Title: Trillion: God of Destruction
Developer: Compile Heart, Idea Factory
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Game Type: Vita
Download: 3.2GB
NA Availability: Digital Download | Retail
EU Availability: Digital Download | Retail
PSTV Support: Yes

Idea Factory International has been popping out games for the past few years for the PS Vita, really doing a great job of supporting the handheld.  Between all of the Neptunia games along with Amnesia, they’re one of the most recurring developers and supporters of the Vita.  While some fans aren’t happy about them taking advantage of Steam, there are still plenty of handheld titles coming from them.

One such handheld game is a game a lot of people didn’t think was coming West, because of how the game plays.  That game is a game heavy in strategy elements with a design and scenario not that unlike the Disgaea series from Nippon Ichi (NIS).  However, with much marketing, it has finally released in the West, both in physical and digital formats.

Here is my official review of Trillion: God of Destruction!

Story

Long ago, angels rebelled against Heaven, ending up cast down into the dark, demonic Underworld.  Their leaders, the Overlords, leads an ongoing war with heaven, as does every successor to hold the title of Great Overlord.  Zeabolos is the Great Overlord when a giant being of immense power arrives at the Gates of Hell to destroy the Underworld.  This being is known to them as the God of Destruction.  It is also known as Trillion, containing one trillion curses and one trillion points of Health.

After a grueling battle, Trillion murders his brother and leaves Zeabolos at death’s door.  After a final strike that injures Trillion’s arm, he calls out, offering his very soul for a chance to strike down and defeat Trillion and save the Underworld.  As his wish vocally goes outward, he is saved with his body sewn together by a being known as Faust.  In exchange for his soul, she promises him power and assistance in taking down Trillion.

As soon as the battle ends, Trillion goes into a dormant slumber, Faust giving Zeabolos a time-frame until Trillion awakens.  Until then, he must train the Overlords that follow him to become powerful enough to take on the giant being.

The storyline reminds me heavily of the Disgaea series with the environment as well as the personalities of all of the characters.  While it doesn’t have quite as much humor as Disgaea, it is a very cute and entertaining plot.

Gameplay

Trillion in an RPG that doesn’t fit into a single genre.  It’s a tactical RPG, a roguelike, an action RPG, a raising sim RPG, and also has some dating sim elements thrown in, too.  In short, it’s a ton of different genres thrown into a single RPG.  At its basest, it’s a big strategy RPG.

Progression in the game mostly progresses through the phases where Trillion is asleep.  In each of these phases, you choose one of the Overlords to be assigned with the task of taking on Trillion.  You have only a certain number of days to be able to train and prepare.  These phases allow you to do a lot of things, from training to get experience, upgrading your character’s stats with earned experience, restings, obtaining and upgrading weapons in dungeons, and more.

The main strategy of this is the fact that every action takes up a single day.  If you train, a day is used up.  Upgrade, a day is gone.  You get the idea.  However, there is also the Rest function that must be used.  If you train every day, the Overlord will tire out and you won’t get nearly as much experience for training.  So, for this, you have to use Rest to get the best output for stat increases and skill acquisition.

Rest is also important because of the interaction option in Rest Mode.  Interaction allows you to spend time with that Overlord and create Affection points, where the dating sim elements come into play.  You get closer but also have            an Affection Point gauge that builds up for battle.  This is used before HP and MP when in combat, so the more Affection Points you have, the longer you can keep a battle going.

When in dungeons or when Trillion wakes up, you go into combat.  This is a mix of a rogue-like and a strategy RPG.  You and enemies appear on a grid-based 3D map and move simultaneously.  When you move, they move.  Remember Sorcery Saga?  If so, you’ll get the general idea of this type of movement.  So, your goal is to move across the map and clear off all enemies with normal attacks right in front of you, your minions taking them out, or using area-based skills that use up Affection Points and MP.

Fighting Trillion is a little different.  You’re still on a grid, but he is at the back.  His attacks are all shown to you on the grid a few turns before they happen, so you have ample time to move away from them before they strike.  His attacks come in a few forms.  He does huge area attacks as well as summoning troops and bombs to attack you with.  So to get to Trillion, you need to avoid attacks, take out enemies, and slowly work your way back the map.

There is a ton of strategy involved here and every move counts.  One false move and you could take a pretty big hit.  You’ll have to take hits to get close to him, regardless, so you’ll want to take as few hits as possible.  It’s all about what risks are worth it and what aren’t since you don’t get do-overs unless you restart your save data.  If an Overlord loses to Trillion, they permanently die and you must start a new dormant cycle with another.

Speaking of dying, there are Death Skills you’ll be able to use if an Overlord dies.  Some will weaken Trillion while others can create a ghost of that Overlord to take into battle with you.  Basically, you repeat this process until either all Overlords die and you get a game over, or you eventually beat Trillion and beat the game.

While this game is very unique, I would have to dock a point for the game being quite repetitive.  As flashy and colorful as the combat 3D arenas are, 90% if not more of the game will be spent in 2D menus micro-managing everything.  This could roughly be described as hours of menus and 5 minutes of combat, repeat process.  The fact that there is so little actual combat compared to this can make this feel incredibly repetitive and a bit of a bore if you’re trying to do stuff just to get to the next combat segment.

Overall, the game can last quite a long time.  Hours of management between boss battles can really add up towards the end of the game.  We are talking dozens of hours if you get into the system and put your heart into it.

Controls

The game’s controls aren’t too hard to understand and do.  First of all, this game is compatible with the PlayStation TV, so you can play this on the go or on the big screen.  Not really any different controls when using a controller, though.

Menu controls are pretty self-explanatory.  D-Pad to move around options, X to select, and Circle to cancel.  Pretty standard controls for a localized game for menus.  In combat, you move on the grid with the D-Pad.  L and R triggers can be used to rotate the camera.  You can also zoom in the camera behind the player or in a top-view fashion with the triggers and the Square button.

The rest of the controls are just with the other face buttons.  The Triangle button can be used to pull up the menus to show tutorials or use items, skills, or other actions.  X and Circle are used here like in menus.  Outside of the menus, X is used for a physical attack on an enemy directly in front of you, and Square can be used to automatically change the direction you’re facing towards an enemy on the next tile to you.

The controls are pretty simple to use (though not being able to use the Analog Sticks for movement is a little odd), and they’re explained quite well in the tutorial sections.

Presentation

The visual presentation I would classify as pretty decent for a Vita title.  While most of the game has 2D menus with crisp and perfect renders, the 3D models do have jagged edges here and there.  They’re small jaggies, but there if you intently stare to look for them.  I’ve no issues with the graphics of the game.

The Voice-Acting is pretty superb for a Vita title.  Trillion has one of the better PS Vita English dubs available.  Each of the Overlords presents their voice in a really nice manner.  The only issue is something I’ve seen in other Vita titles.  Even with the newest patch/update for the game, there are some scenes that have voice-acting, but don’t voice entire scenes.  What I mean by this is that the voice-acting will cut off the last few words of said dialogue.  It doesn’t happen too often, but enough to be noticeable.