1RegretBeetle
13 Sentinels - The Sci-Fi Adventure Game Handbook
Having just finished 13 Sentinels, and with the announcement of a Switch port, I wanted to dedicate a post to share my thoughts on the game. As the delivery of the game’s well-composed story is crucial to the player experience, I will be mindful of discussing spoilers for the game. However, caution is still advised if you want to experience the game blind. To be particularly careful, I would avoid reading the text in the screenshots as they may contain minor spoilers.
13 Sentinels is the latest offering of the famed game development studio Vanillaware, releasing in late 2019 for the PS4. While eagerly anticipated by dedicated fans due to the company’s legendary resume (Dragon’s Crown, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and Odin’s Sphere, to name a few), the game received relatively little mainstream attention and was quickly banished to the fringes of niche gaming culture. The genre, being an old-school adventure title with very minor strategy/tactics elements, probably contributed to its initial lack of appeal. Vanillaware and Atlus’ relatively sparse marketing campaign for the western release also did not do it any favors. However, through word-of-mouth and several deep discounts at retail, enough interest was garnered for a Switch port to be green-lit and announced two years after its initial release, reigniting interest in Vanillaware’s “black sheep”. Having just beaten it myself, I am personally excited by the thought that a brand new, and arguably larger demographic, will soon have the chance to experience this marvel of a game.
Delivered from the point of view of the 13 titular protagonists, 13 Sentinels tells the story of their efforts towards repelling the invasion of an alien army, referred to as “kaiju” in reference to the classic genre of Japanese monster movies, with the help of their giant robot weapons, the “sentinels”. This is done in the style of a classic 2D adventure game, where the player guides their characters through various cutscenes full of voiced dialogue and gorgeous hand-drawn settings in the signature Vanillaware style.
In spite of this relatively standard narrative format, 13 Sentinels breaks the mold through allowing the player to experience slices of the overall story from each character’s individual viewpoint, and in any order of their choosing. These individual vignettes come together to answer overarching mysteries and eventually transform into the overarching narrative. As made possible from this ambitious storytelling decision, one is allowed an unprecedented level of freedom in the order by which key revelations and other important plot points are delivered, where different events gain additional or hidden meanings depending on the insights revealed to the player through their past experiences. Thus, each playthrough of the game results in a retelling of its story in a way that is entirely unique. The fact that it is so tightly written and cohesive despite managing such an extensive cast and timeline of events, is a true accomplishment, and definitely 13 Sentinels’ greatest strength.
These achievements are even more impressive once one considers the absolute encyclopedia of science-fiction concepts that are explored through its run-time. Fan-favorites topics such as time-travel, teleportation, mind-hacking, nanomachines, androids, aliens, UFOs, quantum science jargon, virtual reality, etc. are all here and in full force. As one might imagine, this results in a story that can be absolutely chaotic at times, and the game really enjoys exploiting the player’s confusion to emphasize certain plot points and revelations. For fear of saying too much, I won’t go further into the game’s elaborate story, as it would require considerable effort and skill to present it in a way that does not come across as overly complex or convoluted. Suffice it to say that the dots are connected wonderfully by the end of its runtime, and the whole is definitely more than the sum of these various components of the sci-fi genre.
To help the players along their journey, Vanillaware has included a great variety of features to ensure that the events of the game as they unfold are easily recalled by the player. “Mystery Files” become available as the story progresses, which essentially serve as encyclopedia entries for each person, place, or object that is encountered. These files are also updated as various truths are revealed, keeping the information that they contain relevant throughout the game’s entirety. Furthermore, an “Event Archive” is available to re-watch previous cutscenes, which are sorted by both the main protagonist involved, as well as by any secondary characters that play a role in them. These resources are readily available at your fingertips at any time during gameplay through the START menu overlay, and can be pulled up for a quick reference before then resuming where one left off in the story. I would like to see other game developers copy these quality-of-life features in the future, as they can assist in making the game’s narrative more palatable to a broader audience. A full-color manual is also included in the START menu!
In comparison to the adventure mode, the pseudo-RTS/Strategy component of 13 Sentinels, which is essentially considered a separate game-mode, is a bit under-utilized, serving only as a supplement to the former. These battles, where the player takes command of the 13 pilots in their sentinels to battle the invaders, are very appealing from a visual standpoint, and really everything from a design aspect is incredible. In particular, the UX/UI elements and “chess-board” like presentation of the battlefield feels especially inspired by Sci-Fi classics such as Card’s Ender’s Game, and I could not help but think of Ender’s simulations against the Buggers while playing the strategy segments of 13 Sentinels.
Despite the thoughtful visual presentation, the actual game mechanics are a bit lukewarm. The sentinels are divided into four different classes, and have a set of relatively standard actions and attacks that can be executed, learned through using a resource known as “meta-chips”. There are also minor progression systems in the form of upgrading “meta-skills” (think Orders in Valkyria Chronicles), and minor stat bonuses can also be granted to each party member. Your pilots also learn specific skills depending on their personalities and their experiences in the narrative, which help differentiate them from other units in their class. Overall, these are the bare-essentials of a typical strategy game, and comprise a solid foundation.
However, there is simply not enough meat on the bone to sustain this particular game-mode. With relatively few exceptions, each battle carries the same objective, to either rout the enemy or defend for a certain amount of time. Enemy variety is decent to start with, but quickly descends into pallette-swap territory after only a few hours of becoming acquainted with the system mechanics. Most disappointingly, the game’s boss battles are few and uninspired (I won’t say why), likely a casualty of the narrative decision to stick with such a condensed cast of characters to tell the story.
A very strong baseline for a fleshed-out strategy/real-time tactics game is laid in 13 Sentinels, but it is simply underdeveloped. I doubt that the developers at Vanillaware are unaware of this, and I can only speculate that there were additional factors that led to this aspect of the game feeling incomplete. I would buy a game based on this game-mode entirely should Vanillaware decide to revisit the concept and provide the time necessary to properly develop it.
In summary, 13 Sentinels excels in all of the areas that matter - its intricate story woven together by 13 individual vignettes is delivered masterfully, its quality of life features and player resources are top-notch, and its science-fiction roots are treated with the proper respect. The game does fumble slightly in the climatic sentinel battles, but this is a small misfire when considering what Vanillaware accomplishes here. 13 Sentinels is essential comfort food to any lover of science-fiction, and I hope that its release on the Nintendo Switch will give it the audience that it really deserves.
My apologies for being so vague in sharing my thoughts on 13 Sentinels, but it truly is a game better experienced blind. Thanks for reading.
January 9th, 2022 by 1regretbeetle