EENY, MEENY, MINY, Moe.
The Nintendo Switch has been a digital playground for the likes of several PS3 and Vita JRPGS, several of which coming to North America for the first time. Many of them tend to follow a certain visual style, often baked with deep and complex combat systems, a penchant for visual novel storytelling, and a boatload of fan service. While Mugen Souls Z, a Switch port of the 2013 original can certainly check all of those boxes, it sadly fails to produce even the slightest bit of an enjoyable experience.
Mugen Souls Z is a sequel to 2012's Mugen Souls, a follow-up that found its way to the PS3 a year later. This sequel continues the world-conquering of Chou Chou but shakes it up with a cropping of brand new characters, one of which, Syrma, accidentally absorbs Chou-Chou's power through a mystical coffin she lugs around, which makes her a pint-sized version of her former self, and this begins the journey to not only conquer a series of brand new worlds but to power Chou-Chou back up to her normal ruling form.
Mugen Souls Z features a ton of characters, often introduced at such a frequency that you'll get the general trope or stereotype they are built around and then they will move on to the next, often without much fanfare around them. This causes the bulk of its cast to feel like paper-thin additions that fully fledged characters of their own. While the art and voice acting present can often breathe life into them, their use from a gameplay angle is often incredibly basic and surface-level only. You can also recruit characters you can customize, but they rarely are impressive to use at all.
The story of conquering a series of new worlds is always present, but the dialogue, scenarios, and events that take place often feel random and never fleshed out to be coherent. A great deal of the game's first dozen hours is nothing more than characters bickering or rolling out exposition to get newcomers on speed on the who's who of returning characters and mechanics. While you’ll the adventure as a fully powered up Chou Chou, with the use of her robotic ship, that sense of power and feature is sidelined for hours on end.
While combat is something you'll get dozens of hours to play around in, story moments here are presented in your standard visual novel aesthetic, with some narrative moments lasting well over half an hour, often resulting in nothing actually developing the story or really happening at all. It's a shame since several characters do have some great designs and a decent purpose for being involved in the story, the game simply wants no part of that and would often rely on the pure randomness of the moment and the squabbles between the team. While new characters will constantly join your ranks, they often lend themselves to continuing the same tired moments over and over again.
While its story doesn't consistently remain engaging, its combat fares a bit better but can be completely underdone by the inclusion of all the titles' DLC content. This is due to most of the weapons and equipment within being the type that can make you a god. Most of the weapons present in the included DLC can one-shot any monster, character, or boss. This essentially can make the game not only trivial in its difficulty but negates any of the game's several systems. The inclusion of a challenge tower mode is trivial due to being able to steamroll anything you encounter. Should you want even the tiniest bit of challenge, I recommend saving the DLC until you are nearly done with the game, until you get bored of its grind, or simply not engaging with it entirely and want it to end.
Combat begins by interacting with enemies out in the battlegrounds you'll explore. These locations are pretty barren and a few have teleporters that pop you out at different parts of the map. You can attack enemies you see to get an advantage at the start of the fight or be ambushed and have them attack first. You'll then be taking turns moving within a range set to each character. Often, battles will see a first turn simply bridging the gap between friend and foe as you move closer to them. To add to battles, various crystals will litter the field, some providing perks while others granting debuffs or making enemies invulnerable if they continue to stand next to said crystal. The crystal system feels like something added in to create the illusion of strategy rather than being a mechanic that makes the game better.
From basic attacks to a series of special skills, combat is what you expect from a turned-based game. It reminds me a lot of the Neptunia series, complete with the system of character ranges and only being able to attack within them. The only major difference is that Neptunia has vastly better visuals and characters that don’t look horrible when you outfit them in their fan service outfits.
As Syrma has absorbed the power of Chou Chou, a lot of her actions will be based on the former ruler. This involves charming monsters and turning them in Shampurus. This peon system is fueled by the ability to cater to their likes as Syrma and Chou Chou can turned into different Moe forms that are based around such traits as Ditz, Ego, Masochist, Sadist, and more. These forms also help when attempting to charm parts of the map as you make the very world your peon. However, the wordplay scenarios have a random chance to work, causing failed attempts to enter into very grindy battles.
With Mugen Souls Z being a partial remaster of the original release, it brings with it the bathing mini-game that was removed for the PS3 release. While this isn't the only fan service element to the game, it certainly is one that honestly should have remained absent from its release, and let me explain why. This distraction has you choosing various soaps and shampoos to take into a bath with one of the ladies you've unlocked. While this isn't new as Senran Kagura has had a similar mini-game, the issue is that a few of the characters you'll be scrubbing down are ageless gods that have the form of teen to pre-teen bodies. I'm all for fan service in these types of games, but their excuse for the inclusion of such childlike characters is just flat-out creepy and a mode I only tried out once to a character that was of proper age.
While I can't essentially knock the game's visuals considering it is nothing more than a slightly improved port of a ten-year-old release, the game looks remarkably basic, regardless of the era it was released. Even despite the basic environments and character models for exploration and combat, the framerate on the Switch chugged while simply running around. It's a shame that more wasn't done to breathe new life into the game's locations while properly optimizing the game to simply run better.
The game’s artwork; however, is great. The higher-end character models during the visual novel elements are fantastic. The variety of characters, despite their real lack of purpose here, is still nonetheless the best part of this game. Character designs and the tons of voice acting present here does a good amount to entertain from time to time. And given the era of when the voice acting was recorded you'll recognize a few voices for sure.
Mugen Souls Z is not a short game. The main story should run you at least 50-60 hours, and likely shorter if you equip all the best DLC items and one-shot your way to victory. However, the game can easily reach 100 hours if you plan on 100% everything the game has to offer. I'll say that I was easily 20 hours in when I was just wanting the game to end. It feels largely filled with conversations that go on for way too long and a grindy nature to its combat and exploration that feels artificial and largely there for padding. Still, I know there is an audience for this type of game as I can see the appeal of what is here, it’s simply a game that didn’t get its grindy hooks into me, leaving nothing more than a bad taste in my mouth.
Developer - Idea Factory. Publisher - Eastasiasoft. Released - September 14th, 2023. Available On - Nintendo Switch. Rated - (M) - Crude Humor, Violence, Sexual Themes, Partial Nudity Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the PR/publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.