[Review] Empire of Angels IV - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: SOFTSTAR ENTERTAINMENT
Published By: EastAsiaSoft
Categories: Strategy RPG
Release Date: 06.24.21

The first thing that comes to mind with Empire of Angels IV is that it’s the perfect game for imageboard goers, or fans of certain youtube pages. By that, I mean you have a game of (insert genre here), as basic as can be, with the wrapper of fanservice and cute girls. There’s no budget, or at least a small one, but it has cute anime girls.

Empire of Angels IV is a turn based, grid based strategy game. Simply put, you move on the grid, you attack on the grid. Attacking will immediately end your turn, but you can move around the enemies. There’s a bit of planning with this too, as your position can decide your accuracy for strikes, or even if the enemy can counter your attacks. I personally found that attacking from the corner is the safest bet, even if it’s accuracy is a tad lower.

Attacks and abilities are all decided with MP. A standard attack takes substantially less MP, but is usually just a front facing attack. Your special attacks and abilities include things like spin attacks, spread shots for your archers that can hit multiple enemies at once, or much more simple things like healing. Though a favorite of mine is an ability that not only heals your surrounding partners, but raises defense.

Now when I said it was standard, this was when I first started the game. I wasn’t exactly impressed. You have what looks to be a higher res Playstation Vita game, character models for enemies often do not match their dialog images. Everything, including the combat felt so…least someone could do. But after a chapter or so, the game does open up. You’re not railroaded into fights and can backtrack whenever. You learn about skills, classes, which can be leveled up into via a class tree and it changes your appearances too!

I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the graphics, even if I did like the character art. I was thrilled however by the music. It gave me those nostalgic feelings for music on the PSone or Saturn. Love it.

The plot and characters had me interested. A bit cliche as they were. You take control of the Namtar Investigation Team, tasked with taking care of a plague that has turned normally peaceful people into deranged, violent monsters. They do this all over the Kingdom of Asgard. The story gets filled with many a revelation about what’s truly going on and many an anime cliche, but I wanted to know more and more as it went on.

The plague isn’t just a story only point. In gameplay, you can even purify though under control and recruit them to fight with you. Luckily, if a challenge in a level requires you don’t lose a team member, their loss doesn’t count.

I was pleasantly surprised with Empire of Angels IV. I expected a mediocre game which held itself up by having cute anime girls and fanservice to make up for a lack of anything else. Instead, I got a decent strategy game that presented itself pretty well.