Play Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius

Before I say anything else, let me say; Play this game
The gameplay is reminescent of the Fire Emblem series and enemies can get repetitive and combat can become a bit of a drag for those not too into it (good thing theres an option to lower the difficulty to the point you can simply spam the Vanguard Cannon).
However, the story absolutely blew me away and each battle relevant to the story is still engaging as the attachment you get for these characters makes each battle feel significant. The characters are all unique and amazing (even with some following anime tropes) and the story is truely heart wrenching and feels like a true space epic. If you appreciate good story to a game I cannot recommend this game enough

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is an amazing game. I've spent 13+ hours playing it and I dont remember a moment to be dull. The art is good but it lacked a bit more individual scene images. the strategy part is also great and I had so much fun using the vanguard cannon is so fun and rewarding. try it :D
The characters are great and I got attached to the whole team however I am a bit sad that Chigara kinda stole the spotlight as the Captain's sortof kinda love interest (I hoped to romance Ava :D ) Dispite these small flaws I recoment this VN/game to anyone who is into space, mecha or just good stories. :D

I normally don't play VN games but due to the turn base tatical gameplay i tried it and i don't regret it. Simple but efficient if combine with story and strategy game play. We need more of these game.

I feel bad writing a negative review for something that is free, but a dog turd on the side of the road is free too and I won't be writing any glowing reviews for those any time soon. If you are into anime girls and visual novel type games, this will probably be up your alley. Otherwise there isn't isn't going to be much to hold your interest. The "tactical" part of the game is rudamentary at best and the story is like a harem type anime with a ton of insipid girls in tight body suits. Just not my cup of tea. Still, it is free so it won't hurt you any to try it out. Maybe you will like it. Or maybe you will suffer through an hour and a half of the game before giving up and deleting it like I did.

WHAT IS IT?

Its a story driven visual anime novel. Most of the game is text supported by frozen snapshots showing mostly girls in uniform. The story itself is massive but shallow regarding plot and excution. Gameplay distributes into a)reading b)selecting a path c)unit progress d)combat

a) reading (story)
Let me say that my younger self (a former anime geek) would ve been absolutely THRILLED if this would have been available in my time. It has everything a young male teenager would want.....girls, mecha, me being the hero, nudity, big boobs. Several decades later my mature self remembers how this feels but I cannot ignore the holes and unrealistic behaviour as well as technological improbabilities. Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is nothing more then a fairy tale in space. How any of the main characters would end up in their positions (captain, commander, fighter pilots) keeping the childish views and behaviour is beyond me....still....its amusing if only for its nostalgic value and I cannot help but wonder if the hero will "get" the girl :) It took me about 2 days to play through and even tho I would rate this "book" a 4/10 it was entertaining and easy to read...nothing to wrap your head around but then....its free so theres nothing to complain about really.

b) selecting a path
The first couple hours start promising. After the tutorial mission you are presented with a galaxy chart offering different systems you can visit. Many places dont open up before you talk to various crewmembers. Theres a hint of side-missions which would enable farming and a distraction but in reality the available content is extremely limited and becomes non-existant after a few hours when all you do is to follow the main story. All in all the game "tries" to present multiple paths but in reality its as linear as it can get.

c) unit progress
You start out with your flagship and collect Ryders (mecha) throughout the story. Each unit is represented with its own arsenal and abilities (support, assault, anti-capital, anti-mecha) and statistics providing numerical values in combat. Kills in combat provide a bounty which goes into your treasury as well as command points which are pooled for extra actions during battle. You improve unit stats by allocating funds to certain areas with each improvement becoming more expensive. This system gives you the opportunity to "specilaize" your units but money is extremely tight with no means to generate "extra" income (like repeating missions or an "open" environment which enables you to farm) you are dependant on getting optimal results in battles (re-playing them until you get it right) and a good "build" (dont waste money on upgrades you dont really need). Enemy units also become more powerfull and battles are always stacked against you. This can be extremely frustrating and forced me to take breaks in between to regenerate my motivation.

