Punchline - Review

 

The PlayStation Vita for me is probably the best handheld console, it has a huge array of games, the console looks good and feels good. I sometimes forget about it for a while but always find myself coming back to it. One game I have been curious to play for a while is Punchline a game based on an Anime, although I had not watched the series my interest had been peaked by the few trailers for the game I had watched. With a little help from my friend Ivan he helped me get a hold of a copy.

While I first came to Ireland there were two things I really enjoyed eating Kimberly Biscuits and drinking Red Lemonade. Within a year I had got bored of these due to overeating and overdrinking. About a decade ago I tried a Chocolate Kimberly, they were amazing, but before I got to fully try more they were gone, if only there had been more left. Playing Punchline I found myself asking had I got into the game too late? And unlike Chocolate Kimberly's I could not just go out and buy more.

Story 

The game has you take on role of Yuta, who already suffering with difficulties of being a teenage boy finds his soul pushed out of his body. As if that was not already enough you are some how connected with an asteroid on a course to destroy the planet. On top of this you have restricted movement and are stuck in Korai House with a punch of girls, who if you see their panties brings about the destruction of the world. Luckily you have Chiranosuke, the spirit of a dead cat.

The story has some odd pacing, the first ten-twelve episodes have a calm well paced approached, the final eight or nine have so much packed in them it can be a lot to process. It feel likes a different writer took over part way through, or they felt the game needed to be shorter and rushed the remaining episodes.

Overall the story is pretty good, and while it has some obvious sexual innuendo there is a lot more on offer besides it. If you look passed some of the unusual pacing and are into anime this one is worth look.

Visuals

I really love the combination of anime sequences combined with some great visual set pieces. Almost the whole game is set around the house, there a multiple rooms, each with personality as big as their occupants. Korai House is like a quaint guest house, if you ignore all the crazy goings on. I can't really decide my favorite aspect visually as while each room and character are all different it all feels like one strange happy family.

The Vita does a great job of representing the game visually and comparing it to the PlayStation 4 version there is very little different. Overall some great vibrant visuals which made the game more like watching an Anime series rather than playing one.

Music

The soundtrack is light-hearted, wacky, fun and has a sweetness to it you only get from Anime. The soundtrack was created by talented Japanese composer Tetsuya Komuro, who also did the music for Persona 4 Dancing All Night, and Gaball Screen. He also has large back catalog of music.

The soundtrack runs well over and hour and features almost fifty tracks. Some of my favorite tracks included:

'Strange Juice (Action)'

'Nervous'

'State of Tension'

'Sacred Thing'

'Invisible Fear'

'Comical (Up)'

'The Cheeromancy Song'

'Justice Punch, Here We Go'

Overall a fun soundtrack that really suited the game!

Gameplay

The gameplay is interesting a different from others games I have played before. Yuta is a spirit and by scaring people in the house he can become a stronger spirit. Essentially you need to find clues, set up tricks of a sort and then get them to play out. Put things in the wrong order, game over, look at panties for too long game over. The latter is easier to take, the former not so much. Chiranosuke, will tell you vaguely what you need to do, as expected the earlier tricks are easy to pull off and get a lot harder. While this is only natural I was left scratching my head from time to time as I could not see how something would work out so ended up setting things up incorrectly.

For the first half of the game each episode is set into two phases, scare people in the house to get your spirit level up, and then set up a trick and execute it correctly. That is until after episode twelve where some require you to answer questions or simply watch the story. It was interesting but like with the story is jarring as the gameplay is consistent and then changes abruptly.

There are are multiple endings but only decisions made in the second part of the story, and even those seem a little odd the way they play out. 

Overall the gameplay is okay but rather than switch gears part way through you have a hand break pulled at 90MPH.

Final Thoughts

So, after fifteen hours plus how did I feel?  Not bad, there were ups and downs for sure. The story can be good but could use some better pacing to not feel as rushed in places. The visuals and music I liked a lot and felt like I was playing and watching an anime at times. The gameplay and story share a similar problem in that the pacing feels a little off at times. All in all not a bad experience but a few different editing choices could have made this game much better, this one gets 3 out of 5