Gate Keepers (ゲートキーパーズ), launched 12/16/1999, developed by ESP, revealed by Kadokawa Shoten
It is a franchise that began with this Ps sport but in addition had an related manga, anime, and light-weight novel. The anime was one of many final initiatives of Shiozawa Kaneto, who died immediately in the course of the creation (he solely performed a visitor character in a single episode).
This struck me as a fairly lazy harem product. Neither the plot nor the characters are notably nicely developed, and the gameplay isn’t nice both. It’s definitely a lot better than Seirei Shokan, however I can’t assist feeling like they had been principally counting on the harem-series angle to get folks interested by it.
The sport begins with a vocal music and animated intro (I wouldn’t be shocked if this was reused in some kind within the anime). There are different brief animated sections as nicely. Except for this, the graphics are serviceable.
I’m not essentially the correct viewers for this however I’m undecided how a lot the women within the sport would enchantment to harem-series followers.
They appear OK however they’ve this 90s-anime really feel to them that’s a bit outdated now.
The in-battle graphics aren’t unhealthy both, though they will get in the best way of seeing issues — happily the sport offers you a button you’ll be able to push to briefly take away all of the graphics so you’ll be able to see the place everyone seems to be, though even then I generally discovered it arduous to inform precisely the place I wanted to maneuver to assault a unit. On the entire I’d say it is a respectable instance of this middle-late interval of Ps video games.
For music and sound, there may be plenty of voiced dialogue, and the seiyuu lineup is fairly good for the interval. One factor that I by no means like is the dearth of voice for the primary character — I do know that is regular in visible novels and this type of sport (I suppose so you’ll be able to think about your self because the lead?) However in all of the animated sequences the MC does have a voice.
The story includes a gaggle of “Gate Keepers”, who can name on issues from some alternate world to primarily use magic. The principle character is a median highschool pupil who’s acknowledged by this secret worldwide group that gathers Gate Keepers (who after all are all children, no less than those on this sport) to guard the world in opposition to “Invaders”. Every Gate Keeper is related to a distinct Gate which units the kind of powers they will use.
The essential story of the sport includes efforts by the Invaders to take over the world, that then heart on a human named Kageyama Reiji that’s working with the Invaders. The sport takes place within the late Nineteen Sixties for some cause, and begins with a scene the place Reiji makes use of his gate magic to kill a bunch of troopers within the Vietnam Battle (and the suggestion I feel is that this ends the struggle).
The principle curiosity of the sport, I suppose, is the totally different women; after all you’ll be able to develop friendship ranges with them and get particular endings (romantic, maybe, though I didn’t get such an ending) with the woman you want essentially the most. As traditional, they signify a spread of frequent character varieties — the shy, morose examine woman, a couple of foreigners, an athletic woman, a baby (sigh), an airhead, and such.
The system alternates between the battles and the dialog elements. For the dialog, the characters are all in a college — it’s an actual college however it additionally serves to cover the command heart of the Gate Keeper pressure, in order that the GKs can all make it there straight away if they should. So you’ll be able to select the place you need to go within the college to speak to the varied women. Generally they won’t be there and then you definitely go elsewhere (just like the fitness center or nurse’s room). You may additionally get a selection of what to do. I don’t consider that going again to the identical woman greater than as soon as ever does something however I may very well be fallacious.
You solely have a restricted variety of locations you’ll be able to go (unspecified) earlier than the alarm will go off to ship you to the subsequent battle
I didn’t have a look at a walkthrough to see what selections had been good or what I ought to do. This ended up sadly with my highest friendship score being the Chinese language 11 12 months previous (or one thing) above. Fortuitously I didn’t get a excessive sufficient worth to set off the love scene, however I did have to listen to from certainly one of her classmates this very creepy dialogue about what’s engaging about her. It sounded extra like what a creepy grownup would say a couple of youngster quite than what an precise 11 12 months previous would say.
