Xblaze Code: Embryo review: visually good but not novel

For the first ten minutes of Xblaze Code: Embryo, you’d think you were playing a sitcom rather than a prelude to the Blazblue series. The protagonist is the whiney, henpecked Touya Kagari, a student who works at a curry restaurant to make ends meet. He lives with two of his (hot) female friends, Yuki and Hinata, from his days at an orphanage.

Yes, it takes place in the same universe, 150 years prior to Arc System Works’ trippy fighting games to be precise. But the opening has more in common with a comedy show than the deep story that it ends up being. What starts off as a seemingly boring slice-of-life visual novel ends up being a riveting tale of murder and magic. Oh, and no prior knowledge of Blazblue is needed to play this.

Xblaze Code: Embryo is a visual novel that takes place in Yokozaki city. There has been a slew of deaths and people have been disappearing at a steady rate. The local police force is clueless, and it’s up to the Mitsurugi Agency to put things in place. But this isn’t all: there’s also a shady group of mages, a serial killer, and spellcasters from other countries afoot. And they all have one person on their mind. Yes, you guessed it: Touya Kagari.

It sets the stage for an interesting chain of events revolving around monsters or “union” that wield tremendous power, such as being able to throw heavy metal structures like towers or killing people with their voice. These union were once humans who were infected with a rare crystal, and the constant use of their powers turned them into monsters.

Unlike most visual novels that emphasize on the player’s choice to affect progress, Xblaze Code: Embryo takes a different approach. The focus is squarely on the story, which isn’t such a bad thing, considering how well it picks up after the first few minutes. Before you know it, you’ll be knee deep in lore about the union, crystals and whatnot. It’s insanely immersive.

However that doesn’t make it perfect. Due to the attention to story rather than choices, Xblaze Code: Embryo has little to no gameplay. Most of it revolves around reading entries in “TOi”. Short for “topics of interest”, it serves as a newsfeed of sorts based on what Touya is well…interested in. How the story pans out and what interactions you have with other characters depends on what you read or ignore in TOi. Logically, this would mean that you could game the system by reading every possible entry, but that doesn’t work. Doing so, as I discovered, doesn’t necessarily mean you get the best possible outcome from a scenario.

Reading TOi entries has some interesting side-effects. For example: catching up on what new body washes are available result in you viewing some risque scenes involving two female characters in a bath tub. This makes Xblaze Code: Embryo not exactly safe for work, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons it got stuck on the Vita rather than the Playstation 3.

While Xblaze Code: Embryo is short on gameplay, it’s evident that no expense was spared on the visuals. Character models look fantastic, as do the animations. Though it’s short on action sequences, the production value makes up for that. You’ll be treated to a fully-voiced Japanese cast (no English dubbing, though there are subtitles), music that fits the game’s many moods, and most of all, a set of characters that will have you intrigued long after you’re done.

With multiple endings, a rather generous number of trophies to obtain (you get one for merely starting up the game), and a fantastic plot, Xblaze Code: Embryo is a slick entry in the Blazblue universe that falls short on gameplay. If you’re a fan of series or simply a fan of anime, it’s worth a playthrough. Just don’t expect deep gameplay mechanics.