Alliance Alive Review

[Eric]

Reallymy biggest gripe with the game is that I played it on PS4. The graphics do not hold up to the scrutiny of a TV. But when I used Remote Play to stream it onto my phone, the art style finally popped to life. If you have the choice, I would recommending playing this on a smaller screen. The remaster is also available on Switch; I would imagine this is a title for Handheld Mode.

Different protagonists are steadily introduced, their stories criss-crossing into each other, until they all finally unite. They discover that their world is actually one region of an even larger world. It has been separated into disparate chunks by a force known as the Great Barrier. Our alliance (get it?) of heroes embark on a quest to unite the world, so they can stay alive (get it?) against the daemon threat.

Hopefully developer Cattle Call can use this remaster as a springboard to create something tailor-made for consoles. Despite its flaws, everything that The Alliance Alive HD Remastered does well is done astoundingly. It breaks out of the JRPG mold in many small ways, and it deserves to be praised for that.

The Alliance Alive appears to have a lot going for it at a glance. It combines tried-and-true JRPG mechanics with chibified characters to call forth the classics of yesteryear. It's got a catchy name. It seems to have all its ducks in a row. Unfortunately, developer Cattle Call simply doesn't seem to have tweaked the formula it tested out with previous release The Legend of Legacy enough just yet. The resulting The Alliance Alive is a serviceable adventure that ends up just a bit lacking, in both narrative and gameplay departments. This is an RPG that wouldn't have felt out of place back in the '90s as a PlayStation release, but unfortunately that won't elevate it to cult status here in 2018. Gather your alliance together and see if you should journey into the Rain Realm and read on!

The Alliance Alive places you in a world that's been split up into various different realms following a harrowing Human vs. Daemon war. The Rain Realm, for instance, has never seen a blue sky, as protagonist Azura has wished to see for her entire life. Childhood friend Galil joins her on a quest to see the blue sky, and the game kicks off by essentially letting you wander the map as you switch off between groups. Characters that vary from Daemons to signimancers (this world's version of a mage, essentially) eventually join up to figure out what's going on in the divided world (the Dark Current, natch) and reunite the various worlds.

It's your job to navigate The Alliance Alive after it opens up and gives you more of an opportunity to explore the world. Once you're freed up from the more linear opening moments and asked to travel around the traditional RPG overworld to find your next destination, things get a little muddy. It can be difficult to figure out where you're supposed to go, which normally would simply encourage exploration, but in this case it just becomes frustrating, especially when you start running into incredibly difficult enemies that mean you're probably in the wrong place.

That's where things start to fall apart. Traveling across the overworld is fun if you have an idea of where you need to go next, but otherwise it devolves into the nightmare of hoping you saved before a chain of enemies attacks you because you couldn't run fast enough. When your party has all fallen, you'll have to start from your last complete save or at the main menu, which can be ridiculously frustrating.

Combat is the most action you'll see in the game, so that can be a problem. You don't earn levels or gain experience points, and instead your characters level up your attacks, equipping two weapons at a time or forgoing them entirely. You have to partake in the random battles you might normally be tempted to skip for this, because if you don't you'll be woefully underequipped for the next set of encounters. The turn-based combat of The Alliance Alive is a lot different than what you might be used to, though it doesn't exactly shine for its different mechanical decisions.

As your attacks become stronger and level up throughout the course of the game, you'll find that you'll perform Final Strikes, or attacks that do a devastating amount of damage while breaking your weapon, more often than not. This necessitates the equipping of two weapons if you want to be ready for your next fight, especially since you can't just give your character a new one in the middle of combat. This forces you to think with an even more strategic slant than usual when it comes to turn-based games, and it can be frustrating to deal with despite its interesting nature.

Healing and utilizing the points you receive from being victorious is also a strange setup, as you don't need specialized items to revive allies if their HP reaches zero like a Revive or a Phoenix Down. Enemies can even attack your fallen allies to reduce their maximum HP before you leave battle. Your max health will remain that way until you sleep at an inn or similar spot where you can bring everyone back to their max HP count. That's why it can be a real killer if you find yourself in a tight spot. While I appreciate this intriguing change to typical RPG battle mechanics, I also find it tedious and frustrating when trying to make real progress.

There's a real balance problem when it comes to battles as well, as you might find that you're in the middle of a difficult chain in an area where you're just starting out, with river monsters popping out to grab you and then breezing through in later areas where you'd expect toughness. This makes playing through The Alliance Alive more of a slog than anything else, especially when the narrative just isn't strong enough to propel you through the fifth time of restarting the game because you got caught in a battle chain without any recourse since your weapons broke or you didn't have enough luck to pull you through. Because of that, the game feels more like a bunch of random battles strewn together loosely connected by the occasional travels to town and bits of dialogue, and that alone does not an RPG make.

The Alliance Alive is a great-looking game with an interesting premise and intriguing battle mechanics, but in the end it falters from its combat decisions. There's a lot of content to wade through here, but many players, including those who typically yearn for a throwback, will find that the game is frustrating and difficult to get through thanks to its numerous battles and requirements to get through them. It's got potential, and it's a decent narrative to wade through on your way to work or for an hour or so at a time, but it seems as though it still needed some more time in the oven.

This review is based on a Nintendo 3DS download code provided by the publisher. The Alliance Alive is available for purchase on Nintendo 3DS with both digital and physical editions on March 27, 2018.

Fueled by horror, rainbow-sugar-pixel-rushes, and video games, Brittany is a Senior Editor at Shacknews who thrives on surrealism and ultraviolence. Follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake and check out her portfolio for more. Like a fabulous shooter once said, get psyched!

The war in Ukraine and the US presidential election dominated a NATO summit in Washington this month but, away from the public stage, the alliance's military planners have been focused on assessing the enormous cost of fixing Europe's creaking defences.

Canada, looking to shore up its defense of the Arctic, is moving ahead to acquire up to 12 submarines and has started a formal process to meet with manufacturers, the defense ministry said on Wednesday (10 July).

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday (9 July) said he would fulfil a campaign commitment to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but underlined he would only do so when the country could afford it and after a review of defence strategy.

Western military aid to Ukraine has narrowed the spending gap between Ukraine and Russia to $10 billion, as an investment race is spreading globally, according to the latest data on military spending released by SIPRI

NATO's European members have embarked on a mission to prove they are stepping up their burden-sharing efforts, in a bid to preempt the risks of a new Donald Trump presidency and preserve the alliance's unity in the face of the most serious security challenges since World War Two.

Eighteen out of 31 NATO countries will spend more than the required 2% of GDP on defence in 2024, according to estimates presented by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday (14 February), days after US presidential candidate Donald Trump criticised the alliance for under-investing.

While NATO members have ramped up their defence spending, only seven out of 30 allies actually met the alliance's military spending target in 2022, according to the latest report published on Tuesday (21 March).

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has massively reduced revenues of national governments in 2020, NATO allies significantly increased their military spending and eleven out of 30 alliance members reached the target of earmarking at least 2% of GDP for defence, according to NATO's annual report released on Tuesday (16 March).

Back in 2016, German Chancellor Angela Merkel greeted Donald Trump's victory with an extraordinary warning: that she would work with the US president on the condition that he respects democratic values. Things did not improve from there.

Germany has spent more than $1 billion over the past decade to cover the costs related to the stationing of US troops on its territory, according to figures by the German finance ministry, which a key government official called "anything but too high", citing related economic benefits.

Global military expenditure saw its biggest uptick in a decade in 2019 rising to $1.9 trillion, according to the latest survey by the Swedish Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published on Monday (27 April), marking the first year two Asian countries were among the top three spenders.

3a8082e126