Freedom Wars is one of the most unique games that I have ever played. Heck, its a game about pretty much getting 1 million years of prison time for committing the worst crime imaginable, losing your memory. Just that alone should make you think, is this game for real? But it gets crazier, much crazier. This game was one of the free games for Playstation Plus members for December, which happened to be about a week after I got my PS+ membership so I decided I might as well take advantage of it and I was not let down yet. I have known about this game for a long time and heard a few good things about it in the past and now I know how good of a game it really is now that I'm actually playing it.

Okay, back to being in prison for a million years. There are these cities, and you are essentially trapped in there because you are considered a nobody who does nothing but take up space and waste materials. The basic goals are to do various missions for the city which in turn will take various amounts of years off of your sentence. These missions range from saving citizens from other cities to blowing things up. Wiping away 1 million years sounds easy right? WRONG. By the time you work off your 1 million years, guess what? You wont be free!!! Why is that? Because by the time you have done enough missions to clear the 1 million years, you will have done somewhere from 1000 to 2000 actions that add even more time to your sentence.

JAIL TIME

After about an hour of going through the intro and creating my character, I wake up in a room. The room is small, maybe 10 feet bg 10 feet, and all It has in it is a bed, a TV like screen, and a door. I decide to walk around a bit to see if I could do anything and BOOM! I'm hit with a 10 year penalty for moving too much. Apparently rule number 1 of being level 1 (More on levels later) is that I'm not allowed to rake more than 5 steps within my room. It night have been 10, I forget. Some of the penalties that you face can be really stupid, wait not some of them, and I don't mean really stupid, I mean every single thing you do results in a penalty that's just plain dumb.

I have this thing called an Accessory. (More on those later) I come back from a mission and he tells me that I'm tired and that I need to rest so that I can do future missions with the most efficiency. There's a bed in my room, so I lie down on it and guess what? No, I didn't sleep, I got hit with yet another penalty because reclining is, you guessed it, illegal. I'm not even allowed to see what's outside of my room, the only things in allowed to see when I'm level 1 is the room, the transporter, and the fields that the missions take place on. So basically whenever I start a mission, I have to be blindfolded as I travel from the room to the room to the transporter and again from that to the field.

Some of the other things are just as stupid as well. If I run, I get a penalty, if I run more than 5 steps at a time, that's another penalty, if I walk more than 10 feet away from my accessory, that's yet another penalty. It's okay though, because completing one mission can easily wipe away a couple of those penalties that you have earned. OH WAIT! Even when you complete a mission, there's a chance that you can get another penalty, what's this world coming to? You need to be careful because if you do to many penalties, then completing missions wouldn't do anything because the number of years you need to server will only keep going up and up. But wait, there is a way for you to avoid all of this pain, but it's not free, you have to pay up everything you've got to get these freedoms and they are called Entitlements.

ENTITLEMENTS

Entitlements make the world go round and give you the right to do certain things. You can buy entitlements by spending points which you get from missions or from returning things. (yay more stuff to talk about later!) The only thing is, you need to be certain levels to unlock certain entitlement. For instance at a lower level you can unlock the right to decline which lets you lie down without punishment or another entitlement that allows you to walk around in your room. There is a ton of different entitlements for you to buy, with each one being Better than the last, but of course only a handful of entitlements come with each level so there will still be a few things that you can't do until you start leveling up a bit.

There aren't that many levels, there's about 7 or 8 I think so it's not that hard and to advance to each new level you have to pass an exam which itself is a mission so don't worry, you don't have to know your history or anything. In order to take the exam, you need to complete a number of requirements which include unlocking and acquiring a certain number of entitlements and dropping your sentence to a certain point. Trust me, even if you unlock more than a dozen entitlements, you might have a hard time playing because the entitlements are vital. Like they always say, entitlements make the world go round.

CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

One thing that I really like about the game is the amount of customization that you can do, which is a lot, more than I actually want to do if you ask me. You can pretty much customize everything about the way that you look with a few restrictions because guess what? There are a few entitlements that you need to unlock and buy in order to do things like wear "non prison clothing" and such. Its still really cool, I messes around with just the hair length and color for a good 10 minutes when I was making my guy. Heck, the game has like a dozen different voices that you can choose from for each gender and if I'm not mistaken you can pay to have your name changed mid game which is awesome.

On top of that, you can also fully customize your accessory as well. You can change their gender, and pretty much everything about the way they look. Right there, that's twice as much character creating as any other game! But wait, what is your accessory? Well first off I'm pretty sure that they are the ones who give you the penalties when you do something wrong but beyond that they are awesome. They are always following you around and they re there for you when you need to save, pick a mission, look at a stat, or a variety of other functions. The best part about accessories is that they will actually battle with you, as a partner. They have their own gums and weapons and everything and they will fight!!!

