Azur Lane Crosswave Reviews
It’s not a game you will want to burn through in a single session, which while it sounds tempting, isn’t near as tempting as it might seem, isn’t beneficial and only will lead to some mildly induced irritation the further in you get.
In the end, I find myself rather mixed on this title. It has some very good points – the character interactions, the voicing and the way it works as an introduction to the world of Azur Lane. There’s even a huge selection of characters to unlock even if it doesn’t cover the full range of Azur Lane characters. While there are positive points, there are certainly negative ones too. The constant button pressing and going back to the map to proceed. Battles being too short and too easy to need to do much. The user interface only really works well if you have a controller. In the end, I think this is going to be one mostly for fans of Azur Lane rather than fans of anime games in general.
Regardless, the gameplay is just too dull and boring for me to keep my interest, and when the other half of the game (the story sequences) are so agonizing that I found myself skipping through some and literally missing nothing when going back to check if I missed anyway, that’s not a good sign of a fun game at all, regardless of platform.
Azure Lane Crosswave is a poor 3D shooter, with a lot of grind to unlock everything, and poor visual novel sections. Despite the game is quite sexy, some caracters look too young to appear in it. A shame.
Review in French | Read full review
Azur Lane: Crosswave is a game that was best left on smartphones. The visual novel sequences are perfectly fine, and the story itself – while utterly bonkers – is interesting enough to keep you engaged, while the characters are both charming and unique. Sadly, the naval combat sequences bring down the entire experience. They're slow, repetitive, rarely require much strategic thought, and look incredibly bland all at once. This is a game for hardcore fans of the genre only; everyone else ought to look elsewhere for their naval combat needs.
Azur Lane: Crosswave is essentially a visual novel with some brief moments of action. Everything works as intended, and there's no need for a combat strategy, but the equipment and upgrades systems are cryptic. The visuals look good, and the chibi characters are adorable. The game can be a decent way to pass a weekend. However, Crosswave and all games under the Azur Lane banner espouse views on females — especially young girls — that I cannot look past, and it's troubling to me that this title is deemed appropriate for teenagers.