Criminal girls [JP PSP]

[EOJ]

Girl-spanking RPG with great artwork and a really nice-looking battle system.

http://nippon1.jp/consumer/criminalgirls/

Due out 11/18/2010

[EOJ]

Just got it in the mail today:




I played it for about a half hour and it's excellent fun. Wonderful graphics, cute characters, simple yet awesome battle system. Graphic style reminds me a lot of Magic Knight Rayearth on the Saturn (which is one of my favorite games).

Pretty cool story too, basically you find yourself at the basement of hell, but you aren't dead, you're just sleeping. You are forced, by the hell manager lady, to get the  girls to the top of the Hell Tower to save them. Once you do that you'll wake up from your dream and go back to reality. Since they died when they were young, they are only 'half bad', not 'completely bad', and thus have a chance to get out of hell, unlike the older people who died. There is a punishment/spanking system you use to keep the girls in line and help them become better persons. Pretty wacky Japanese stuff!  

[Hive]

hey EOJ, I noticed the cover looks a lot like 7th Dragon's art style.

[EOJ]

Yeah, I can see that. The in-game graphics don't look that similar though.

[Danza]

The blonde girl at the front reminds me a fair bit of Kirino from Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai.

I haven't had a chance to check Criminal Girls out yet but I have heard good things!

[EOJ]

I'm about 13 hours in. I've found the game to be pretty easy - maybe too easy for some, but I like these types of games when they're not too hard because they aren't frustrating. The story is fun and moves at a really good pace, and the dungeons are well-designed and not overly big.

On the downside, the punishment system grows old very quickly, and I find some of it disturbing (dripping cold water on little girls? Electric-shocking little girls? Come on, I don't want to do that), and at this point, I'm finding it a chore that I really don't look forward to, but must do in order to get new abilities for the girls. You can simply not do anything in the punishment screen and still get 1/2 of the ability level up points, and some times I do do that, but if you do this exclusively then it will take much more grinding to level up. If they localized this game with the whole 'punishment' stuff removed, and abilities just gained through leveling up or something, I think it would be a big improvement.

With that said, this is still the best psp game I've played all year, and excellent fun. Battle system is awesome, story is fun, characters are varied with cute designs. I hate Ran's voice actor, though. Makes me cringe whenever I hear her. It's a shame as I really like her character design, and she's one of only two characters who looks like she's over 18.

[EOJ]

I finished off the main game (around 20 hours playtime) today, and started on the "true ending route" dungeon, which is really awesome as you get to knight each girl there (this will make sense when you play the game, basically it's a class upgrade with new skills and cool new outfits). You also no longer punish the girls after you knight them, instead you give them massages.  . Definitely the best RPG I've played all year.