YOU HAVE DA POWERZ

You have the power, that's right, it's all up to you! What am I talking about? You should know, you're the one playing the game, aren't you? Whenever you finish a mission, you will have found a bunch of items lying around most likely, which will range from health kits and weapons to stuff a bit more complex. You can choose whether you want to keep these items for yourself or if you want to donate them to the city. If you keep the items for yourself, you can use them. If you found an advanced weapon that's so much stronger than your current one, boom, it's yours! If you found a bunch of health packs lying around, take them and you will never die again!

Or you can trade them into the city. Trading these items will get you extra years off of your sentence in addition to what you get taken off completing the mission and you also get points to use for entitlements. However you need to be warned because there are some items that can't be kept and need to be returned to the city. You still get points for returning these, but if you decide to keep them, not only will the city get them back, but you will also be punished. If you want to make sure you don't get anymore years added, you will make sure that you always give the required items, never keep them because it will just never end well.

GRAPHICS /SOUND 9/10 10/10

Since bits of each category have already been mentioned in the various features, the categories are going to be shortened back a bit. When it comes to the graphics, I feel that they are great, especially for a handheld game. At times, the animations might be a bit off, but there is plenty of detail, a good amount of colors, and the game has a great feel to it when you look at the movements. I feel the graphics look a lot like that of Persona 4 and I likes the graphics there as well so I feel that the developers have done a great job with this game. As for the sounds, I love them. First off the game is a great way to learn Japanese, or whatever language is being spoken because the game is not in English, but don't worry there's subtitles. I feel that the voice acting in another language makes the game feel more real and cool as well. The music is great to, the style is energetic and goes well with the action as do the various sounds such as the explosions and attacks. The grade for graphics will be a 9 out of 10 while the grade for sound will be a perfect 10 out of 10.

ADDICTIVENESS /STORY 10/10 7/10

With all those cool and unique features that the game has, why wouldn't it be a lot of fun? Yes it's true that when you first start playing the game, it will be very slow and you have a lot of restrictions, but that's the fun of it, you get to work to do all these things and you get to progress through all these. Not to mention the actual missions, those are a lot of fun. You get to fight all sorts of enemies and grapple from high places, it's like spider-man but in real life! As for the story, most of it has already been explained, you start off with a 1 million year prison term and you need to work it off doing various missions until you are down to 0. There are various attacks from other cities and a bunch of citizens to rescue, but that's about it for the story. The grade for addictiveness will be another perfect 10 out of 10 while the grade for story will be a 7 out of 10.

DEPTH 10/10

Here's another place that could be explained in the features section because well, it just has so many features. Just the character customization alone is a ton. Not only do you get to change up your own character, but you get to change up everything about your accessory as well which is awesome. Then you have all of the entitlements that you can get, with dozens for you to buy and the number of levels to unlock and things to do at each one. Not to mention the actual missions you could complete. There's a ton of missions, at least half a dozen I think for each level, and some of them are pretty big as well. Plus you can replay each mission just for fun or maybe even to get more stuff. The game has a lot to offer and for that, this aspect gets another perfect 10 out of 10.

DIFFICULTY 4

For the most part, the game is not difficult, but if you get to the point where you keep forgetting about all the penalties and you keep getting them over and over, then it might be a bit tough but other than that it's a piece of cake. Some of the missions might be a bit hard as well but if you end up battling a hard boss like when you are taking the exams, the only thing you really need to do is take things slowly. Instead of just going up up to an enemy guns blazing, you need to be careful and keep retreating and doing small quick attacks. It might take a long time to do, but it's a lot better than dying over and over again. For a grade, difficulty would get a 4 for a grade.

OVERALL 9.2/10

This is without a doubt one amazing game, in fact I would say that this is the 2nd best Vita game that I have ever played just behind Persona 4 Golden. I would have even said that this is a somewhat revolutions game because of all the unique features and the unique game play. There is so much to do and if you like games like this, then it's something that you need to check out because I rarely see games that are like this. Overall, the game is great and for a grade, Freedom Wars gets a 9.2 out of 10.

*adds zanderlex to his friends list*

I agree with most of what you said here, this really is a great game, and I'm hoping that Sony listens to the petition for a sequel IF they can pull it off without ruining the first game (Dark Souls - Dark Souls 2 anyone?), and that would be tough.
I do think the Japanese with English subs is alright, but I can't help but find it a bit odd at the same time. I mean, in the game I live in the Houston Panopticon, so if I'm in the middle of Texas...why is EVERYONE speaking Japanese? O_o But yeah, I can go with it still. Maybe it's Studio Japan's way of subtly saying the Japanese will soon take over the world.

But yeah, nice work on the review, man. I enjoyed the new style with you putting in various points about the game before category breakdowns. It feels more like a normal review that way, reviewing the actual game and then grading the various aspects of it. Good work.

This game does sound pretty interesting. A type of RPG that I could really get into. Although I can't help but feel like the premise of the game is very similar to something I've played before, but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyways, thanks for posting the review. I have YET ANOTHER game that I need to find time to play. If I ever happen to pick up a Vita anyways.