Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains

Editor's Notes

Digital 3DS version reviewed.

Introduction

If you're at all interested in modern anime, then you've heard of 'Attack on Titan'. The grimdark anime that features humanity fighting against giant Titans really hit it off in both Japan and in the West, and with any popular show comes merchandise to keep fans happy until more episodes of their favorite show comes out. From that we've gotten our first 'Attack on Titan' video game in the West, the 3DS title 'Humanity in Chains'.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

’Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains’ follows the anime’s plotline for its Story Mode. The story follows Eren Jager and his friends after their home is destroyed by a Titan attack. Determined to get revenge for the indiscriminate slaughter, they join the military in hopes of fighting and gaining back the land that’s lost. However, fate has other plans.

’Humanity in Chains’ follows the anime from five different perspectives: Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Sasha, and Levi. While the story itself is set in stone, each character has different missions to partake, with only a little overlap, so many of the missions are somewhat unique.

That said, the overall mission objective is usually the same: Kill Titans. Even when the objectives change, such as protecting a target or surviving for a certain amount of time, the key focus is to defeat Titans. As such, all of the gameplay revolves around this concept, and how to make Titan combat interesting.

Most of the combat focuses around the Three Dimensional Maneuvering Gear, which can somewhat be compared to a grappling hook. Using the Gear, players can quickly move about the field and climb buildings, as well as latch onto Titan parts and try to slice into them. While Titans can only be killed by slicing through the nape of their neck, players can also slash the shins and faces, temporarily stopping the Titan to allow for a clean hit, without the risk of getting grabbed.

Much of disarming and killing a Titan revolves around scoring critical hits, which involves timely button pressing. Landing consecutive critical hits in a row makes it easier to land more critical hits, and therefore makes it easier to dispatch Titans quickly and get higher rankings.

With all the moves at the player’s disposal, ‘Humanity in Chains’ has a bit of a difficulty curve that must be overcome. However, once all the moves are understood and implemented, combat can be fun, as zipping around Titans and taking them down quickly and efficiently, without being grabbed or hit out of the air, it quite rewarding.

There is one big flaw though, at least for original 3DS users. The camera controls are relegated to the D-pad, which makes moving the camera around extremely difficult. With the original 3DS, it’s nigh impossible to move both the character and camera at the same time, which spells a lot of trouble if you’re trying to maneuver around Titans. On the New 3DS, camera control can be changed to the nub, which helps a lot to mitigate this issue, but original 3DS owners beware.

On a gameplay perspective, ‘Humanity in Chains’ is surprisingly competent. The title is pretty short, and does not overstay its welcome. It felt as though there could have been more variety (either in mission objective or how the different characters play), but there is enough here to placate fans of the anime.