Xblaze Code:Embryo - PlayStation Vita

I am an avid Blazblue fan, so this review is obviously going to be somewhat biased. I have played tons of visual novels in my day and I can say this one is the best I have ever played. Aksys said this was going to be a big budget game and they were NOT kidding. Ill divide up my review so you don't have to slog through an entire paragraph. Edited 7/9/14 Shipping/Box/Bootup: Shipping was timely as usual (seeing as it was directly through amazon what did you expect), The box is really pretty with the typical colorful "Blaz" feeling to it. The game installed quickly with no updates. Interface and controls: This game includes FULL touchscreen support. By Using the touchscreen, there are many commands you can do such as swiping down for backlog, swiping left for autoread, and tapping to advance the text. It is really nice and should be standardized on all games imo. The interface is really sharp and futuristic looking. Menues and navigational screens are like blazblue, colorful, sharp... and well.. futuristic looking. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Like other VNs you know how you can take different paths to get different endings right? In this game you have to... Ehh, how do i say this without giving away spoilers.. You have to constantly make choices. After you make those choices you will happen upon an event that is a direct cause of the choice you made earlier. Depending on the events you chose, you will get one of many many endings. Ehh youll see. This is awkward trying to explain it without giving it away! Graphics/colors/visuals/Music: The graphics are incredibly sharp! Like holy crap it was jaw dropping playing something with such super vibrant and sharp colors on the vita ! Iv played for less than 5 hours but it is really amazing, its games like this where you can really feel pride in owning the amazingly underrated vita. *Edit* Another important part I almost forgot is the Music. When you first start playing there is some insanely good music that perfectly fits the opening scenes of relaxing school days. During some battle scenes you also encounter some awesome sounding dubstepish type tunes. There is a wide array of music and they are EXTREMELY well put together.( Especially the opening chapter's music :D). Characters/Character Designs/Animations/Voice acting: The MAIN characters are very awesome and have super distinct personalities. They don't feel forced and don't force their way into specific tropes that youve seen in countless manga/animes. The voice acting is only in Japanese(i think), however it is REALLY good. Distinct voices and personalities make it really fun to play. The character design is pretty unique too! I don't think I'v seen characters drawn in this exact fashion before. Think of Blazblue meets persona, the character design is somewhat along those lines. There is a lot of "visual" in this visual novel. Compared to the static images of other VNs, this one boasts moving mouths, eyes, changing PERSPECTIVES, and very animated battle scenes. 30mins into the game and you will know exactly why this was considered a "Big budget title". It is seriously impressive. Plot and Final thoughts: This game does not have anything to do with Blazblue directly. Supposedly, it is in the same universe 150 years BEFORE continuum shift, but this feels sort of like its own spin off. If you are a blazblue fan you WILL however come across some familiar terms. There are even some cool Blazblue easter eggs in here too! I heard that the plot was a tiny bit cliche, but after playing for a few hours i honestly don't see it. I hope this review helps to expand upon the Blazblue fanbase ( And i seriously recommend you play the Blazblue games in chronological order. It has an amazing story). So, bias aside, if you like visual novels, then this game will give you one of the most interactive experiences you've ever had. Buy it. Seriously. *Edit* This game can get a little "fanservice-y" at times but it really isn't worth docking major points over. I have to stress this again. If you arent an otaku, visual novel gamer, or blazblue fan, then you might feel somewhat lost and confused when you play through this. Good thing Im all 2 of those :D Still though if youve read this far just by it already!

Make no mistake - there is no game here. There is no gameplay whats so ever. It is a visual novel - a story combined with images, music, animation, etc. If you're not into that, and don't want to try it, then don't bother here. As a visual novel the story is solid and stays focused on it. It avoids much of the fanservice that plagues visual novels.

