13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Review:

Some games just deliver a thoroughly unique and fascinating experience that you could get only like this in a video game, and I can confidently say that 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is definitely one of those games. Featuring 13 different protagonists, this game is telling a fascinating story that gives you the option to experience all the events with the different protagonists and their respective routes in mostly your order, with giving you the option to decide whose perspective and route you want to play (As long as the character isn't currently locked and needs a requirement to be fulfilled to be able to continue with their route). That's something that I very much love about this game, and through that whole aspect it truly delivers a rather unique experience that really profits from being told in the form of a video game, and not only profits from it, it probably wouldn't even really work in this form if it weren't told in a video game. Along with featuring real-time strategy combat, that adds another layer to the game and, all in all, further enhances the experience with the game and can be a nice change from the adventure game parts of the game (And not to forget the game has mechs, which on its own is just really cool, at least in my opinion). Vanillaware has developed something truly special with 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and from my experience with playing through the entire game, I can say that I was pretty captivated by it and very much liked the experience it has to offer. From previously already seeing much praise towards the game, I can now totally see from where it was coming, and I can myself also mostly just agree with that and really praise this game overall, since 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is indeed a really exceptional game.

What makes the game foremost really stand out is definitely the story and just alone the whole concept of the game with the 13 different protagonists, which is very interesting. As I have already mentioned before, the game gives you the option to experience the routes of the different protagonists in mostly your own order, with there only sometimes being a requirement to further progress a character's route, which in these cases makes sense since the story wouldn't really work or make sense otherwise. It's a story that could be only told in a video game in this form, and that is certainly a big reason for why I really like and appreciate this game. Being able to experience the routes of the different protagonists in your own way is just really nice and makes your own playthrough through this game to something unique and intriguing regarding the story. It really uses this medium and delivers you an experience that you probably couldn't really get in this form in any other medium, and that's one aspect I just really like about this game. It tells one story, but the journey through the end and in which order you experience many events is up to you. Other than that, I in general really like all the different protagonists of the game. With featuring 13 different protagonists, you could think that it would've been easy for some of them to feel as they would come too short in the story, though I think they've done a pretty good job with giving them all equal importance to the story, and most of them feel rather equally fleshed out. Each one of them is also quite their own unique and interesting character, and while I definitely had characters and routes that I personally liked more than others, I didn't find any of them to be really boring or something like that and still quite enjoyed all of them. It's also really interesting to see all the different characters interact with each other, and they all have very interesting dynamics since they all have their own views and goals, which can also sometimes clash with other characters. To see how this all unfolds with the different routes and characters is absolutely great. It may seem overly complicated from the outside, but the game presents all of this in such a good way that it absolutely works in a wonderful and compelling way. The general story of the game is also just really good and features some interesting twists that at least kept me quite captivated by it.

But not only that, additionally the artstyle of the game is great and looks simply absolutely beautiful. I really like all the character designs, which are also quite fitting for each respective character, and all of the backgrounds that are featured in the game look really beautiful and wonderfully bring across the whole setting of the game. Especially the characters feel really natural and fitting in all the different various areas and backgrounds of the game, and the areas and the world of the game in general feel also pretty alive. Absolutely worth mentioning are also the gorgeous animations, which really bring the characters personalities through such subtle animations throughout the events to life. So the adventure game parts of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim are visually speaking absolutely great, and I honestly don't think they could've been much better in that aspect. While playing, you can just really feel how much love and effort the developers have put into all of this. All of the artworks look great, and the animations have so much soul, I probably can't mention this enough. More than worth mentioning aside from the gorgeous artstyle of the game is most definitely also the overall great soundtrack of the game, which features some really great tracks that absolutely add to the experience with the game. The entire music of the game just really enhances the overall tone and atmosphere and fits in general really nicely to the great sci-fi setting of the game. I especially love the song Seaside Vacation, I could honestly listen to it for hours. It's just a really catchy and great song that totally suits my taste. Worth mentioning would also be the fantastic track that plays during the title screen, that alone made me really excited to play the game after starting it. And the title screen is, by the way, in general pretty nice with its wonderful visuals. Aside from that, I have played the game with the Japanese voice acting, and from my experience, I can say that the Japanese voice acting of the game is also excellent, and the voices absolutely suit all the different characters and their respective personalities. Having said all that, I think that the visual aspect, along with the music and voice acting of the game, is overall definitely great and certainly another big strength of this game. Throughout my playthrough, looking at and listening to the game was just always pretty wonderful.

Concerning the real-time strategy combat and general battle system of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, I personally found it to be fairly nice and quite enjoyable, all things considered. While it probably isn't the strongest part of the game, I still quite like it for what it is, and it can sometimes be a nice change from the adventure game parts of the game. And I'm in general just a pretty big fan of mechs, so being able to customize them with different abilities and fight with them was really nice. Aside from that, the gameplay in the adventure game parts of the game is also fairly decent for what it is. But most importantly, those parts of the game don't take too long, so even if you aren't the biggest fan of the real-time strategy combat parts, they don't really interrupt you from the main story too much, and personally I quite like them. Aside from that regarding the adventure game parts, having the option to walk around in the areas and having the different thoughts through which you can read is pretty nice, and I overall really enjoyed those parts of the game. It really adds up to the story and makes it what it is. Lastly there would also be the Analysis option that you can access through the main menu, which, among other things like a glossary, gives you the option to go through all the different events again. I really love that option, and being able to experience all those different scenes again is especially nice for a game like this, which has a rather complex story with all the different protagonists. And it's of course just a really nice feature to experience those scenes once again without having to replay the entire game again in general. Other than that, there's also a glossary, which is called Mystery Files, where you can read about almost all the different aspects of the game. That's again something I really like, and it's just really nice to be able to read all those files about all those different aspects of the game. Personally I always really appreciate such things in games. With all that, I think the general gameplay of the game along with the story contemplate each other fairly nicely, and the result is an overall great game that is both really enjoyable to play and tells a captivating and wonderful story.

With having written all of this, I think this is definitely a quite special and unique game that I very much like, and was an experience that left an impression on me. Throughout my entire playthrough I just absolutely enjoyed playing the game for the most part and was pretty invested in the story and cast of characters. Especially the 13 different protagonists were handled pretty well in this game, and throughout my playthrough I felt that everyone has gotten more or less enough time in the story, with each of them also being a pretty interesting character in their own way. The whole story with the different perspectives of the 13 protagonists is something that could only really exist as a game in this form, and I really love and appreciate that about 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. It really uses this medium and its potential in how you can tell and present a story in a way that's rather quite unique to video games and gives each player their unique and own experience with having the option to play the different perspectives of the characters in mostly your own order. That just gets further enhanced with the quite beautifully drawn artstyle of the game that immerses you even further in the game and the experience. Along with the real-time strategy combat that, while it probably isn't anything too outstanding, is still fairly fun and enjoyable in its own way and gives you the option to fight with cool mechs. With all those mostly pretty enjoyable elements of the game, I'm personally more than glad to have finally experienced this game myself, and at least from my perspective, it's definitely more than worth it to try this game out. After repeating myself probably too often in this review, I can at least just say that I overall absolutely enjoyed playing and experiencing 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. It's a great and rather unique game.