Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late Review (PS3)

As titles go, Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late takes an early lead for forgettable mouthful of the year, but thankfully co-developers Ecole Software and French-Bread have ensured that their new fighter is anything but that. Starting life in Japanese arcades nearly three years ago, the 2D anime-fighter makes the worldwide jump to PS3 with two new characters, and months of re-balancing based on play-testing in the wild. Of course, the big question is, will it be enough to win over Western gamers?

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late is a Japanese title through and through. From its attractive anime visuals and character designs which take influence from series such as Persona, Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, to its incredibly convoluted supernatural plot, it wears its origins on its sleeve. This is perhaps even more apparent as there’s been no vocal localisation done at all, so unless you’re fluent in Japanese you’re left to wonder what that cool sounding piece of dialogue your character just said was. Of course, it all adds to the authentic atmosphere.

That plot revolves around the passing of the Hollow Night, an event which sees creatures known as Voids appear in a particular area. Normal people are incapable of seeing them, but a select few can, though sadly this results in them being targeted by the Voids, with the ultimate outcome seeing them either devoured or driven insane. Those that survive a Void attack unscathed become an In-Birth, a being capable of wielding the power of Existence, with many of the game’s cast falling into this group.

Each character’s story mode explores their motivations for being out in the Hollow Night, with the central characters – college student Hyde and the immortal Princess Linne – providing the backdrop as they go up against the villainous Hilda, known as Paradox. She wants their power in order to become an even more powerful being known as a Re-Birth. Are you confused yet?

Things become even more convoluted as you layer in existing rivalries between groups such as Licht Kreis and Amnesia, and allusions are made to past events that you don’t know anything about. It’s all harmless, hammy exposition that you can skip through with the push of a button if you can’t make head or tail of it, though there is humour and some reasoning to be found in there if you bear with it.

The character’s themselves are an interesting bunch, and whilst some of them don’t particularly stand out there are some wonderful creations as well. Central protagonists Hyde and Linne are amongst the less creative entries, with Hyde reminding me of Persona 4’s main character crossed with Xenoblade’s Shulk, whilst Linne is a ninjitsu practitioner who wears a hoody. However, amongst my favourites of the sixteen characters on offer, you find the huge, command-grab heavy Waldstein and his screen filling metal claws, as well as the demonic Void Merkava and the more technical magical-tome wielding Chaos, who commands an immense, and incredibly cool, lizard creature.

Graphically the game’s hand-drawn, high-res sprites are attractive and well animated, though they lack the immensely glossy sheen of a BlazBlue title. The backgrounds as well are solid and atmospheric, if slightly uninteresting affairs with minimal animation, but the action is so hectic that they successfully manage not to detract or distract the player from the task at hand. There is a lot of incidental text which appears to offer some input to the story or character back stories, but it’s so small, quick to disappear and potentially mistranslated that it’s more or less pointless.

Gameplay is grounded in the traditional 2D fighter set-up, with character health bars adorning the top of the screen, and the EXS gauge at the bottom which you can exchange for more powerful special and super moves. The game’s fresh offering to the genre is the Grind Grid which sits in the centre at the bottom of the screen, and is often the key to the ebb and flow of a match.

You’re awarded GRD for positive actions, such as moving forward, attacking or correctly shielding, whilst you lose it for retreating or taking damage. The gauge features a little timer, which, when full, awards the player with the most GRD a ten percent boost to their attacks, and access to the all-important Chain Shift move where you can exchange GRD for boosting your EXS gauge, as well as cancel out of attacks. It’s a very effective system, which is refreshingly accessible in comparison with some other entries in the genre, and I was able to put it to good use within a short space of time.

Alongside the story mode, the game packs in plenty of other modes to keep you occupied, with Score Attack, Time Attack, Training and Survival joining the offline versus mode. Online-wise you’ve got ranked and lobby options, which prior to launch haven’t been hugely well populated, though I was still able to find matches relatively quickly.

Whilst the game itself runs smoothly, with minimal loading times and the ability to zip through all of the exposition, there are a few minor hiccups when heading online. My experiences saw the opening of each match stutter quite severely, looking like a lag-fest right up to the moment the match actually started, for it to suddenly right itself and run without any noticeable problems. Clearly this may have been due to my opponent’s connection, or mine, or it was simply the net-code catching up with itself, and though it was distracting it wasn’t detrimental to the matches themselves.

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late is a welcome addition to the fighting genre, and whilst there are a few rough edges, and a barmy plot, its welcoming but deep mechanics, enjoyable characters and solid performance should see it gain as many fans on this side of the world as it did in the East.

Score: 7/10