Xblaze Code: Embryo is an enjoyable visual novel, with an innovative decision system. The TOi system, as it's called, feels more integrated, since your choices reflect your interests. This makes it seem less artificial and more organic. While the story and characters aren't groundbreaking, they're well done within the genre constraints. Character designs are appealing and the story fleshes out some of the franchise mythology. The terminology does fly fast and furious, but that isn't unusual for the genre, and even BlazBlue novices can follow along with a modicum of effort. The downside is that the bugs aren't nominal, as they affect the save system, both the auto-saves and the manual ones. Freezing and even application shut downs are increasingly common as one progresses through the game. To be fair, if you don't mind shutting and restarting the application numerous times, they don't affect progression for the most part. The exception is a trophy that currently cannot be obtained, due to the utter inability to save during the relevant chapter. If you don't care about trophies or seeing every bit of content, it won't affect you, but if you like to 100% games, that's currently impossible. Otherwise, the game runs well, and the grammatical mistakes I noticed aren't dire. Bottom line, if you like the franchise and VN's, this is a no brainer. If you hate VN's, nothing in this game will make you change your mind (pretty much every mainstay from VN's makes an appearance, complete with wholly gratuitous, albeit tame, fan service scenes). If you fall between those extremes, and are patient with save errors--and aren't a trophy hunter--this is a good, competent entry in the genre. It isn't Little Busters, Stein's Gate, Higurashi, or even Fate/Stay Night, but it's worth a couple days time. UPDATE: Aksys Games released a patch for the Vita version, and it is now possible to get the platinum. I didn't test it everywhere that the game had saving issues, but as far as I can tell, they fixed the save freezing and the save crashes. I added a star to reflect the fix. Also, kudos to the team for addressing this in such a timely manner--I've waited months for other games to get patched, and sometimes, they're never fixed!

This is an interesting game, but lacks a surprising amount of content. The promise on the box was that their new dynamic system, ToI, has a definite impact on the story the player experiences. But at the end of the day, most ToI choices change a few lines of dialogue, at best. Ultimately, there are still only four routes for four heroines, and for the most part, the story changes very little from path to path. The ToI system only serves to obfuscate the method for seeing the story you want to see at any given point - especially considering that you won't know where the ideal points to save the game are in order to reduce the scene replay to a minimum without consulting a walkthrough. I feel that this game is worth playing, but probably isn't a great value at full price.

Really like the story and the game arrived in really good condition.

