Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak Special Gigs Review (PS Vita)
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak Special Gigs is an expanded version of Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters that’s come pretty quickly after the original’s release. In fact, it functions more as a replacement than an addition, with extra story chapters and a renovated battle system on top of the original game.
The overall look and feel of the game is really good. The character sprites are gorgeous, with a more detailed, ‘painted’ look than in many visual novels. However, this does make the animations feel a little out-of-place and weird to look at. Rather than any actual cutscenes (the opening aside, as it’s pretty much just cityscapes), there are just repeated semi-cutscenes, which is kind of a shame. The character designs are nothing particularly special, but they suit everyone well.
The game also has a great soundtrack. It’s tense when it needs to be tense, and it’s touching when it needs to be touching (even if the dialogue isn’t always up to scratch). It’s got a very nice, guitar-focused sound and actually reminds me a little of the Togainu no Chi soundtrack, which is no bad thing. There’s an opening and ending track to each of the story episodes too, just like in an anime. These got a little annoying, given that the story episodes aren’t that long, so I ended up skipping them after the first time, but they added to the game’s framework.
The game is only partially voiced, which can be offputting. Personally, I find this less of an issue with no English voice options though, as it’s not as distractingly obvious that characters are saying things that aren’t in the text box.
The story is divided into individual ‘tracks’ which each focus on a particular case. While I often find things that start out with this ‘monster of the week’ format and then try to shoehorn in a full-on plot do so badly, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters suffers a little from keeping the basic format. The individual character stories are nice, if a bit bland, but that’s pretty much all there is. Just the team going about stand-alone cases would be fine if the cases were more interesting, but it kind of falls flat.
I love that many of the characters you meet in the cases can be recruited to the team, though. Not only do more team members never go amiss, but it’s just a really nice touch as far as the story is concerned. It is worth consulting a recruitment guide though, as many of these characters rely on accurate usage of the ‘sense’ feature, which is never guaranteed.
It wasn’t until I was placing a comforting hand on someone’s back that I realised ‘friendly’ and ‘touch’ could be something other than a handshake.
Ah, the ‘sense’ system. Such an interesting concept, such a pain in the neck to actually use. You’re thrust into social interactions with no explanation at all of the system and actual repercussions if you mess it up. Not only does it mean characters won’t like you, which can affect which ending you get, but it can stop you from recruiting certain characters. Given the uniqueness of some of these characters in battle, I dread to think how battles would go if you failed to get some. That’s true for the numbers in battle too – I just post people everywhere, so I’d like as many people as I can possibly take with me.
The system itself sees you select an emotion and then a sense to form your response in story sections. I found this really hard to work with. For one, once you’ve selected an emotion, you don’t seem able to change your mind about it, which is just a flaw with me for rushing into things before thinking them through. The main problem, though, is that you can’t predict what you’re going to do. Sometimes the game seems to just ignore one half of what you’ve decided, leaving you staring blankly when you intended to look inquisitively.
It also took me a while to figure out that the same combination can mean different things in different situations. That sounds kind of obvious, but it wasn’t until I was placing a comforting hand on someone’s back that I realised ‘friendly’ and ‘touch’ could be something other than a handshake, which, as you can imagine, hadn’t been appropriate for a lot of situations. (Yes, that does mean I attempted to shake his hand in a crisis – I was at a loss.)
So there are a lot of options depending on what you do and when, which is great. You still can’t tell what they are though, or how someone will take them. I’ve had more than a few handshakes shot down because I didn’t want to risk accidentally licking someone’s face on first meeting. The reactions from other characters come off as over-descriptive and clunky too. ‘Aw, you’re petting my head’ just sounds awkward.
Thankfully, there are times when you can choose your response from a menu and interact like a normal person, instead of attempting to pet a gravestone or something. Still, as user-unfriendly as it may be, quirky gameplay is definitely the game’s strength.
Despite my very apparent failings, however, I actually find the battle system really enjoyable.
The battle system is similarly unique. I’ll say upfront that I’m not good at it and would probably benefit if I could work it out or cared to learn what all the different items do. I don’t. I’ve never been a fan of huge levels of customisation in battles, so in this case I’m willing to just shell out for the recommended items in their default locations and then bung an extra load of salt everywhere until the ghost has really limited movement options.
Despite my very apparent failings, however, I actually find the battle system really enjoyable. It hinges on you predicting the enemy’s movements, which is really interesting. Each party member has a limited amount of AP that you can dish out on different actions, including attacking, using items, and moving. That’s fine. My only quibble is that you have such a low amount, and even turning costs you a move point. Once you’ve set up all your party members’ actions for the turn, you hope for the best that the ghost comes into range of someone you’ve set attacking.
If you’re like me, and have posted people everywhere it could possibly go so that someone will actually hit it, then expect to be paying a lot of damage expenses for your party members attacking at nothing and breaking every inanimate object within range. I find that the amount of money you get for completing a mission more than covers for this and all the salt I’ve thrown everywhere though, so this approach is A-OK with me. And, hey, it works well enough. Each battle is also on a time limit, and every turn makes that decrease by one. The time limits weren’t so short as to be frustrating, but did lead to some close calls. This was a good way to add a level of tension to the battles.
As fun as this battle system may be though, I didn’t go out of my way to take out ghosts other than the main target on the map. Nor did I feel inclined to take on many of the non-story battles for extra kicks/items/salt money.
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is a unique game with lots of charm.
If you haven’t played the first Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters, then Daybreak is the one to go for. The new story chapters and extra battles make it worthwhile, if you don’t mind their difficulty spike. If you already have the first one, it’s probably not worth getting Daybreak as well unless you’re a really big fan.
Still, I can’t help but recommend this game. It’s well worth it just for the experience of playing it, and none of its shortcomings are enough to detract from the game’s merit as a whole. Above all things, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is a unique game with lots of charm.
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