d) combat
Turn-based, hexagonal battle map with 2-shot battle animations. The combat system WANTS to look intimidating and complex but it fails as strengths and weaknesses are obvious and easy to exploit. Defensive play tops offensive in almost every skirmish and important command decisions are out of your hand as they are woven into the story so you are left with mop-ups or survival scenarios while the critical things (warp out of harms way, fire a torpedo down the death stars chute.......errrrr....I mean fire your main cannon directily into the enemies flagship planet destroyer nozzle) are displayed in text form. Combat eventually becomes repetitive, boring and also annoying where I find myself wanting to be done with it in order to continue the story.



Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is advertised as an anime novel and thats what it is. Gameplay is extremely limited as everything centers around the story which takes you by the hand and forces you into a "tunnel" to avoid any problems and distractions. I found myself flipping through the pages (clicking space) and reading the dialoges only to groan in annoyance whenever a combat came up. All you do really is click through available NPCs (order doesnt matter much) in order to relive memories and see how the story evolves. As far as I can see there is ZERO replay-value without multiple endings and maybe 2 or 3 side missions in the whole "game".


Now this might read like a crushing review but to be honest....its not that bad :)

First of all its FREE so what do you lose except time? The story itself is typical anime with a single male hero surrounded by young girls of various character (shy, dominant, offensive, rule-loving, unsecure, horny). You follow this crew to observe how they bond, their inner thoughts and how they try to find their place in the world. Everything is tailored to obeying orders, doing the right thing and fullfilling/finding a greater destiny. The universe is threatened by an "evil" opponent and you represent the only force of "good" with forces around you which you are unsure about (is the Alliance a force of good or out after after their own goals?). Mecha-design and exotic weapons appeal to the inner geek and the scarcly clad anime girls (young, boobs, uniform, colorfull hair, anime eyes) are what the typcial hormone-driven male kid craves (well...I did when I was young /grin) and THEY ARE ALL INTO YOU.

Yep....among the "hero saves universe" story theres enough left to observe how you run after your old love while being harassed and stalked by every other female in the game.

Characters are well drawn (the female ones.....the males......yech) but its all frozen snapshots. You get TWO erotic ones in case thats important to you (probably a quota thing).



Its not much of a game but its entertaining. All in all I would rate it a 6/10

So it's a visual novel/turn based battle thing. Basically a sort-of X-Com with anime girls. Huh.

I had serious misgivings about installing this one, even though it was a free game. First impressions made it look like the sort of bad waifu VN I would feel ashamed playing, but it was a free game with high reviews. At least if it sucked I wouldn't have had to spend any money. So I decided to try it.

Turns out... it's actually quite good.

Yes it does have a number of immature anime things, and even playing the regular (censored) version of this there were more than a few suggestive moments and some very brief nudity. And yet all of this is set against a rather dark and serious backdrop: galactic warfare and all the horrible things that come with that. It gets particularly psychological and tense later on as your character ends up with nightmares about stuff that happens in the plot that comes back to haunt him in a PTSD sort of way. I'm not going to say more than that because spoilers, but all you really need to know is that the story kept me interested. And, during several moments, coming away fairly impressed by what these indie devs had done.

In short... don't judge this by its cover. There is much more here than a bunch of silly anime girls.

As for the characters, it's pretty good with a few bad eggs. It's pretty much a full roster of all the anime girl archetypes you can think of: the overserious workaholic (Ava), the genki girl (Asaga), the shy genius (Chigara), the tsundere (Icari), the massive pervert (Claude), the kuudere/Rei clone (Sola), and the trusty idealistic soldier (Kryska). But all of them stand out in their own ways, even if not all of those ways are positive (Claude is basically a pervert fanservice doctor and nothing else). There is a sizeable male cast, believe it or not, and some of them are actually interesting (Admiral Grey, Fontana) even if others (Arcadius) just seem like stereotypes.

