Assault on Titan VR: Unbreakable Assessment

TL;DR for Assault on Titan VR: Unbreakable
(performed on a Meta Quest 3 128 GB mannequin)

Efficiency artwork is pretentious.
Actuality TV is exploitative and faux.
Nation music is the vapid propaganda of working-class pacification.

These sorts of broad, sweeping generalizations are flawed…
Largely.

Huge claims about whole genres of artwork can at finest solely be hyperbole—exaggerations for impact—however they usually develop from a kernel of reality.

One other such little bit of truth-kernelled hyperbole?
Anime is just nearly as good as its motion scenes.

I stated it. I stated it and I (kind of) meant it!

From the teleporting tremendous saiyan battles of Dragon Ball Z to the camera-warping acceleration of Redline, anime is at its finest when it’s serving up adrenaline, and Assault on Titan isn’t any exception.

Assault on Titan (AoT for brief) is one in every of many anime sequence I’ve discovered to be impenetrably arduous to look at throughout.

My viewing experiences all the time go one thing like this:
I purchase the hype and begin an anime. The premise is cool. The animation is sweet.
And then the huge and inevitable ocean—wave after wave—of heavy-handed exposition and nuance-free dialogue comes crashing forth, letting the viewer up for air far too sometimes with killer sequences of throttle-cranking motion.

I final perhaps a season earlier than the eighteen minutes an episode of echoey inner monologues performed over principally static face pans drive me off into YouTube’s open arms the place I binge by means of a plot abstract and all of the sequence’ motion sequences.

A small glowing gem floats out of my browser and absorbs into my crown chakra.

I’m sated.

My thinning chrysalis is restored in a burst of sentimental mild and I sleep for an additional hundred years.

My level is that relating to anime, the motion is nearly solely the great things.
And fortunately, Assault on Titan VR: Unbreakable retains it to the great things.

In the event you’re unfamiliar with Assault on Titan, right here’s the gist:

People stay in a world dominated by “Titans”; vaguely humanoid giants of various measurement, form, energy, and intelligence with a mysterious origin. People construct large partitions and particular gear to defend themselves from the Titans. The Titans break the partitions and you—as a soldier within the “Survey Corps” (also referred to as the “Scout Regiment”, relying on whether or not you watched the present with subtitles or dubbed), the titan-fighting department of the human army—use your particular “Omni-Directional Mobility” (ODM) gear to cease them from wiping humanity out.

Your two upgradable swords and ODM gear are what you employ to take out Titans. The ODM gear is basically a gas-powered physique swimsuit that includes twin grappling hooks and a few minor jetpack-like propulsion capabilities. And it’s completely sick as hell.

You swing from constructing to constructing slashing by means of Titans together with your swords, slicing at their limbs and necks like a samurai Peter Parker.

On this method, Assault on Titan’s aerial acrobatics have the uncommon privilege of being a genuinely distinctive energy fantasy. No different IP has this explicit type of fight at its coronary heart. Sure, Spiderman and some different video games have a mainly comparable model of locomotion, however they don’t have the liberty to course right and double leap that comes with the ODM’s fuel propulsion, nor the giant-slaying swordsman panache.

You’re a lethal projectile, swinging by means of colossal opponents with surgical precision. That is the core of the sport, and boy, does it ever really feel good.

Gameplay is clean and satisfying, but it surely has some quirks that take time to get used to.

Two examples:
True to the present, hangtime right here lasts longer than in real-life physics.
It would really feel unusually floaty at first, but it surely permits for epic anime prospers like mid-air blade replacements and on-the-fly trajectory selections.

Moreover, your sword strikes have a type of slash-and-then-damage samurai film logic that feels bizarre and flawed till it doesn’t. Ultimately, you embrace the sheer cinema of getting propelled nicely previous your opponent by the point their necks gash open and spray about.

Nonetheless, the delay of your strikes does nonetheless really feel clunky on the odd event that you simply need to repeatedly thwack away at a goal from a stationary place as a substitute of casting your common on-the-move remoted slashes.

And whereas this model of fight is much less frequent, I wouldn’t point out it if it by no means got here up.

Talking of mechanics, I like to recommend spending a while within the tutorial simply swinging round for some time earlier than really beginning the sport. Ranges correct are sure to a timer, so the tutorial is the one probability it’s important to freely apply your fundamentals with out the strain of rapidly hitting your goals.

There are just a few totally different controls to study, however stringing them collectively nicely makes for fluid and dynamic emergent gameplay. Stumbling upon subtleties of motion that aren’t instantly apparent—after which making use of and mastering them—feels completely badass.

There’s one extraordinarily useful motion tech that I solely realized within the ultimate degree of the second chapter (which is to say- the final degree of the present early entry launch)!

It seems that should you hook onto one spot with each of your grapples after which maintain the left thumbstick to 1 aspect as you propel in the direction of it, you’ll additionally swing round the thing you’re hooked onto. And for the reason that solely strategy to kill a Titan is to slash the weak factors on the napes of their necks, this might have made all of the distinction in loads of my close to misses brought on by Titans turning in the direction of me mid-swing.

Studying this method—in addition to having unlocked new swords by the top of my three or 4 hour run—made me need to return and replay all the ranges on which I obtained something lower than 5 stars. The sport is already fairly tough simply to get by means of, but it surely additionally charges your efficiency per degree, dangling the potential of a five-star ranking; bewitching you into replaying your strategy to mastery.

