Trillion: God of Destruction
Developer: Compile Heart
Publisher: Idea Factory International
Platform: PS Vita
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 – Available Here
Overview
When one thinks of a video game enemy they often picture a standard opponent that they will be facing off against hundreds of before they inevitably face off against a boss at the end of a dungeon or area before finally making it to the final boss. Well what happens when the final boss is standing right in front of you right at the beginning of the game and you are tasked with continually facing off against this monstrous creature throughout the game at regular intervals? Then you have a game called Trillion: God of Destruction and now that the title has been released in the West is it worth picking up?
Story
For millennia the Underworld has existed and faced very few threats but all that is at an end. A being known as the “God of Destruction” has awoken from its slumber and has appeared before the gates of the Underworld in order to consume everything in its path. This beast known as Trillion, thanks to its trillion health points, is challenged by Zeabolos, his army, and his beloved brother. With Zeabolos being the Great Overlord that rules over the Underworld, he initially doesn’t take the creature seriously until it utterly destroys his army, slays his brother, and tears Zeabolos apart in no time at all.
On the edge of death, Zeabolos is saved by a mysterious woman named Faust who states that she knows of a way to defeat Trillion and that she will assist him at the cost of his soul. Unfortunately thanks to the fact that Zeabolos’ revival resulted in his body being held together in manner similar to a zombies, he is incapable of directly facing off against Trillion. As such his female Overlords, all of whom are his allies either through blood relation or longtime friendships, must take up the mantle in order to destroy this creature and whoever manages to strike the killing blow will be named as the next Great Overlord of the Underworld.
Thanks to a dangerous miasma that surrounds Trillion that only Zeabolos can withstand, he must give his ring to one of his Overlords, all of whom are styled after a deadly sin, who must be trained up in order to stand up to the beast on her own. Trillion: God of Destruction is a story about loss and in fact that is something you will very likely end up doing more than a few times. When you begin the game players will choose from the Overlords that they have at the time and focus on training them which in turn allows the story to develop through them.
As you train your chosen Overlord through the maze of menus that we will go over shortly, players will often be able to give them presents and interact with them through conversations. Interacting with the girls marks some of the best parts of the game and also the most heartrending thanks to the nature of this game. Players will be learning about the girls as they develop beyond their initial archetype and become people that you generally will want to keep alive, only to really be training them for a battle that they will most likely die in.
There are multiple endings that can be achieved and thanks to a New Game+ system that allows players to transfer a majority of their bonuses into the next game, it is possible to see these endings at a bit of a quicker pace and hopefully see your favorite girls make it to the end, but be prepared for a lot of suffering as they die off and have to be replaced with a new vassal that must once again enter the suffering grinding gauntlet that makes up Trillion: God of Destruction’s gameplay.
Gameplay
If you aren’t a fan of spending time grinding then you will want to steer clear of Trillion: God of Destruction as this is a game that focuses almost entirely on that aspect. You see, in-between battles players will be given a number of days that they will need to spend training before facing off against Trillion once again and outside of spending time actually talking with the girls and seeing story events to develop Affection points, the rest of it will be partaking in various events.
Players will gain points that power up their chosen Overlords abilities such as attack, defense, intelligence, health, speed, and more and each of these can be trained through the menus. The main screen where these tasks can be chosen is actually where players will be spending most of their time since they will need to make sure that their Overlord can at least stand up a bit to a being capable of delivering high damage and having a trillion hit point pool.
Now one system that is a bit unique is the aforementioned Affection system. These affection points are earned by finding items that Zeabolos can give to the girls or talk with them to raise their affection levels. When in combat the affection points of a character are a separate meter from their HP and MP meter and prior to the character suffering any HP or MP loss they will drain the affection meter first. This means that prior to facing off against Trillion you’ll want to bond with your character so they can tank damage and even have the choice to simply run away if things start to go south too quickly, as affection points can also be used to flee from battle.
One of the best ways to train your character is to eventually enter the “Valley of Swords” which is a dungeon filled with smaller enemies as well as plenty of items and equipment that will help you survive longer. The only issue is here is that players are given a certain number of turns to escape from the area and if you manage to run out of turns before exiting, you will lose everything that you have gathered. Another noteworthy feature is the ability to engage with a combat dummy prior to actually facing Trillion, allowing players a chance to test their skills before actually fighting the boss since losing to a dummy does not result in a character’s death.
Once you do end up fighting Trillion, players must travel across a very large grid-based battlefield where they will need to face off against not only Trillion but any minions that he has summoned, traps that have been laid out, and any “AoE” spells that are being used. This means that rapid movement is often the difference between life and death and since there are a number of weakpoints that can be targeted on Trillion as well as abilities that players can unlock for Overlords that allow them to deal additional damage, finally facing the boss presents numerous tactical opportunities in a high-stress situation.
If an overlord does die in combat, her loss will not be in vain as she will be able to use a death skill that can allow her to perform various actions such as sealing off a body part of Trillion for the next fight or helping in some form. When defeated, most of that Overlords abilities and stats will be transferred into Zeabolos’ ring and will buff up the next Overlord it is given to. This means that while it is entirely possible through proper training to try and keep your favorite characters alive, the chances are highly likely that you’ll either end up losing them or even going so far as failing outright before actually taking Trillion down, especially since he grows exponentially stronger the weaker he becomes.
While this generally wouldn’t be an issue for many games of this nature, the fact that the training elements in Trillion: God of Destruction are so incredibly repetitive makes grinding an unenjoyable chore. Small mistakes can lead to an easy failure and thanks to the combat system in the game featuring poorly implemented movement and camera controls. Since any time your character moves the enemies move as well, this means that you may very well end up wasting precious moments simply struggling with the game’s poorly implemented movement system.
Visuals & Audio
In many ways Trillion: God of Destruction is presented more as a visual novel than an actual RPG as players will be spending most of their time looking at menus and talking sequences between the characters than they actually are on the battlefield. Thankfully the character designs do a great job representing the personalities of each girl and the CG events scattered throughout the story are incredibly well done with a vibrant color palette. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the game’s battle sequences as the characters here are only serviceable at best and occasionally suffers from slowdown when large skills are used.
As far as the game’s soundtrack, the title supports a great mixture of tunes to fit the nature of the game and sports an amazing sounding battle theme. Idea Factory International has released Trillion: God of Destruction with both the English and Japanese voice track and both voice tracks are handled incredibly well, though oddly enough the audio balancing here is somewhat off with the English track as some characters are so soft-spoken sounding that I had to turn up the volume simply to hear what they were saying only for the rest of the characters to then sound incredibly loud.
Overall
Trillion: God of Destruction features a unique premise that ends up dividing the game between strategy styled combat and visual novel style character training. The Overlords are surprisingly well-fleshed out characters and help keep things interesting while training them for battle which helps alleviate the feeling of repetitiveness a bit while the combat system keeps players on their toes as they prepare but thanks to some poorly implemented systems, combat can be far more frustrating than it should be. As such, fans who are interested in the premise will be treated to interesting storylines following the Overlords but must be prepared for an immense amount of grinding and some unsatisfying combat mechanics.
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