天下制覇

Oh god… I need to finish Beat Blades Haruka before this hits…

I really need to pay more attention to GIGA’s website. Otome Crisis is the latest and greatest in the Savior series. As you might guess from my continued interest guess in the Savior games, I’m quite a fan. Duel Savior was originally a completely standalone game with its own plot about Taiga and his ‘sister’ Mia getting summoned to a fantasy world. They were the holders of a couple mystical weapons that would swing the fate of the world and all that. It soon received a PS2 port and an expansion (Justice) which added a couple more paths and a bunch of extra modes. The Savior engine was kept alive through various fandisks that included new characters from Giga’s other games until they released Xross Scramble as a culmination of all the fandisks plus a couple new stories for the Duel Savior universe.

Otome Crisis CM

The Savior engine is one of those deceptively simple, yet remarkably complex affairs that permeate the more free-style fighters like Super Smash Brothers, Guilty Gear, Melty Blood, etc. Like Smash, there are basically only three buttons, a light attack, a strong/special attack and a guard. Most characters have six attacks per button (stick in neutral, forward and down positions, and variations in the air) plus six super attacks done by pressing the two attack buttons together with the same variations. Some attacks chain into others, but almost every attack can be cancelled by dashing in any of the four cardinal directions or just using a stronger attack. Of course, cancelling costs you meter, so you can’t do it forever, and hitstun isn’t forever, so combos have to be fast and furious or they have to include a wall slam or the like. There’s also a ton of special stuff about blocking, but the short version is that a perfectly timed block lets your counter immediately and gives you some combo meter back.

Otome Crisis OP – Crisis Beat

Otome Crisis adds a few more things to keep track of. In the olden days, once you were in a combo, you were stuck for some damage. OC adds Soul Explosions, basically the equivilent of Melty Blood’s Circuit Sparks or Guilty Gear’s bursts. Your character explodes with energy that knocks away your opponent and can be used at any time, though it takes awhile for them to recharge between uses. OC also adds assist attacks and assist Supers. By pressing BC and one of the directions, characters can call in a specific other character to perform a quick assist attack seperate from them. Down-BC does a combination super. Hiro, for example, has Kaede the Duel Savior as her support character. Kaede does a couple of her normal special attacks as her normal assist, and does her Forward Super while Hiro does her Super Shooting Star Kick (air Forward Super) as their assist Super making a sort of cross-kick between them. The only limit on assist attacks is that they drain the bar as much as a normal special/super cancel and you have to wait a few seconds for them to recharge between uses.

Complete Otome Crisis Mechanics Tutorial

There are a number of minor but significant changes as well. Wall slams are being handled very differently. No longer will characters slam up against the edge of the screen and drop lifelessly for you to combo. Instead, they bounce back with force, taking out anything and everything in their path. This certainly has the potential to interrupt or continue combos impressively. Items also rain endlessly from the skies that provide temporary boosts to attack, defense, life or the combo gauge. A bomb drops every now and then as well. The stage edges also have explosives at the start of matches near the top, further disabusing the endless wall slam combos, but at the same time, you can just slame your opponents into the mines for a different breed of fun.

Otome Crisis 1 Minute Battle WITH CRAAAAAZY Commentary

As for the new story… we follow the super crime fighting hero, Hiro Hoshizaki, as she attempts to hunt down the evil (well, morally ambiguous at least) Lori Espret Majoram… probably. Conversion of names is always a tricky business, especially when the only consonants might be Ls… might be Rs… who knows. I have to admit that I didn’t really pay close attention to Xross Scramble’s story aside from ogling Esca and then crying in pain as she was about 400 pounds of asskicking in a 120 pound body, but OC had me in tears from laughter within five minute of starting the preview. Eventually, a dimensional rift opens up and the dynamic duo ends up in the Duel Savior universe to take on the rest of the crew. The game is even nice enough to give you a quick bio on the old characters as they come up (see bottom of post). Immunity looks especially cute now that she’s not trying to become an evil overlord.

Hiro, Hero of Justice, and Her Boss in a Pot
  

Hiro is a true hero of justice, through and through. She sings her own theme music. She’s bossed by a guy in a tea kettle. She uses boku (Hi, Totali!) What is there to not love about her? As for her fighting style, she transforms into the fox eared super hero and then plays pretty similarly to Esca. She’s got Esca’s speed and arcing attacks, but lacks the explosive range on them. She also has Taiga’s immensely awesome punch rush, and her Shooting Star Kick (down air special) is very quick, powerful, and has minimal startup. Hiro does have a little bit of an issue with control since you need to be a lot more precise with her than Esca and you don’t have any projectiles to fall back on, but she’s till rather fun to use.

Lori and Her Freaky Rabbit
  

Lori’s a little rougher to use, but it looks like she’s taking over the role of the customizable character. In Xross Scramble, Taiga took on this role of incorporating defeated enemy moves into replacing his own, and Lori does the same, though in the demo, that only means her’s and Hiro’s. She gets Esca’s, but there’s no battle afterward to use them in. On her own, she plays a lot like Immunity, but she lacks the summons and lacks the sheer range. Lori also shares a number of moves with Claire, but has a bit better speed and range on them. If I had to make a determination, I’d call her a mid range fighter with some especially good mid-air attacks. Her assist attacks are all using that freakish rabbit.

1 Minute Battle Challenge

The battle trial pits you against 5 Xross Scramble characters in quick succession as you try to beat them in under a minute. Aside from Hiro, it also comes with Naoko from Kono Aozora. Naoko’s decent and has an immensely powerful Assist super featuring other Aozora characters, but her range is awful and compared to the other short range characters, she lacks the edge in speed. Her three assists in general are pretty decent and provide good cover and setup for her other attacks. She’s not bad, but as far as her normal moves go, she just only has one good move (Fireworks… air down special) to close the distance and actually get in there to do damage.

Showdown of Titans… Coming Soon
  

So, I don’t have too much more to say than that. Everything but the last video is promotional material released on the official site (NSFW), but I’ve gone ahead and uploaded the two demos elsewhere since every single mirror I tried was slow as hell. There’s little to nothing pornographic in them aside from Esca having her clothes torn up by Lori. That’s about as risque as it gets thus far, though from the CGs on the site… I can see that Nanashi will be… explored by Papillion at some point. Poor zombie girl. The game’s out at the end of March… I’m sure I’ll have a hell of a lot more to say then. I am looking forward to seeing the new characters, and for reasons I don’t full understand myself, am looking forward to see the additions from Giga’s relatively new A Princess has Arrived (A High Tension Comedy!!). Until that point, enjoy the demos, they’re a blast.

Story Demo (light NSFW, Hiro and Lori playable)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EAQCQAXF

1 Minute Battle Challenge (Hiro and Naoko playable)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3WX4ZQGE