OZMAFIA!! - In a Nutshell
OZMAFIA!!
オズマフィア!!
Poni-Pachet SY: Official Game Homepage
Walkthrough: http://arioso.jp/wp/data/3525
Story: The game follows Fuka, a girl with no memories and no idea of who she really is, who wakes up in the shadow of a mysterious tower only to immediately find herself being attacked by a strange man with swords. As she runs away, she bumps into Caramia, the mafioso, and Kyrie, the consigliere, of the Oz famillia. Oz, as it turns out, is but one of the many mafia families that reside in the city around the tower and, with no memories and no family alliance, Caramia offers Fuka a place as a guest in their mansion as she adjusts to life in amidst the warring mafias...
Or something like that.
The game itself reminded me very much of Zettai Meikyuu Grimm where there's a clear and present plot - Fuka's lost memories - that's basically ignored until the grand finale in favor of playing around with the bishies. Not that this is a bad thing. The characters are, hands down, what drives the story and keeps things interesting as you are baited with little tidbits about the mysteries of the city. And the Oz boys in particular are what made the game for me. They were just absolutely awesome and hilarious to watch.
(...More than once Kyrie and his damn sassy one liners had me laughing so hard I snorted Dr. Pepper.)
Gameplay, on the other hand, involved a lot of replay. There was a constant undercurrent of scenes that could only be unlocked on the second playthrough which gave the game the unfortunate side effect of feeling like a bunch of vaguely connected scenes strung along in the same general direction rather than one continuous story. Which is especially frustrating because I've always seen the bonus/unlocked scenes as being icing on the cake rather than being a necessity to understanding what the crap is going on. And, even after unlocking things, there were events that felt like they had a lot of build up only to be dropped just as things were getting interesting.
...There was also the weird love triangle thing that was a given in the OZ routes felt really sort of awkward at times. (Why does it have to be a triangle? Just give me the 3P damn it!! >.<)
Visuals:
While you don't get many CGs in this one, I think the pretty factor and the sheer amount of extra story bits go a ways towards filling in the gaps. Yes, more would have been nice, but there were added touches - like having Kyrie's sprite take his hat off as he bowed to a horde of Wolfgang thugs, or having Scarlet sans his cloak - that made it visual enough that you don't really feel like you're missing out on anything.
In fact, now that I think of it, the sprites moved a lot. They were some of the most active otoge sprites I've seen. On par with the Afters in the Starry Sky series - lots of moving across the screen as to mimic the characters' movements.
Also. I really loved Gretel and her bird's rage face.
...Plus then there were these little bits like so that made my literary fangirl heart go pitter patter.
Sounds: Ahh, and we get to the dreaded partial voice...
Actually? As someone who's played Koei's bastardlyness with the HaruToki series? I think they could have easily gotten away with voicing even less.
You could tell that they really wanted to have the game fully voiced. They did try. But, at times it got to the point where the voice was turning off and on multiple times in a single conversation and I think that it would have served them better to go the less is more route and make voices only come on during special/CG events.
(I also thought that it seemed like they had some recording trouble with a couple of the seiyuu at times as the lines seemed oddly staticy a couple times, but *shrugs* ymmv.)
...At the same time, I do wish they could have gotten that bump up to full-voice-dom if only so that all of Kyrie's snappy repartee could have been voiced. XD
In a Nutshell: Overall? Between all the literary allusions and the Oz boys I had fun.
Again, my biggest complaint would be the gameplay issues. A part of me would really love to see this get a port/director's cut/something or other so they could bump up the voice and iron out some of the kinks but I'm not holding my breath. And I'd really be perfectly content just to snap up whatever dramas or merch might come along so can I throw more money at them and see what else Poni-Pachet might do next.
And the usual small bit of teaser pretty for your eyeballs:
A glimpse of the city layout.
オズマフィア!!
Poni-Pachet SY: Official Game Homepage
Walkthrough: http://arioso.jp/wp/data/3525
Story: The game follows Fuka, a girl with no memories and no idea of who she really is, who wakes up in the shadow of a mysterious tower only to immediately find herself being attacked by a strange man with swords. As she runs away, she bumps into Caramia, the mafioso, and Kyrie, the consigliere, of the Oz famillia. Oz, as it turns out, is but one of the many mafia families that reside in the city around the tower and, with no memories and no family alliance, Caramia offers Fuka a place as a guest in their mansion as she adjusts to life in amidst the warring mafias...
Or something like that.
The game itself reminded me very much of Zettai Meikyuu Grimm where there's a clear and present plot - Fuka's lost memories - that's basically ignored until the grand finale in favor of playing around with the bishies. Not that this is a bad thing. The characters are, hands down, what drives the story and keeps things interesting as you are baited with little tidbits about the mysteries of the city. And the Oz boys in particular are what made the game for me. They were just absolutely awesome and hilarious to watch.
(...More than once Kyrie and his damn sassy one liners had me laughing so hard I snorted Dr. Pepper.)
Gameplay, on the other hand, involved a lot of replay. There was a constant undercurrent of scenes that could only be unlocked on the second playthrough which gave the game the unfortunate side effect of feeling like a bunch of vaguely connected scenes strung along in the same general direction rather than one continuous story. Which is especially frustrating because I've always seen the bonus/unlocked scenes as being icing on the cake rather than being a necessity to understanding what the crap is going on. And, even after unlocking things, there were events that felt like they had a lot of build up only to be dropped just as things were getting interesting.
...There was also the weird love triangle thing that was a given in the OZ routes felt really sort of awkward at times. (Why does it have to be a triangle? Just give me the 3P damn it!! >.<)
Visuals:
While you don't get many CGs in this one, I think the pretty factor and the sheer amount of extra story bits go a ways towards filling in the gaps. Yes, more would have been nice, but there were added touches - like having Kyrie's sprite take his hat off as he bowed to a horde of Wolfgang thugs, or having Scarlet sans his cloak - that made it visual enough that you don't really feel like you're missing out on anything.
In fact, now that I think of it, the sprites moved a lot. They were some of the most active otoge sprites I've seen. On par with the Afters in the Starry Sky series - lots of moving across the screen as to mimic the characters' movements.
Also. I really loved Gretel and her bird's rage face.
...Plus then there were these little bits like so that made my literary fangirl heart go pitter patter.
Sounds: Ahh, and we get to the dreaded partial voice...
Actually? As someone who's played Koei's bastardlyness with the HaruToki series? I think they could have easily gotten away with voicing even less.
You could tell that they really wanted to have the game fully voiced. They did try. But, at times it got to the point where the voice was turning off and on multiple times in a single conversation and I think that it would have served them better to go the less is more route and make voices only come on during special/CG events.
(I also thought that it seemed like they had some recording trouble with a couple of the seiyuu at times as the lines seemed oddly staticy a couple times, but *shrugs* ymmv.)
...At the same time, I do wish they could have gotten that bump up to full-voice-dom if only so that all of Kyrie's snappy repartee could have been voiced. XD
In a Nutshell: Overall? Between all the literary allusions and the Oz boys I had fun.
Again, my biggest complaint would be the gameplay issues. A part of me would really love to see this get a port/director's cut/something or other so they could bump up the voice and iron out some of the kinks but I'm not holding my breath. And I'd really be perfectly content just to snap up whatever dramas or merch might come along so can I throw more money at them and see what else Poni-Pachet might do next.
And the usual small bit of teaser pretty for your eyeballs:
A glimpse of the city layout.