MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death Review
By: RJ (@rga_02)
- MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death
- Developer - Compile Heart
- Publisher - Idea Factory
- PlayStation Vita
- Rating - T
I have a love-hate relationship with dungeon crawlers or games similar to that genre. For the most part, I think they’re outdated and repetitive. For the ones I do like - or tolerate, it was largely in part because they had a solid story behind the archaic gameplay. I was hoping that MeiQ would a dungeon crawler backed up with a good enough plot that I can tolerated crawling around ugly soulless dungeons. Plus the game has mechs, MeiQ should be good right?
Many years ago the world stopped rotating and darkness fell upon the land. Monsters started appearing and it is up to the mages to fight their way to restore the planet’s rotation – which is actually controlled by a giant wind-up key. That is the basic premise of MeiQ. You’re not going to get anything more out of it. For those who are reliant on a story heavy premise, such as I, why should we keep on playing this game? Well thankfully Compile Heart knows how to spice up the gameplay as evident by their traditional RPGs out in the market such as Omega Quintet or Neptunia. They somehow made your typical dungeon crawling into something worthwhile to grab your attention for a bit.
As Mages, you are paired up with your mechanical based creatures called Guardians. During battle you and your Guardians can work together in unison. For example, your Guardians will dish out various powerful physical attacks while you conduct magic based attacks or spells. As you continue throughout the game, you will need to craft various parts for your mechanical friends. Guardians don’t simply get powerful by just leveling up; you need to equip various parts for them to learn new moves and skills. Certain parts work together better and it was a bit of fun experimenting which one goes hand and hand with each other.
Now the battles in this game were surprisingly not difficult at all. My only complaint is that battling is very slow due to the attack animations. At times it felt like I was re-playing Final Fantasy IX on the PlayStation - It was that unbearable. Even with the option of speeding up the animations by pressing the X button didn’t help out. That is probably my biggest complaint of the game actually. Sure the dungeons are as bland as a tree you would find in a Neptunia game, but at least let me fight my way through it at a tolerable speed.
Speaking of being bland as a tree, let’s talk about the art style of the game. The game is filled with mindless titillation which will probably turn off a lot of people. In fact due to its content, the game is technically banned from Australia. While I myself don’t enjoy the art (I feel like Compile Heart could of have presented the fan service in a more appealing way like their other titles), I think the game is considerably more tame than other Compile Heart games or dungeon crawlers out in the market. I feel someone shouldn’t skip out on this game because of its questionable art if they enjoy a good dungeon crawler.
And that’s where I feel like the audience for this game is. This game probably won’t convert anyone to dungeon crawlers. It’s more for people who enjoy exploring floors upon floors of mazes.
And I don’t mean that in a bad way.