Toukiden 2 Review

As a reviewer I get the opportunity to play a lot of games that I might not necessarily play otherwise. Gravity Rush was one such example, and I’m certainly glad to have gotten the chance to give that title a spin. So when Toukiden 2 crossed my desk I was excited by the possibility of finding a potential gem despite the fact that I had only the vaguest ideas about the series (such was my ignorance that I thought it was a cross between Dark Souls and Pokemon…it isn’t). Unfortunately after spending roughly 20 hours with the localised English version of Toukiden 2, I can say it is less of a polished gem and more of a roughly hewn chunk of quartz.

Misunderstood Oni is sad

Toukiden 2 puts you in the shoes of your own customisable Slayer, a warrior belonging to a secret sect responsible for hunting demons called Oni and keeping their population in check. While answering an Oni emergency in the harbour city of Yokohama, a giant rift in the sky sees hundreds of Oni pour into the world, and they swiftly start laying waste to the city and its inhabitants. Failing to repel the Oni threat you end up wandering through a time portal and awake in a foreign land ten years in the future. By the time your time-travelling ass has awoken the Oni are pretty much running the show, terrorising and poisoning the countryside with a dark substance called miasma. The place you wake up in is near Mahoroba Village, an oasis where the Oni threat is barely kept at bay by a magical barrier. Taken in by a young woman known as the Professor who specialises in the use of Machina (a kind of blend of machines and magic), you set out to purify the land of the Oni and discover who you are and what fate has in store for you.

Black Mage is that you?

By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!

Conceptually Toukiden 2’s story is interesting enough, but it plods along at a glacial pace that steals much of the drama. There are plenty of characters introduced who aid you on your journey as well as in combat, and each of them has a backstory, but the game’s insistence on a melodramatic JRPG tone makes discovering them a chore. It’s got the classic hallmarks of that quirky JRPG style, but very little of the charm. It thankfully avoids the saccharin sweet, ‘let’s talk about the magic of friendship while holding hands under a rainbow and huffing unicorn farts’ style that some JRPGs are guilty of, but the drama never ends up being as compelling as it wants to be.

All dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles, so be prepared to read reams of text. Also, expect a lot of speech bubbles with a single exclamation mark in them, as this seems to be the characters’ main method of emoting.  Characters also chat a lot during combat and it is incredibly easy to miss what they are saying unless you can read and fight at the same time. Barring a few spelling mistakes the localisation seems well handled, however a lot of banter when roaming the overworld isn’t subtitled, so unless you’re fluent in Japanese you’ll never know if they’re insulting your mum or trying to give you the secret recipe to KFC’s chicken.

Much of Toukiden’s focus is on the combat, but it never comes together in a way that I’d describe as being enjoyable. There is good weapon variety that is available straight off the bat, including massive clubs, quick sneaky knives and even firearms. You can only carry one weapon, and you’ll want to find the one that suits you early doors and stick with it. Whatever weapon you settle on, combat is a clunky and awkward affair. There is a complete lack of fluidity to the basic movements and mechanics that curb stomps any sense of joy you might otherwise glean from killing demons; whether it’s light attacks, heavy attacks, special attacks, dodging, sprinting or locking on, none of it feels quite right.

It thankfully avoids the saccharin sweet, ‘let’s talk about the magic of friendship while holding hands under a rainbow and huffing unicorn farts’ style that some JRPGS are guilty of, but the drama never ends up being as compelling as it wants to be.

The developers have tried to inject some character into the action through a variety of convoluted mechanics, but despite the seeming complexities on the surface the combat’s shallowness eventually reveals itself. Basically you fight two types of Oni – small ones and bigger ones. The small ones don’t pose much of a threat, but the big ones require you to reveal their cores before you can do any real damage. This involves either targeting limbs and removing them or wearing down their surface armour. Dismembered limbs will be regenerated unless you perform a Ritual of Purification, which requires you to hold R1 until it spins out of existence. The Ritual of Purification also allows you to gain materials from slain Oni and dismembered limbs which are useful in crafting.

I believe Fuckhead is perplexed

When the whole squad spots you at once

Weakening enemies by dismemberment could be an interesting core mechanic, but unfortunately dismembered limbs don’t have any impact on enemy movement or attacks, and targeting them can also be difficult depending on weapon choice. I ended up going with a longbow which spared me from the utter clunkfest of the melee weapons and allowed me to stay at a distance and target limbs fairly well. The combat doesn’t vary too much and becomes quite dull quickly, and this issue is further compounded by how much of a damage sponge these larger Oni are. The combat itself isn’t overly difficult, but whittling down their mammoth health bars can become a grindy, tiresome slog. To make matters worse, you can’t simply run away from a fight with a large Oni, you are forced to stand your ground and must kill them before proceeding. There’s also no visual feedback like numbers indicating damage, making it difficult to discern the effectiveness of your various attacks.

Toukiden 2 has an odd approach to its RPG elements that just like the combat mechanics appear quite convoluted on the surface, but are nonetheless incredibly limited. Basically there is no experience point system or levelling as such, instead you craft and upgrade armour and weapons from materials gained from Oni that you purify in the field. As the story progresses you get access to more exotic weaponry which requires high-level materials farmed from stronger enemies. You also have the power of warrior spirits called Mitama that you can draw on, and their unique abilities can be levelled up and strengthened as you use them. These Mitama are broken into classes like Attack, Defense and Deceit, and can be assigned to weapons and armour which unlocks various aspects of the skills and buffs they provide.

The Mitama mechanic is a good idea, and one the developer clearly envisaged as being central to not only the story but the combat as well, but within a class they all felt far too similar to one another. There are 200 of these bastards to find, but after some experimenting I found three that were passable and stuck with them. The game is incredibly easy and I never really had much motivation to bother changing things up too much outside of curiosity (a curiosity that the dull and repetitive combat swiftly murdered).

The combat doesn’t vary too much and becomes quite dull quickly, and this issue is further compounded by how much of a damage sponge these larger Oni are. The combat itself isn’t overly difficult, but whittling down their mammoth health bars can become a grindy, tiresome slog.

Outside of some nice pre-rendered cutscenes, Toukiden 2 wouldn’t look out of place if it released at the beginning of the PS3 generation. Flat textures, lack of visual variety and washed out colours means Toukiden 2’s definitely not a looker. Interactions between characters are janky and unnatural looking, although I did like some of their visual designs. Some of the larger Oni too had some great design, it’s just a pity that actually fighting them was such a chore.

Less fun than it looks

Final Thoughts

Toukiden 2 has a lot of systems and mechanics that it wants to work in synergy, but nothing comes together cohesively. It doesn’t help that the low difficulty and lack of actual depth ensures you don’t have to pay too much attention to what you’re doing and can happily ignore the game’s more subtle aspects without fear of reprisal. The clunky and repetitive combat that represents the bulk of the experience seals the deal, and in the end you have a middling action-RPG that fails to impress on any level.