Level-5 calls Guild01 a "variety" game, a fitting explanation since you can’t have more variety than four games developed by four very different game designers on one Nintendo 3DS cartridge. At Level-5 World I got to play three of the four games in Guild01. "Crimson Shroud" from RPG creator Yasumi Matsuno wasn’t available to try so I started with Liberation Maiden a 3D shooting game from Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda.
Liberation Maiden began with an anime opening video (with light 3D effects) that showed a girl mourning the death of her father. She stepped into his shoes and became the President of Japan. Then she stepped into a giant pink robot and the game began. Stage 1 – Old Capital Tokyo.
Grasshopper’s contribution to Guild01 had a similar shooting system to Rez minus the synesthesia. You move the pink mech with the slide pad and tap the touch screen to target enemies. As soon as you pick up the stylus, the high school student turned President of Japan fires a volley of lasers. It wasn’t possible to fire lasers manually, although I suppose you could rapid-tap the touch screen. After I blasted all of the rouge mechs I flew to the next island. Liberation Maiden lets players freely pilot the ship in 3D space and you don’t have to go straight to the next destination. I tried flying off path, but there wasn’t anything to see. Perhaps because I was at the beginning of the game.
The next island had enemies and a core to shoot. Blasting it made the core rise and expose its weak point. Remembering what I learned from Gradius, I went straight for the core and ignored the other on-screen enemies. A few laser bursts later, I destroyed the core and all of the enemies blew up as the core fell to the ground. I also got a nice point bonus for this strategy. It seems like there is a risk vs. reward relationship where players can decide shoot down ships to reduce the amount of incoming fire or going straight for cores while dodging enemies.
One attack forgets strategy and attacks everything. See the blue handle in the top left hand corner of the touch screen? That’s a beam katana. Pull the blade out by dragging it with your stylus and the President does a super move that destroys all of the enemies and damages cores.
There was a multi-core boss to defeat in the next area. I had to fly around the structure to hit all of the weak points. I tried to do this while avoiding, but not shooting the other enemies. I thought I would get a nice point bonus, but there were too many enemies coming in so I had to shift my attention to taking those down. When the ship was about to explode a message came up saying I was ready for a suicide attack. This move had the President barrel into the core while I drew circles (think Elite Beat Agents’ wheel) as fast as I could. Ship defeated I moved on to try the two other games, but as of now Liberation Maiden is my favorite. I’m also partial to shooters. Aero Porter from Yoot Saito and "Weapon Rental Shop de Omasse" by comedian Yoshiyuki Hirai are neat too! We’ll tell you about those tomorrow.
Published: Oct 19, 2011 04:00 pm