For those of you who didn’t read my previous article about Kanpani Girls (for shame! You call yourselves fans? But you can have a read of it here) then you’ll know I gave it a pretty good rating. It had more or less everything that you want from a turn based RPG. Good combat system with some nice skills? Yeah! A ridiculous amount of characters with oversized weapons and more jobs to choose from than a recruitment office? Of course! Super hot cartoon Japanese warrior girls with massive t… Okay, I’m losing track here, but in short, Kanpani Girls was a great game which was also pretty addictive. So I decided to give Angelic Saga Online a try, because I haven’t wasted enough of my life playing video games (25 years and counting).
Angelic Saga Online is another hit game by Nutaku, who act as a digital distributor and host the portal which houses all their in browser games. They now have a pretty sizable fanbase and a good reputation for providing solid entertainment with their standard games, so I was pretty excited to give Angelic Saga Online a try and see what all the fuss is about. I can say with all honesty that after playing this, Nutaku have maintained their reputation of being the best at giving us great games and skimpily clad Japanese girls.
To those of you who read my Kanpani Girls review you’ll know that my only slight criticism about the entire game was that it would be nice to do the fighting for yourself. Well Angelic Saga not only fixes that criticism, but it just downright destroys it. The game throws you directly into all the action and it’s your job to deal with that in the most badass way, something that I like very much. It’s an online PVP card battle game, although if socializing isn’t your call, you can always go solo play. Naturally, with a genre such as this it falls into the strategy based game and you have some pretty intense moments where you really need to think about your actions and the consequences they make on the outcome of the match.
The entire game revolves around card battles and alchemy, whilst I’ve never really had much fondness for either (apart from the odd Saturday morning TV bingefest of Yu-Gi-Oh!) I wasn’t sure what I’d make of it, but if anything it’s changed my perception on both of these subjects. The game starts with you being greeted by your creation, Maron. When I say creation, I mean that quite literally, you actually created her using a recipe you found in the alchemy building that you were cleaning at night. She refers to you as Master, which is something I’ve never really thought of enjoying, but now that I’ve been called it once I’m trying to convince my girlfriend to make it a permanent thing. Your character doesn’t seem to like sweeping up after others though, and considers himself capable of being the best damn card master in the world. So we shouldn’t disappoint him!
The story goes on to explain that an organization in charge of Alchemy has a bit of a mess. Seems all the delivery Homunculi (sexy Japanese badass girl warriors) that sustain the organization have turned rogue and are now using their powers to try and take over the world. The association isn’t quite strong enough to reel them in, but obviously you are (well you aren’t just yet, but you will be), although you’re not really too keen on this until you find out that in order to get them back to normal you have to give them a ‘Naughty Punishment'( 
). I was pretty eager to play at this point, until Maron told me it was a joke, then I was disappointed, but then it wasn’t a joke, so I was pretty eager again.
In order to start your amazing quest to capture hot runaway rogues, you first need to pick your deck, and believe me when I tell you that it’s not an easy choice. You’re given a total of 5 decks, each consisting of a certain strategy to help you win and each one containing a different element. The decks offer some pretty useful information on how to win fights using your cards and if the deck is intended for an intermediate player or a beginner player. I went for the darkness deck, since it had a hot girl (like they all do) but every game in which I don’t pick a darkness elemental based item I always get annihilated in the first battle, so it’s kind of drilled into me now. It always sucks when you play a game and are forced to pick how you start out your adventure, especially with something that defines the game so much as an actual deck of cards that you’ll be using to play every match, so it’s an important choice and one that Angelic Saga Online understands, so the variability in gameplay is very much appreciated.
Each deck of cards consists of different characters to attack with, spells to enhance your abilities and traps to turn the tide of battle. There really is a great combination of these three cards and using all of them will really help you win the matches. There’s a ridiculous amount of character skills to use to your advantage (or to be used against you). Furthermore, the elements all work for and against each other, so you have to watch out for them as well, especially if you find yourself against a challenger with the opposite deck. There’s so many things in this game that can keep you on your toes and keep the action coming that it’s frustrating, but incredible to play and is so incredibly entertaining.
