Nights of Azure Reviews
If you can hold off until it goes on sale or discount, or can find it for rental, this game is worth a few days of quick fun. As a new $60 release, though, I would look elsewhere for your next gaming investment.
Nights of Azure overcomes its tropes and the occasional bit of fan service with a heaping helping of content, stylistic panache, and one of the most memorable gaming narratives in recent memory.
While it starts off fun, Nights of Azure gets boring very quickly and never seems to fully utilize its array of other features.
Nights of Azure is available now on the PS4. It was developed by Gust and published by Koei Tecmo. The review covers the PS4 version of the game.
Overall, Nights of Azure is a rather unremarkable ARPG that just happens to have a gorgeous art style and a fantastic soundtrack. Even though it's not likely to become the new flagship franchise for the developers at Gust, it's a solid attempt at a new genre and a good distraction until the next Atelier title releases later this year.
Nights of Azure is a fun, if flawed, game. The RPG elements are workable, though leave much more to be desired, the action is passable, and the minion system is arguably the best part. Picking and customizing the minions is about the only joy in a repetitious combat system. Despite being touted as a darker direction for the company, the blatant and misdirected sexual focus, mixed with the very adolescent-leaning view of relationships, makes the already-slow story harder to connect to in any way that will leave players with fond memories after moving on. The potential of a darker, nuanced story is lost in endless ecchi and slapstick humour that is woefully misplaced.
Nights of Azure has a story that could have been great, especially with its same-sex relationship between the two main characters coming across as natural and not judged in the game's world.
Overall, Nights of Azure is challenging, but it is fun and rewarding when those challenges are overcome. The game isn't overly ambitious, with a small world, simple objectives and seven chapters of story content. Even so, it can inspire many hours of gameplay and engage the imagination.
If you are looking for replayability, its packed into the gathering of goodies and the likely chance that you will want to feel this story again one day whether you are gay or straight, boy or girl. It is delicate and strong, it is close to masterful.
There's always going to be those times where you just want that little bit of extra strength, and lets face it, no action-RPG featuring a half-human, half-demon protagonist would be complete without some form of transformation mechanic
All in all, Nights of Azure is a middling game with some neat design choices that just didn't do enough to stand out. Combat and gameplay had glimpses of a great game, especially in the arena, but the rest of it didn't hold up. Characters were written well enough and side stories were enjoyable, but the main storyline felt flat and stereotypical. It just wasn't enough to make it a great game, but it was far from genuinely bad.
Gust has some pretty good ideas with the Servan system, and the gameplay is pretty smooth once you get yourself properly kitted out, but Nights of Azure has a few boring aspects that really make it a chore to play.
Nights of Azure is both a wonderful attempt at freshness in a genre that lapses into redundancy and a lapse into said redundancy itself. The ideas in Nights of Azure are worthy of a nod of respect, but the execution falls short.
I had a lot of fun playing the game for my Nights of Azure review, and hopefully you give the game a go on PlayStation 4. GUST did a great job with this one, and I look forward to playing the studio's next release!
While the opening hours do nothing to rid your mouth of a slowly growing taste of disappointment, Nights of Azure eventually manages to claw you back once some of its more interesting combat mechanics begin to shine through. It's relatively short length aids the process, but also comes under fire when you consider the bare-bones storytelling. It's a difficult sell, but one I hope GUST can rehabilitate with the upcoming sequel.
Nights of Azure is a game of wasted potential. The game's dark tone and setting is ultimately ruined by the excessive presence of comic relief, which takes a lot of the tension out of the terrible choice Arnice has to take to save the world. With an experience that gets stale way too quickly, Nights of Azure true saving grace are the game's two main characters and the development of their relationship, which takes some interesting turns. A shame, as the game could have been so much more.
While Nights of Azure shines from a production aspect, its shallow gameplay only holds back what could have been an otherwise compelling RPG. Casual fans of the genre might be able to forgive the almost tedious combat and Servan system, but hardcore action RPG enthusiasts are hard-pressed to find much to enjoy in terms of actual game and level design. Arnice'slimited moveset simply doesn't mesh well with the genre, forcing her to spam the same combos over and over again, with occasional Servan interruption. The cast and world are admirable and well done, but the actual playable portion is lacking the same level of quality and care the rest of the game got.
Nights of Azure originally released for PS4 in North America in early 2016, and now it has received a PC port to bless, or torment, the non-console gamers. Featuring a beautiful art style and soundtrack, Nights of Azure, while incredibly niche, is a soulful tale of love and friendship.
Nights of Azure looks pretty. It feels pretty. It sounds pretty, but it's heart is ugly. Bland, samey and generic - Sure, perhaps if you haven't played a JRPG Hack'n'Slash before, then give this a shot, otherwise you'd most likely find better for your money elsewhere.