13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Strategy

Players: 1

.

Review:

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, first released on PlayStation 4 in 2020 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022 is a game that blends various genres in a way that’s tough to pin down. What many may see as the core gameplay is a Real-Time Strategy game with some Strategy-RPG elements, but which players can pause at any time to take a moment to think and get their bearings. However, possibly even more than that, players will spend much of the game’s time involved in its Graphic Adventure elements, which lean pretty close to Visual Novel territory.

When it comes to the story, I hesitate to go into too much detail for fear of spoiling you, but suffice it to say there’s a lot going on here. The core of the story focuses on a Japanese high school where various students are going about their daily lives, talking about their favorite movies, spreading gossip, and so on. However, more than a few of these students are having strange dreams where they are piloting mechs to protect the city against an invading force of kaiju. Add in story elements involving secret identities, time travel, alien invasion, and apocalyptic visions of the future, and it seems like this game has some new twist in its story around every corner.

Rather than taking players through a straight run, the story is told out of any obvious chronological order, instead focusing on one of its dozen-plus protagonists at any given time. These characters have wildly different personalities and back-stories, and as a result changing the focal character often results in the story changing its tone or even its genre. And always hanging overhead is the greater question of how what you’re seeing fits into just what the heck is going on!?

Thankfully, this game’s characters are interesting, and its story is so gripping that you’ll likely find yourself on the edge of your seat waiting to see just what happens next… oh, and then you’ll get into occasional battles, too.

Look, the strange amalgamation of Real-Time Strategy and Strategy-RPG that this game presents is unique and interesting, getting you to control a small handful of mechs to fend off swarms of kaiju. It’s unique and interesting… but it kinda’ messes with 13 Sentinels’ pacing. It’s almost a disappointment when the game changes from the Graphic Adventure stuff to the Strategy gameplay, because you’ll want to get more of the game’s excellent story only to find yourself dragged away from it to fight off some monsters.

Probably a part of what makes this game so enticing is that the presentation is absolutely gorgeous. The Graphic Adventure bits make use of some beautiful hand-drawn anime-style characters bathed in some really lovely lighting effects that give their 2D scenes some wonderful depth and realism. Alternately, the Strategy gameplay here makes use of an interesting 3D depiction of a city that seemingly pops up around you as it comes on-screen. This is visually-striking too, but I did find myself disappointed that for all the talk of mecha and kaiju, you can’t actually see any of these giant fighters on the map, and only instead see HUD symbols designating their locations.

Add it all together, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is an extremely ambitious game that brings together a lot of disparate elements in the service of telling a complex, gripping story. Mostly, this works pretty well, and the game kept me wanting to see more, but the jarring dissonance between the Graphic Adventure bits and the Strategy bits does the game a disservice when it might have been better-served by sticking to something more consistent and letting the story shine through. However, even with this issue, this is still such an outstanding story with such a great presentation, that it’s well worth picking up. There is nothing else out there quite like this game.

tl;dr – 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a game that combines elements of Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel games with Real-Time Strategy and Strategy-RPG games, all within an absolutely bonkers story about a group of Japanese high schoolers involved in a mecha battle with invading kaiju. The story and presentation are the star of the show here, with so many outstanding twists and turns that you’ll be anxious to see what just happens next. The Strategy gameplay, on the other hand, is good, but it interrupts the flow of the game, and it can be frustrating when you have to fight some kaiju when you’d really rather be finding out more about what’s going on. While this may be frustrating, it’s definitely worth it to give this game a try – there’s nothing else like it, and it’s a wild ride despite its frustrations.

Grade: B+

.

This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Story – I think it says something about a game when I think the gameplay is great, but I’m frustrated whenever I have to play it because I just want to get back to the story. 13 Sentinels features a story that just keeps getting better, piling mystery on top of mystery, from kaiju to time travel to alien invasion, you just never know where this game’s story is gonna’ go next. Clearly, no other game this year gripped me with its story like this game did.

Runner-Up: Best Strategy Game / Simulation, Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel, Best Graphical Style

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}