street Fighter)
Rose (Street Fighter)
Hideo Shimazu & Kyoko Minazuki (Rival Schools)
Captain Commando (Captain Commando)
Fuuba (Baby Commando) & Genity (Mummy Commando) (Captain Commando)
Sho (Ninja Commando) & Guy (Captain Commando, Final Fight)
Arthur (Ghouls & Ghosts)
Unknown Soldier 1P & 2P (Forgotten Worlds)
Sylphie (Forgotten Worlds)
Rock & Roll (Rockman Dash)
Tron with Kobun (Rockman Dash)
Hiryu (Strider)
Mike Haggar (Final Fight)
There you have it. The team units cannot be split apart, and the single units cannot be merged, so Arthur will always be alone, and Klonoa & Gantz will always be a single unit. These are all the units you will get to control through the 45 stages in this game. If you want a ridiculous table of EVERYONE in the game check here. I really don’t feel like typing all of that out.
In general SRPGs involve choosing which of your units you want to use, and moving units around a grid. If you kill all the bad guys or reach some other goal, you win the fight. In Namco X Capcom there are 5 prologue levels and 45 normal levels. Each level is a fight where you use up to 12 units to fight a usually much larger enemy force. Out of these 50 levels only 8 give you any choice of units to use. The rest are all scripted, and generally involve you splitting your forces into 3 groups which you do not have the ability to customize. Why? There are 39 different units, why is there no option to choose which to use? Because then the story wouldn’t be so well rounded.
Oh the story. Basically there are 4 different realities. The “real world” (that’s where we live, also where the people from Street Fighter and Tekken live), the “fantasy adventure world” (Tales of Destiny, Klonoa, etc), “space world” (Strider, Rockman Dash, etc), and “feudal japan world” (Soul Calibur, etc). The original characters are part of a group that specializes in keeping these world separate. The original villain of course is trying to break the barriers between worlds down, and is playing the big bad guys from each world against each other. In theory this is all very interesting, and stays interesting for maybe the first 30 levels. After that things start to drag. Every time you fight a plot boss they run away before you can kill them. This is fine. But not when it happens 7 or 8 times, and especially after specific plot death for these “boss” characters. “Thought you could kill me huh?” Yes, frankly. This is the 7th time I’ve seen you, and there was explicit plot reasoning for you to actually die last time.
Now I hear you saying “But Brad, this game just sounds long. Don’t you want games to be long? That’s called “value” around here!” You’re right, long games are good. To understand why this game is too long we have to delve into the history of a little game series called Super Robot Wars.
To date there are over 20 Super Robot Wars games, on systems ranging from PS2 back to the Super Famicom. The premise of the games as every giant robot ever (or at least the ones in series owned by Bandai) fighting in a strategy RPG environment. That means robots from Mazinger Z to Big O all gang up on their enemies, and are commanded on a grid interface. Does this sound familiar? Clearly, if this series was not so wildly popular Namco X Capcom would not exist in its current form. What makes SRW different though? Combat.
Aah combat. Outside of the story it can make or break an RPG. The combat in SRW has short animations of the robots beating on each other, occasionally with super advanced special effects blowing the player’s mind. These animations are getting longer and longer as the host console’s capacity increases. The levels therefore are getting longer and longer. However, there has always been an option to turn off animations, and make the combat a smooth streamlined experience. This also lets the player avoid seeing Getta Robo do Strong Sunshine 10 times per level. In Namco X Capcom combat is much different. Units move around the map and when they are in range, they can target other units. This is how all strategy RPGs work. When the battle begins though, players use something called the Branch System.
The Branch System grants you a number of moves you can perform in one attack. By pressing the circlel button, or a direction and the circle button your character can use one of several different attacks. By using these moves in a combo players can deal a bunch of damage to their enemies, and eventually use a super move when their gage is full. This is the big hook for the game, and what sets it apart from other games in the genre. Its also extremely fun and impressive looking. New moves are earned as characters level up, and finding what combos do the most damage is actually an enjoyable process. But these improvements top out around stage 30, leaving characters at the exact same skill level for the last 15 stages of the game. Performing the exact same combo every time is NOT fun, and is in fact rather time consuming. Battles with the animation turned off in SRW take about 10 seconds. There is no way to turn off animations in Namco X Capcom, because the amount of damage is totally dependent on what combo you choose to perform. Therefore battles will always be long, and get longer as characters level up and get more branches per attack. Defense is the same, players press directional buttons to decrease damage. Using the defensive option that results in no animations sometimes causes units to take critical damage, and uses AP, delaying their next turn.
When characters are engaged in fighting they gain AP quickly. So quickly that they sometimes get 3 turns before another character who is out of range of the fighting. This makes picking up treasure chests a chore, and one I eventually gave up on altogether. Even with the huge roster I tired of always doing the increasingly long combos that only took a fraction of the enemy’s life. Most of all the thought of the next stage taking me over 3 hours to complete made me stop playing the game completely.
Had the game ended around level 35 I would be writing something extremely flattering. Basically, they had an interesting idea but just didn’t know when to quit. Fanservice games should not be over 80 hours long, lest they alienate all but the MOST dedicated fan. I can only recommend this to people who live and breathe Namco and Capcom, or strategy RPGs. Or those with a lot of time on their hands.
Bradlby
On December 11, 2005 at 13:42
Nobody’s knocking Katamari, I like it just as much as the next guy. Actually the reason I didn’t buy it was because the retail price in Japan is $60. Would you pay $60 for either of those games? But like I said, this isn’t a fighting game, its a strategy RPG thats too long for its own good.
Erin
On November 25, 2005 at 03:46
Hey don’t knock Katamari! I love that game and a sequel was EXACTLY what I was hoping for! And I love all combinations of fighting games with characters from different worlds, and I can’t wait until I can play Namco X Capcom… Although I don’t know how close it will come to beating the awesomeness that is Marvel vs Capcom.