Gameplay makes this a mix of VN decision-making (some of which are rather difficult and made me take some time to think about), tactical battles, and some management stuff as you upgrade equipment or do side-missions. The battles can be tough, sometimes absurdly so, but there's nothing technically wrong with them. There was one moment that annoyed me a bit concerning a story mission where I knew exactly what the enemy was planning, and yet I was not able to act on that knowledge because the story needed to convince me that this particular enemy was smart or something when, if this had been a strategy game, I would have torn him apart. At least the hair-raising scene after that battle ("Let me show you war") was worth it, and led to probably my most morally questionable decision I made in my playthrough.

Truthfully I found myself more interested in the story than the battles, and kinda wished I could skip them a few times because other things were going on that I was more interested in. At least in Key/Visual Arts' VN Little Busters! you got an option to skip the Baseball and Battle Ranking minigames if you wanted (but why would you? The Battle Ranking stuff was great! XD).

At time of writing, this game isn't finished. There's still more story being written so I can't really make an absolute recommendation on this because of that. But based on what I have seen so far, this game has real promise. :D

Easily one of my favorite visual novels. This game is for the VN officionado who is looking for a little something "more". Sunrider offers difficult, gripping decisions that will test your willpower. Primarily, who will be my waifu!? There is a host of female characters for you to douse your loneliness with and they go beyond the typical harem tropes. You know, the tsundere, the tomboy, the A-Cup Angst, the cute girl with no emotion except that one time when she opened up but is still oblivious to the world around her, the insecure bashful one, the one who WANTS YOU NOW, the super peppy one, and so on.

While these tropes are in the game the fact that you rely on them in battle helps give them personality. Each of your potential waifus pilots a ryder (essentially a gundam) and you have to build their stats appropriately to fit them into your battle scheme. That's where the fun of this game is. The combat in the game is great! I found a lot of fun in building my ryders and testing their metal in glorious combat.

But being a commander in charge of the fate of the universe is stressful. That's why all successful star commanders know that you can't save the universe without a host of females to support you. A man is as only as good as his choice in romance options! But, alas, with so many waifu's and so little sexual stamina that's just one more obstacle for you to overcome.

This game doesn't hold your hand, but your potential waifu will.

Sunrider: First Arrival is a Visual Novel style RPG Tactics, it is a science fiction type of game. Well, if you think this is just another of those lousy and cheesy anime game. You are wrong. Believe me, you are wrong. This is a tactics game, if you ever play Final Fantasy Tactics or Agarest: Generation of War, it is that type of game.

The gameplay mechanic is very fun i might say, you can upgrade your ship or your mecha crew, like you want to make it stronger, or deals much more damage. The thing that you can upgrade is a lot. The battle mechanic is simple but fun, basically you got multiple skill and type of attack, like long range beam attack, gun attack, laser attack, rocket, and you need to use the right type of attack at the right type of the enemy, if for example you are facing the cruiser with alot of armor, you cannot just use the gun attack because the gun attack deal less damage against the enemy with alot of armor, or if your enemy is a light mecha, you can't use a long range beam attack against them since they be able to dodge it easily.

Outside of the combat, you got some Mass Effect ish kinda interaction in your ship, you talked to your crew try to get to know them. The story is very good, i might say it is like Mass Effect in the way that there's some choice that seems right, but when you choose it some innocent people die because of it. The Lore is deep also, i don't think there's good or bad here, It just politics.

Soo, well its free. From the quality alone this game is very good that is on par with the game that cost 15 dollars. But it is free. Recommended to the highest level !!

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is a completely FREE visual novel and a strategy game. There's no catch. You just download it and you can play the entire game for free.

The story and gameplay are surprisingly good for a free game.

There are several difficulty modes. I recommend playing on the default one; it's challenging, but not impossible. There are harder modes if you're looking for a challenge and easier modes if just want to experience the story. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself because you can change the difficulty at anytime (even in the middle of a battle).

Honestly, I'd pay $5-10 for this game, but luckily it's FREE, so what are you waiting for?

One of my decisions led to the death of 6,000 lolis, damn feels man 10/10 ;(