Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 30/Jan 00:01

Tokyo Clanpool – Review

Get ready to clutch your pearls, as we’re looking at quite the controversial title today: Tokyo Clanpool. This dungeon crawler from the team behind the Neptunia series originally debuted on the PS Vita back in 2017, but as far as we know, its release went fairly unnoticed back then. This definitely isn’t the case for the re-release, as Steam banned the game for being “too sexy”, with Nintendo pulling the game from almost all of its regional eShops at the last minute. Given that Steam definitely sells questionable titles on their platform, we were curious to see just how far EastAsiaSoft took things with this one. For Western audiences, Tokyo Clanpool is exclusive to GOG, although if you jump through enough hoops, you’ll be able to grab it from Hong Kong’s Nintendo eShop as well, which is what we did. Is Tokyo Clanpool as bad as Steam would have us believe? Story From the get-go, Tokyo Clanpool dumps a ton of exposition on the player, in an attempt to get the absolutely bonkers premise out of the way. The narrative hits the ground running, and doesn’t let up throughout the game’s lengthy visual novel-style story segments. The adventure is set in an alternate future version of Japan. The world has to deal with an invasion of interdimensional monsters. Fortunately for the human race, Japan’s new government is able to protect its citizens, as the politicians can fight off the monsters. Did we mention that the Japanese government consists of a group of teenage magical girls now? When these color-coded teens aren’t busy dealing with tax reforms or foreign relations, they transform into the Diet Dolls and face off against the interdimensional threat. The conflict has been going on for a while when our story begins, but things escalate when a giant, monster-infested tower appears in Tokyo. This massive structure was sent by the mysterious Minister of the Right of the Dark Realm, as a declaration of war. It’s now up to the Diet Dolls to make their way to the top of the tower and end the interdimensional conflict once and for all. The story that unfolds isn’t particularly original, playing out exactly as you’d expect, and the cast embodies tropes, but overall Tokyo Clanpool‘s narrative is sufficiently entertaining. Graphics The cause of the controversy surrounding Tokyo Clanpool are the game’s visuals, of course, and specifically how scantily-clad its teenage anime heroines are. And while we do admit that the game’s art is beautifully drawn, we couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable with certain outfits. Fortunately, the outright fan service isn’t as prominent as the game’s marketing would have you believe, with most of the game being presented in first-person view and with the cast appearing as just portraits and chibi versions. The game is extremely limited when it comes to character animations. From what we understand, this was the case with the original PS Vita release anyway. Tokyo Clanpool is a straight-up port of that game, so it isn’t too taxing on much more recent hardware. Sound The overall anime aesthetic of Tokyo Clanpool is neatly tied together by its soundscape. The soundtrack features a complete opening song, and the music that plays throughout the game could have come straight from an anime adaptation as well. Admittedly, it’s lacking in variety and becomes repetitive after prolonged dungeon-crawling sessions. The game also features voice acting, albeit only in Japanese. The voice work is good, but not particularly outstanding. Gameplay As far as first-person dungeon crawlers go, Tokyo Clanpool doesn’t break any new ground. Quite the opposite in fact: compared to some of the more prominent series in the genre, like Etrian Odyssey or Mon-Yu, things are dialed down quite a bit. We’d say that that is a good thing, however, because if there’s one thing that’s sorely missing in the modern-day first-person dungeon crawler lineup, it’s a game with a high degree of accessibility and a low barrier of entry. Where those other titles can feel overwhelming or daunting because of their complexity, Tokyo Clanpool has a well-thought-out learning curve. It’s also a game with a very straightforward goal: fight your way to the top of the tower. There are side quests, and optional bosses to be found here, and the rewards for sniffing these out can really aid with the overall difficulty level, but all in all, Tokyo Clanpool’s core experience isn’t very complicated. That’s not to say that there isn’t any depth to be found here. Making your way through the massive dungeon floors that comprise the tower is a highlight, as they are well-designed, unfolding like puzzles as you explore every nook and cranny. Finding the exit of a floor isn’t a straightforward affair, and you’ll constantly have to alternate between referring to your map and figuring out how to overcome the floor’s obstacles, like reaching switches that open up the next part of your path or finding hidden pathways by drilling through walls. We should note that the floors of the tower aren’t procedurally generated, but purposely designed, and this is something that really shines through here. The difficulty of solving the puzzles isn’t overly challenging, but given the size of the floors, it’s a good thing that there are teleporters dotted around the tower. These allow you to return to the home base, which acts as the game’s hub area, where you can recover your party and change their equipment. Everything has been done to ensure that your world-saving mission never overwhelms you, without feeling like it’s a cakewalk either. The same can be said for Tokyo Clanpool’s turn-based combat, at least at lower difficulties. While you’re given a lot of options when it comes to loading out your Diet Dolls, we felt that we barely needed to utilize all the tools we were given. The key to winning combat lies in Digisuits, customizable outfits that alter not just the appearance of the girls, but their stats as well. Digisuits can be further optimized by slotting in loot from your dungeon runs. We’d say that on normal difficulty at least, battles never really pose any challenge as long as you have decent gear equipped, and there is even free DLC available with more powerful starting equipment. This ultimately means that the need for grinding is greatly reduced, further enhancing Tokyo Clanpool’s feeling of accessibility. Should you still feel overwhelmed, the game also has a “repeat last moves” setting, allowing you to grind while not needing to keep your full attention on the game. We should, of course, address the elephant in the room, which is the removal of Ether Induction. From what we gathered online, Ether Induction was a minigame that involved rubbing the girls’ bodies in order to gain stat boosts. It was present but optional in the original release of the game. We haven’t played the PS Vita release of Tokyo Clanpool, so we can’t tell you what we were exactly missing out on in terms of mechanics. Given the already quite fan service-y nature of Tokyo Clanpool, we’re not too surprised that this was cause for concern for both Nintendo and Steam, which probably led to premature decisions about the release of the game. The removal of the minigame also apparently wasn’t enough to garner a more widespread release, and we’re not sure whether this is something that will be revised in the future. Whether or not Tokyo Clanpool offers decent value is difficult to gauge, at least for now. That’s not because you’re not getting enough bang for your buck, as you’ll find dozens of hours worth of dungeon-crawling action here, and the game boasts high replay value at higher difficulties. For genre veterans, it’s a chill and laid-back take on the genre, and for newcomers, it’s a fantastic introduction to the genre. However, unless you’re picking up the game on GOG, for €39.99, you’ll have to import a physical Switch copy from Asia, or go through all the effort of downloading through the Hong Kong Switch eShop. Those latter two options probably bring additional costs with them, and Tokyo Clanpool probably isn’t good enough of a game to justify those. Conclusion If we look at Tokyo Clanpool purely for what it is as a game, we’d say that it’s an enjoyable but not overly impressive dungeon crawler. It’s definitely a beginner-friendly take on the genre. It is, however, overshadowed by its dubious fanservice and the surrounding controversy. While we’d say that some of the in-game outfits are uncomfortably sexualized, we’ve seen far worse, both on Steam and on the Switch. If you can stomach the idea of seeing scantily clad teenage anime girls and are looking for a laid-back dungeon crawler, pick this one up on GOG. For the Switch port, we’d say this one isn’t worth jumping through the hoops for.