When you beat the sport you’ll be able to entry an extras menu that exhibits you a completion proportion which I suppose measures how nicely you probably did with every woman, and the higher you do the extra extras (photos and such) you unlock. I had 0% with each woman besides that Chinese language woman who had 66%; I suppose I didn’t choose the correct choices for the others.
There are one or two battles per chapter (the entire sport is fairly brief, I completed it in 12 hours). Sadly you’ll be able to solely ship out the primary character and at most 2 women (generally simply 1). That is particularly annoying as a result of there are not any free or aspect battles, so that you just about have to focus on simply sending out a core celebration. So that you barely get to make use of any of the characters — I suppose their concept is that you simply replay it a number of instances (the save slot has a three-digit counter for what number of instances you’ve cleared the sport), however I’m not going to do this. I typically despatched out Jun (who has a gun) and Fei (the Chinese language woman) as a result of her gate assault may hit everybody on the display screen.
Every character has their very own weapon; you don’t equip something however the weapons have totally different ranges and powers. The MC has each a gun and katana.
The system is participant/enemy flip. You’ll be able to transfer and act. The actions are assault, Gate, and leap (as much as a better space). The principle character can even name in assist to heal or standing restore — that is limitless however it takes the MCs flip and since you might have so few characters you’ll be able to’t depend on it to get you out of each jam.
To make use of the Gate powers, you first select to open that character’s gate. You then see a quantity seem over the character — that is the remaining energy of the gate. It goes down by 1 every flip, after which each Gate energy you employ takes some quantity of power (starting from 0 to no less than 5). As soon as it hits 0 the gate closes and can’t be opened once more for that battle. Personally I’d have quite seen a system the place the gate power can get better and be opened once more — the system as it’s appears too restricted, particularly in battles with a number of units of reinforcements or when the enemies are unfold everywhere in the map. On the entire I feel the battle system has good concepts, however the tiny celebration dimension and really restricted use of the important thing energy of the sport makes it really feel quite skinny. Midway via the sport you get the flexibility to summon a mech by combining the ability of the MC and one woman, however that mainly reduces your celebration dimension to 2 as a result of the woman you choose can’t do something besides transfer till the mech goes away.
If the MC reaches 0 hp it’s sport over; if one of many women reaches 0 hp you lose friendship worth with them and they’re out for that map.
The best way the XP is completed is bizarre. Enemies will usually drop gems that give between 1 and 10 xp. 10 xp strikes you up a degree. However it’s a must to get the gem earlier than it disappears, and the final enemy you beat drops a gem however you don’t get it, even when it’s the boss and it offers you a ten xp gem. Characters that didn’t be part of the battle get 5 xp for each, which isn’t sufficient to maintain them aggressive.
For map design, there may be some selection within the maps. A few of them are within the air like above (though it is senseless as a result of regardless of being in planes, everybody nonetheless retains their core assault varieties and ranges). Peak and obstacles play an enormous position. There are a selection of distinctive enemies with their very own challenges.
The stability isn’t nice. As I mentioned above, the dearth of any free battles implies that if you happen to didn’t focus all of your XP on a couple of characters you’re screwed. Shifting up a degree restores your HP — if it weren’t for this I feel the sport could be practically inconceivable as a result of the entire enemies within the sport hit arduous, from grunts to bosses. A whole lot of the grunts have their very own powers and space assaults, and the bosses can generally hit from all the best way throughout the display screen. Shedding even one character reduces your fight potential by 1/3 and so you’ll be able to’t afford that in any respect except you’re nearly accomplished with the map.
The interface is ok, and I discussed the extras above (the unlockable issues from getting the friendship ranges with the women).
On the entire I wasn’t an enormous fan of the sport. The harem half didn’t curiosity me, and the gameplay wasn’t ok to make it attention-grabbing. The actual downside, as I mentioned a number of instances above, is the extreme limitations of the battle system.
