MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death
Overview -
Following the success of the acclaimed 'Trillion: God of Destruction', Idea Factory takes another step into that game's hellish universe with 'MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death'. A unique fusion of dungeon crawler and mecha, the game casts players as a group of mages with power over fully customizable robots that act as their guardians as they attempt to restart the world's rotation and prevent its destruction.
Video Review
Bland and dull, each dungeon has a distinct motif, but none of them are interesting to actually see, simply falling into basic templates like forests or ice levels. Character models don't fare any better, with extremely basic enemy and robot designs that feel barely animated. The character designs, while a tad more risqué than I tend to like, are pleasant enough, but that's about as positive as it gets, visually.
Audio Review
Tenpei Sato, composer for the 'Disgaea' franchise, is one of my favorite composers of all time, and the music he contributes here is at turns beautiful, exciting, and haunting when it needs to be. Sadly, however, he isn't the only composer involved, and a great deal of the music from the other composers ranges from adequate to terrible. It's a wildly uneven soundtrack, and the game has the awful habit of restarting dungeon music every time the player exits a battle, but what's good here is great. Additionally, the game has full English and Japanese dubs, with solid casting all around in both languages.
Final Thoughts
Far from being a bad game, 'MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death' doesn't really try to be much more than simply competent. Its systems and ideas are all strong, but they're tackled fairly gracelessly and just end up feeling rote after a while. I didn't have a bad time with the game, but it's hard to not just recommend playing something like 'Demon Gaze' or even Idea Factory's own 'Trillion' instead for those looking for a great Dungeon Crawler or JRPG on Vita.