REVIEW

The Alliance Alive! Review

by Luke Walsh, March 27th, 2018

The Alliance Alive is a spiritual successor to a previous ALTUS game The Legend of Legacy but looks to find a new place and improve upon the previous game while still sticking to the 90’s JRPG feel. The narrative takes insight from Yoshitaka Murayama who was a part of Suikoden that combines some old and new story arcs together to make a decent handheld JRPG which reminds me of the old school titles like Chrono Trigger.

The story takes place in a world where a 1000 year war between human and daemons has fractured the world and a team of characters looking to change it and once again bring a blue sky back which is now forgotten. Azura is a mage like character is joined by her childhood friend, Galil, who is a melee character make the main protagonists of the story but are not always in the limelight. You also get to see the “demon” side which allows you to see multiple sides of the story, getting a complete picture of what is happening in the world.

After about 10 hours of gameplay, each of the different sets of characters meets to fight the Dark Current which caused the fracture in the world. In the following number of hours is where the game allows you to see each of the characters who are central to the story but some of them are not as fleshed out as other, feeling a bit one-sided slotting back into tried and tested RPG stereotypes which were a shame. It does keep the story ticking along without complicating plotlines but with quite a few colourful people it would have been nice to see more of some.

The first part of the story is the hardest to get through with quite a slow burn and the usual linear storyline of trying to save the world. As you get further in though, the story starts to evolve and take more of a life for itself, when you know where to go next. Without much guidance there were points throughout the game where I felt lost, asking my companion only gave small bytes of where to go next but were not always helpful. One way to know if you are going the right way is the current difficulty of the monsters, fall into the wrong area and it could be a one-shot death clearing the game telling you, “time to turn back”.

In terms of the overall difficult though as someone who has played a fair share of RPGs and JRPGs it seemed a little too easy. The main story bosses and the side bosses or those just in out in the world were not too tough needing to train up of the beaten path. This is partially down to having no levels or experience points in the game as everything is “learned” as you battle. Every time you attack those get stronger and you can also learn others with the different weapons you can equip. Seen as each character can use two weapons in battle at any time you can create a party that is able to be fairly versatile at taking out most enemies you come across. As characters can become better with weapons over time, it is best to concentrate only a couple per character or run the risk of being a jack of all trades but a master of none of them.

In battle, you’ll be able to fight based on a certain formation which depending on your position will add a bonus to your characters attack, defence or support stats. Obviously, this means putting your fighters at the front and mages at the back. During the turns of fighting, characters from attacking and being attacked will build up their Ignition meter which once full allows them to perform a final strike that causes devastating damage but at the expense of breaking the currently equipped item. Once broken, you can’t equip another in that same battle so will be left with only one for the reminder. There were times where I’d have a character hold the same weapon purely to be a trump card if I needed to use Final Strike.

You also need to equip special items to use potions etc or a staff to use healing magic. This means characters need to be set up in a way that lets them heal your other teammates which can make it a lot harder when you break a weapon. Most of my characters were holding an item which allows them to use healing potions as dying is not the same in Alliance Alive.

In combat, when a character is downed you don’t have to use a revival item as each character has two sets of Health. One their current health and the maximum health of that character, when downed in battle you can use a normal healing item to bring them back. While in that state though, enemies can continue to deal them damage reducing the amount of current health they have. Continue to be hit and it will affect that characters maximum health, so someone who was at 200 health after being downed and pounded on might then have a maximum health of 180 and no items can increase it. When the battle is over the current health level is replenished but the parties overall health can only be put back to max when sleeping either at an Inn or other locations. This is an interesting combat which allows you to use characters a bit more aggressively at the expense of the long-term performance of the overall party and the adventure rages on.

Once the battle is over, characters will get Talent Points that allow you to upgrade their masteries in weapons and some magic. The only issue with the TP is that is increases so slowly as each battle you only get single digits while masteries cost hundreds at the lowest level. You don’t learn actual skills using the points but can increase how easy it is for each member of the team to learn new skills in their different weapons. Luckily, at the start of the game, each character is given a decent amount to help you for a time.

While out in the world the Guild system will help on your travels and each of the five different guilds specialises in magic, weapons and armour, monster research, reduces monster numbers etc. In each of the realms, you can befriend the guilds and they will task you to build more Guild Halls and staff them with NPCs to which they’ll then help you in battle. The only problem I found was never knowing then they would help, as it was randomised I could go 10 fight without seeing a single hand and when I did it would be on a small fry rather than help on a more tougher opponent. It would have made much more sense with this system to be able to trigger it but have a cooldown.

Overall the battles in the world though can be quite repetitive in nature as a lot of the models look exactly the same, the world music plays throughout most fights and because the characters don’t speak it makes for a lot of loops of much of the same when on the world map. It would have been nice to have more variety in terms of monster skins, much and even sound effects for the main cast to give it a little bit more than just the same background music. Suffice it to say I played most the game on silent as it was not too much difference.

This is combined with an overall world that is a bit lacklustre in terms of design. Sure some of it looks pretty on the odd occasion but most of it does not have the same beauty Final Fantasy or Bravely Default did on the same device. There’s even a bit of the latter in terms of design inspiration that I could see but with a smaller budget attached to it all. The world seems a little empty and bland that could have been so much more.

Visuals aside though, where the game shines is in the story. Get past the first few hours of the game and you’ll love the characters and the story around them as they travel to unite the three realms. The storytelling is that of JRPGs back in the 90’s reminding me of the good stories that can still be with ties from a golden age for RPGs. It’s just a shame that it was in a game that tells sign of a lack of budget and overall finesse in the finer points.

The Alliance Alive is an interesting adventure with colourful characters and story that is let down by the overall bland world it lives in. A JRPG gamer will get some love out of this game but it might not excite the masses outside the niche.