Ranges are made up of missions strung collectively by means of totally different components of the walled metropolis and are available in three differing types: kill Titans, accumulate provides (whereas avoiding Titans), and defend a construction.

On most ranges, I earned three-star scores or increased.
On the structure-defense ranges although?

After a number of makes an attempt simply to beat them, I by no means obtained increased than a one-star ranking.

These ones are robust.

Titans swarm your location and it’s important to try to discover the best steadiness of stopping them of their tracks by slicing off their limbs, killing them outright, or drawing them away from the target.

These ranges pushed me into my most spectacular combos, typically killing a number of Titans earlier than touching the bottom! But I nonetheless by no means broke two stars.

When you’re out of the tutorial, Assault on Titan doesn’t maintain your hand.

This recreation is an inexpensive problem to finish and a large problem to excellent.

In the event you’re aggressive like me, you’ll need to leap again within the combine to beat your excessive scores.

And should you’re actually aggressive, there’s a stay leaderboard you may try to climb to beat all people else’s excessive scores!

Followers of the present will respect the looks of normal characters within the Survey Corps/Scout Regiment as NPC sidekicks, hanging out with you at residence base after which swinging into battle with you, sometimes narrating your fight.

For individuals who don’t know the present, sufficient narrative is delivered by means of manga-like animatics at key factors of the sport to maintain a way of story with out devolving into boring lore dumps.

This integration of story parts retains the sport immersive.

Additional to that finish, Assault on Titan has loads of diegetic parts that add aptitude and a distinctly anime allure to the entire affair:

The menus come within the type of an official Survey Corps log which you signal with a pen to substantiate alternatives.

Reloading your weapons is completed by dropping damaged blades to the bottom after which sliding your hilts to the recent substitute blades at your belt.

And should you’re an actual dyed-in-the-wool weeb then excellent news, as a substitute of utilizing the thumbstick to maneuver alongside the bottom you may decide to throw your arms again right into a Naruto run!

Not solely is that this the final word Japanophile moist dream in addition to a enjoyable little bit of efficiency for streamers, but it surely additionally helps to maintain your hand off the left thumbstick, doubtlessly stopping you from unintentionally strafing mid-air in moments the place you meant solely to subtly information your aerial trajectory; a mistake I made usually.

And if that sounds annoying to you, fear not. Most management schemes may be modified within the settings.

One setting, nonetheless, that I discovered frustratingly absent was clean turning.

For a recreation so targeted on fluid acrobatic fight, it appears misplaced—even a bit jarring—to solely have the ability to snap flip.

Now whereas I’ve nonetheless obtained my complaining hat on, let’s cowl some extra important floor:

Points with textures confirmed up throughout my playthrough on the Meta Quest 3; not solely within the far-away textures that succumbed to the sport’s mediocre draw distance, however additionally in very close-up textures revealing a crude smudginess. This—in addition to some clipping between character fashions—turns into particularly evident must you get snatched up by a Titan, as your perspective turns into contiguous with their grasp.

Now, as a matter of style, I used to be additionally dissatisfied with (most of) the Titans’ comparative lack of creepiness.

Within the present, all the Titans don a visage yanked firmly out of the depths of the uncanny valley; sporting tender—typically pleasant and even child-like—options that betray the monstrous and senseless starvation that pilots their gargantuan, nude our bodies.

Right here, the tender and sort options stay, however by some means the eeriness is all however gone.

It’s as if that tender kindness was dialed up only one too many notches on many of the Titans’ fashions such that they simply don’t actually look threatening.

We simply don’t get sufficient of a glimpse on the monster behind the masks.

Bugs, it ought to be talked about, had been current however few and much between; lower than I anticipated for an early entry recreation and truthfully lower than even most full-release VR video games.

One thing concerning the platform appears nearly averse to shine, however—by early entry requirements on the very least—Assault on Titan does nicely to curb that development.

Total, Assault on Titan VR: Unbreakable is a worthy entry into the area for an IP with massive footwear to fill.

The sport because it stands is small, however so is the limited-time price ticket of solely USD $5.

And for the aggressive sort, even simply this early entry model affords loads of replayability must you goal for five-star scores throughout each degree.

Plus, with the promise of a future co-op mode, quality-of-life changes, and an prolonged marketing campaign, the total recreation appears poised to ship even higher on the lofty guarantees of high-flying dynamic swordplay made by its TV precursor.

In order for you a deep retelling of the eponymous anime then this recreation is not for you.

However in order for you an aerial hotbed of emergent gameplay; an train in circulate; an immersive expertise with robust core mechanics that reward endurance and intentionality, an honest problem vary, epic sound design, and a layer of polish not identified in most pre-release standalone VR titles, then this recreation is undeniably worthwhile.

With a low price ticket and smoother edges than you’d count on from an early entry providing, any action-hungry gamer searching for an inexpensive thrill owes it to themself to go purchase this recreation instantly.

For now—for its present scope and worth—Assault on Titan VR: Unbreakable will get a well-deserved 8/10.

Scoring & Rubric

Scores are out of 10, the place 10 is a masterpiece, 1 is unplayable, and 5 is simply common.
Gameplay is weighed heavier within the total rating.

Gameplay – 8
Immersion – 7
Visuals – 7
Sound – 8
Efficiency – 8
Replayability – 9