Before long you’re off to start your first match against your first boss. In the first match you’re supported by Maron, who explains all the rules for the match. It’s a bit complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it then it becomes second nature. The tutorial does a great job of explaining how everything works, especially in a game such as this which can be quite overwhelming at first.
Each player starts off with a certain amount of life points and each match starts off with a coin toss to decide who goes first and who goes second. Each round is split into 3 sections, a mana generation, a summon and an attack phase. In the mana generation you’ll sacrifice one of your cards in order to generate 2 mana and begin building up (which in some way really is the key to winning matches). Once done you can click on the end phase button to move over to phase 2, summoning. Using the mana that you’ve built up you can summon your cards to the field, providing you have the mana to afford the card cost. Any summoned cards can be placed in attack or defense mode, unless it’s a trap or spell, then it’ll be placed face down so your opponent can’t see. Once you’re out of mana you can end the phase to move on to the attack phase. Cards that are in attack will attack the other players’ cards (unless there are none on the field, in which you will attack the life points directly) and any in defense will act as barriers to your life points, unless their card has a higher attack or defense rating. Once you’ve done, it’s your opponent’s turn to go through the 3 phases and try to counter attack you. The loser is the one who has their life points drained or reaches 0 cards first.
To tell you the truth, my explanation of the rules doesn’t really do the game justice. It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t once you get a feel for things and before long you become a card battling maniac, conquering all in your path to free all the Homonculi from their evil bra’s. The only way to get an actual understanding of the rules is to give it a play, and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s very important to any strategy game that there is the perfect balance, and I say this as a fan of games. The majority of strategy based games, they are all far too easy and if a game like this is too easy then there really isn’t too much point in playing it. Angelic Saga Online has the perfect balance. Naturally, there are some easy moments, especially at the start of each match, but equally there are some really tight spots where you will have to think a few steps ahead of your opponent to make sure you come out on top and get that ‘naughty punishment’.
There are loads of features to get stuck into, from the daily free spin to get some nice and sexy cards to going into online PVP. There really is enough content to keep you occupied for hours on end, and even if online PVP or spinning wheels for glorious prizes isn’t your thing, then you can go through the main quest or local quests to build up exp, and become the greatest dueler ever.
The graphics are amazing and one of the huge pros for this game come in the form of the character designs. There is clearly a lot of time and effort spent in creating these anime girls and it really pays off with some truly breathtaking graphics and artwork. There’s also the cards which are beautifully crafted and must have taken a really astonishing amount of time for the designers of the game. In the end, though, you’re left with a game that is visually easy on the eyes and adds a lot to the overall feel and gameplay.
The sound is what you’d expect of any Japanese RPG type game, annoyingly catchy. The game music is somewhat addictive and really does get drilled into your head to the point where you could quite easily sit listening to the opening menu’s music for hours on end. The sound effects, character voices and BGM are all enjoyable too, and don’t leave anything to be criticized (much to my disappointment, since I always love a good dig at games). Sound wise the game stands tall, and there really isn’t much to say apart from it’s all well created.
Angelic Saga Online is a game that I’d expect to see from Nutaku. As I mentioned before, they have a reputation for having a good selection of incredible games and this is certainly one of the stronger ones. Nutaku describes it as an epic card game, and I can completely agree with that statement. It is action packed and really does get you thinking about all your choices, almost to nail biting territory. Considering that the registration is so easy and it’s a completely free flash games it only makes sense to at least give it a few minutes of your time and If that’s not your cup of tea then there’s a whole host of anime fighting games like Kanpani Girls, a turn based JRPG with sexy warrior girls and Hero Zero, a cartoon from Germany, action-adventure game where you go from zero to hero.
Angelic Saga Online is a game which is visually and aesthetically pleasing. It has a great mixture of incredible graphics and beautiful sound, difficult strategies and great storylines, is completely free and easy to pick up and play and has a huge amount of gameplay value which will keep you entertained for hours on end. It would be madness not to even give it a try, pure madness I say!
Check out my other review by clicking the link below
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