Great story that ties to the blazblue game. Very enjoyable

I purchased this game at the same time I purchased my PS Vita, excited for a new way to play on the go. Code Embryo is a visual novel, and I was hungry for a visual novel, as I hadn't gotten to play one in a while. For those who are unaware or unsure, a visual novel is like a choose your own adventure story with character images and voices. There is usually very little gameplay in visual novels, just decision making and reading. So let that be a warning to you. If you do not like reading and are not a fan of anime, you will not enjoy this game, and it is absolutely not worth forty dollars. I, however, read a lot. I also really like anime, so visual novels are a lot of fun for me. But not Code Embryo. This game takes everything that is important to a visual novel and throws it right out the window. This type of game relies enormously on the quality of its characters and story, with music and voice actors following a little ways behind. It is with no small amount of disappointment that I say every last one of those things in this game are underwhelming at their best. To make things even worse, however, is that they take away the core feature of the visual novel, choice, and replace it with a stupid, unforgiving gimmick. I break it down in detail below, with only very minor spoilers to the introduction. Story: The story is about a seemingly ordinary high school student who lives with his childhood friend and her cute older sister. This character happens to get attacked by a random villain and, subsequently, rescued by a pretty girl with awesome powers who then immediately starts living with him to protect him from these 'monsters' called Unions. The story then slowly begins to unfold, revealing more and more uninteresting plot points at a surprisingly stale clip. I sunk hours into this game (in an attempt to validate my spent money) trying to find some sort of connection or deepness to the story, but it was a wasted effort. Even at its peaks, this story is lower than the valleys of more interesting games/movies/books/any kind of media. Characters: This category is so important for visual novels that I can't stress it enough. In any type of game it helps to have strong characters, but it doesn't HAVE to be make or break if the rest of the game is enjoyable. for a VN, though, you really need good characters. Code Embryo gives you a handful of rehashed stereotypes and forgettable cookie cutter personalities that (thankfully) vanish from the mind as soon as they leave the screen. The character designs, for the most part, are eye catching and interesting. Sadly, that is the only thing about these characters that is. The main character, especially, is so gratingly annoying that he detracts from almost everything around him. The story, it often felt, was driven by his incompetence and everyone else begrudgingly explaining to him what the heck was actually going on. It was like getting hit in the face with an information hammer over and over again when all I wanted was them to hit him with a real hammer. Looking past him, the rest of the cast was also stunningly plain and uninteresting. If you've watched even a handful of anime, you have met all of these characters in a VASTLY improved setting and with VASTLY improved personalities. I am not understating this. Music and voice actors: With the exception of two or three (three being the definite ceiling), the voice actors are not all that good. Or maybe they are elsewhere, but certainly not here in Code Embryo. The language is all spoken Japanese with English subtitles. I often prefer the original Japanese to the English dubs (with a few notable exceptions), but this just wasn't very good. A couple were like nails on a chalkboard to me, which is extremely rare. You are given the option to disable the voices of your choice, but honestly that's just removing yet another feature in an already barren landscape. The music, too, is nothing more than background noise with little else to offer. Not one track is hum worthy, and as I sit here writing this I can't recall a single song. Oh, wait, I remember one. I hated it. And now we come to the gameplay. As I wrote above, the gameplay to visual novels generally consists of making decisions in the game and then watching how the story unfolds in response to your decisions. But not in Code Embryo! They decided to try something different and introduced the Toi system, which is this new-age device that the main character has. It collects articles from the internet based on your previous readings and interests, and you read these articles as the story progresses. If you have read a particular article on a pudding sale, for example, you will witness a short scene where two of the characters are shopping for pudding. If you didn't read that article, you won't see that scene. Yep, that's how that works. Also, for some reason, not seeing that scene (or some other random conglomeration of viewed or missed scenes) will result in your death. It took a lot of intermittent saving and loading, indiscriminate article selection, and sheer luck to get anywhere. There is never a clear indication of what went wrong or where. If you died, it could have been because you did or did not read a particular article (often in conjunction with another article) hours ago. Good luck figuring it out. After a certain amount of time had been dumped into this fiasco I went online and found a walkthrough just so I could slog my way through and at least collect some trophies. Sad. I normally don't buy games for full price unless they are awesome, but I let my desire for a new VN (and a desire to support the VN genre) blind me. I bought a game that I had read some pretty negative things about because I thought 'it can't be that bad, they just don't know what they're doing. It's just not the right game for them'. I was mistaken. The bad things you read about this game are true. I would not buy this game for half price, and neither should you. I want VNs to be successful here in America, but the truth is that it's this kind of game that makes that impossible. It is a disappointing smear on the genre, and a head-scratching port selection. I am literally the target audience for this game, and I assure you that it is better left on the shelf.

This was the second Visual Novel game I've played, and it showed me that every game genre has it's bad ones. My first visual novel was Steins Gate, and even though the player's interaction was minimal, it occurred frequently and had a decent amount of choices. It also had a great plot that you immediately get pulled into. Xblaze Code:Embryo however had none of this. The only real decision the player can make is which article to read in a virtual newspaper that is occasionally updated. There are usually three articles to read and the player decides how many, if any, he or she wishes to read. This apparently has an effect on how the story goes, but I never played long enough to get to the end so I really don't know. I am quickly becoming a fan of visual novel type games, but Xblaze Code:Embryo is one I should've avoided.

Ok

Este juego no es para todos, si te gusta la historia de los juegos de Blazblue y no tienes problemas en disfrutar una visual novel, este juego es para ti, en caso contario ni te molestes, es basicamente leer mucho y tomar ciertas decisiones para desbloquear varios finales, tipico de las novelas visuales. Claro, hay mejores, pero como su historia es canon para los Blazblue, y si te gusta dicha franquicia tal vez quieras probarlo, a mi en lo particular me gustó.

My son loves it

Producto en perfecto estado, llegó rápidamente, bien embalado y un mejor precio que en cualquier otra tienda o PSN, lo recomiendo!

Este juego es una novela visual que tiene lugar en el universo del juego de peleas Blazblue. Los fanáticos de la serie encontrarán muchas referencias haciendo alusión al juego y a los personajes. El juego es entretenido pero hay que acercarse con cautela, el género de la novela visual no es para todos y considero que si alguien está interesado en probar por primera vez este género sería recomendable acercarse por medio de otros juegos que resultan más atractivos como la serie Danganronpa o 999 / Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward / Zero Time Dilemma. Si ya conocen las novelas visuales Xblaze Code: Embryo cumple con lo que se espera de estos títulos. Es un juego decente y tiene el plus de utilizar el sólido universo de Blazblue y sus personajes.