N-INNOCENCE First Impressions – It Has Air Combos

N-INNOCENCE is Asobimo‘s latest mobile venture. It was initially planned to launch in Japan in November 2021, before getting delayed to 20 April 2022. Sci-fi-esque and mythology sounds pretty sweet in concept, but what is it actually like?

As usual, I won’t comment on the story since I’m illiterate when it comes to more than 1 kanji.

PRESENTATION

Let me get this off my chest at once: I think a number of the outfits are really stupid. There’s got to be a way to have girls look sensual and sexy without giving them what is effectively only wishful thinking and tape that you call “clothes”, but whatever. That’s not my wheelhouse, and if you like body suits, boobs (or lack thereof), thigh gaps, etc., power to you.

Okay, that’s over.

So, I think this game could have been the ill-fated BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War, and not just because I think it looks so incredibly reminiscent of Fate/Grand Order much like BBDW in its looks. The story isn’t fully voiced as far as I’m aware, which is a shame but not uncommon. The story cutscenes utilize Live2D for the actively speaking character, with static sprites for the rest. The unit models and animations are quite attractive and lively, with their attacks having sufficient weight to feel good.

GAMEPLAY

I’m not sure if it’s because I had to use a VPN to access the game, or it just doesn’t like being run via an emulator, but I was experiencing incredibly poor performance despite setting the graphics to low and unlocking the frame rate. The latter made the sprites move really smoothly when it does work, at least. I might be harder on the game because of these issues, so I’ll try to discuss the gameplay outside of it.

Combat basically involves chaining together the combos to get the enemy into Burst mode, wherein you can deal extra damage to it. Up to three characters – called “Avatars” – can be in your party with one guest support. Your trio can essentially tag in during Burst timings and you can keep the chain going. Naturally, they also have their respective Specials to unleash. The usual elemental weakness chart is here, while the “class archetypes” feel a little more diminished than most of its ilk.

Each character has a combo list. You can tap for quick attacks, or hold down for heavier attacks. Like I implied in the title, juggling enemies in the air is something you can do, like how my Hermes punts her target in their air when she triggers Burst. When defeating an enemy, they get this cool freeze frame action cam too! Asobimo did say they wanted this game to be akin to a 2D fighting game, which is pretty much the sole reason why I said BBDW could have been like this. Auto battle doesn’t do tag-ins from what I can see, so it’s not the best but hey.

As far as I can tell, the totally-not-Craft-Essences give your units another skill, so I can see the potential to make an all-rounder. Limit breaking units requires duplicates (which gives shards), with costs going up with increasing star rank up to 5-stars. Increasing star rank unlocks more skills. The not-Craft-Essences can be limit broken too, of course.

GACHA

At a 2% rate, it’s a little on the low side. It looks like it’s a 50% chance to get the rate up character, though whether there’s an additional pity on top of that I’m not sure. Unlike FGO, N-INNOCENCE has a spark system! Huzzah! 200 total sparks can get you the featured 3-star character.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Outside of the performance issues that killed my drive to continue trying the game, I think there’s something quite interesting here. Sure, you have the option to mindlessly mash or put on auto to do your regular grinding. However, if you find a character whose moves you like, that should be a good enough starting point to actually learn how to use their combos.

If N-INNOCENCE was some totally new fighting game IP, I genuinely think it could try finding a cult following. I’m not going to claim it has the systems that will appeal to the FGC at large, but who’s to say it won’t find a spark somewhere? I don’t think it’s for me (and it’s not because of the character designs). However, I do think this is one you SHOULD try for yourself to decide.

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