Man, anime is weird. Probably not the best way to start off a review. How can I say such a thing about one of the world’s biggest cultural influences? There are hundreds of hard working animators out there who spend countless weeks detailing each individual frame to the shows you love. Writers who have to plot out what happens in each episode and how to handle certain character arcs. Let’s not forget the mangas some of these shows originate from and how the writers have to figure out how to translate black and white pages onto the screen. There are several morals and messages some of these so-called “animes” portray and the emotions they give their watchers. Unforgettable stories that are carried on by big ocean communities. How can I say such a negative thing about anime? Well reader that wasn’t actually a negative statement. That was actually a positive statement. Anime is weird and that’s what makes it so wonderful. We have all these creative minds who are willing to take us on spirling magical adventures and they aren’t afraid to show off their ideas.
I do have to clarify that I’m really an anime person myself. I haven’t watched enough of them, barely at all in fact, to consider myself an anime person. That’s why if you were to ask me about popular anime shows like Jutsu Kaisen, Haikyu, or Demon Slayer then I would have nothing to say back to you, because I have no knowledge of these shows or what they are about. I mean my sister has knowledge of these shows, so that’s why I know about them. My older sister is a huge anime binger like she has watched more than I can count. She even reads the manga to catch up with the story or to see what they do or don’t feature in the anime. The three anime shows I just listed a few sentences ago were probably her top three. In case you wonder: Yes, she hated the ending to the Demon Slayer manga. I would personally watch some of these shows just to understand what my friends or sister are talking about, but I use a majority of my free time to play video games and type up these reviews for you folks to read. Which is a shame because I still respect anime for what it is and what it represents. Plus a good chunk of the video games I like are made by Japanese developers.
My favorite type of video game developers are usually indie developers because they put the most effort into their work, but Japanese developers I also heavily respect as well because they tend to put more love into their games than western developers. So what if I were to tell you right now that Indivisible, a JRPG developed by a western independent studio, perfectly transforms your typical anime into a video game? Indivisible was developed by Lab Zero Games, the same creators of that one kinky looking fighting game from 2012 called Skullsgirls. That game kinda came out of nowhere and I bet Lab Zero Games wasn’t expecting it to sell that well among the crowd of big Triple A releases, but it’s amazing to see how big Skullgirls blew up. Every character in Skullgirls was hand animated and the detail for every action was jaw dropping at the time. Skullgirls did get some controversy for having an all female cast and for some of the suggestive animation/designs for the characters, but the game was still pretty well praised. There are still die hard fans who still play the game.
During the 2015 Anime Expo, Lab Zero Games revealed that they would be working on a new game titled Indivisible. The game would maintain the colorful hand drawn animation of Skullgirls, take inspiration from Southeast Asian mythology, have a score composed by Hiroki Kikuta the same composer for Secret of Mana, and it would blend elements from several other game genres. The team at Lab Zero launched a kickstarter for the game, released a short demo, and wanted to reach the goal of 1.5 million dollars. This was their most ambitious project yet and they needed whatever they could to reach it. The kickstarter didn’t meet 1.5 million dollars, but it did reach the goal it needed to begin development. Indivisible spent almost four years in development and around 2019 the final product was released. Indivisible was pretty well praised. It wasn’t award worthy, but many critics considered it to live up to the hype. Ports to modern consoles were planned and Lab Zero Games wanted to shove in a few expansions & indie game cameos as promised in the Kickstarter.
Sadly around late 2020, Lab Zero Games was shut down. However, the company didn’t shut down because it went bankrupt or anything financially. More like the company slowly began to kill itself and the staff. Mike Zaimont, one of the lead directors of Skullgirls, said something really scummy during a live stream or interview. I’m not going to explain what it was because the information it deals with is extremely offensive and somewhat political, but the employees within Lab Zero Games got offended by what Mike said and no longer wanted to work under his watchful eyes. One by one they left the company and Lab Zero shut down because more than half their staff left due to Zaimont’s statement. Indivisible would be the best and last game Lab Zero Games would ever release. I was originally planning on skipping Indivisible because it seemed like a weird game to play and review, but I convinced myself to try it out just for the sake of it and after finishing the game and bonding with all my companions I have one thing to say, “This game is f*cking amazing”. It’s not perfect by any means and there are a few areas that make this game somewhat flawed, but it certainly made the most of what it had to offer. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved Indivisible and why it deserves your attention. So open your mind and see the world that lies outside.
Story
I should probably mention now that this review will be spoiling the first few hours of Indivisible and some of the characters you unlock later in the game. If you are someone who is currently playing through Indivisible or haven’t finished it just yet please do so before continuing through the review. Thank you. The game opens up showing us an oddly shaped mountain stretching far into space. Four unnamed heroes have ascended up the mountain to fight a highly powerful being. The battle was extremely tough and our four heroes were almost annihilated, but the leader of the group unleashes a powerful attack. Killing the mysterious being and sealing it away forever. The four heroes travel back home to their respective kingdoms and another mysterious figure is shown looking over the chamber the powerful being is sealed in.
Flash forward sixteen years and we find ourselves in the peaceful village of Ashwat. The village is looked over by the old and wise Indr, who has a sixteen year old daughter whom he named Ajna. One day Ajna wakes up late and rushes over to train with her father in the woods. Ajna has always dreamed of what life may lie outside the village, who her mother is, and the secrets the world may hide. These are dreams though and Ajna knows it will be a long time before she can leave Ashwat. She makes it to the training grounds and her father scolds her for being late. During training Ajna tries to convince her father that she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but Indr tells her that she is reckless and not ready for the world. Ajna then becomes furious and asks Indr why she doesn’t have a mother. She wonders if she really came from Ashwat. Indr decides to head back to the village and Ajna walks home alone.
When approaching the village she finds the entire place being burnt to the ground. Ashwat is under attack by an unknown force led by their commander Dhar. Ajna witnesses Dhar stabbing her father to death and the two engage in an epic duel. When Ajna is about to beat Dhar, she strangely absorbs him into her head. She then enters her own head and winds up in a sparkling realm made up of floating islands. Dhar now lives in Ajna’s personal realm and has no choice but to stay there. Ajna and Dhar get into an argument and eventually Dhar agrees to take him to his leader. The man who led the attack and hides in a golden castle hovering high in the sky, Ravannavar.
Ajna traverses the forest outside the village and makes a couple of friends along the way. Razmi, a depressed woman whose pet tiger’s soul is kept within a lamp, and Ginseng, a young botanist who has traveled far away from home to explore the world. Ajna slowly begins to learn that she can store individuals in her personal realm and have them fight by her side in battle. The four adventurers make it out of the forest and are captured by Ravannavar’s forces. They are locked up in a cell, but easily escape using a vent. They encounter Zebei, a mountain protector who claims that Ravannavar has been terrorizing other kingdoms and has a desire to unleash something stashed away in Mount Sumeru. Zebei joins Ajna's party and they blow up the fortress.
Ravannavar plans to unleash a sealed god named Kala who was contained during the intro of the game. Ajna beats Ravannavar and chases him down Mount Sumeru. At the basin she meets Kushi, another mountain protector and former friend of Zebei, and the whole party begins to ascend up Mount Sumeru. At the top they confront Ravannavar one last time in his true devilish form, but he tricks Ajna into opening Kala’s chamber. Kala is unleashed and Ajna is sent rocketing towards the ground, miles away from the summit. Ajna lands in the desert and is then resurrected by a woman named Thorani who claims to be a Deva, a person who possesses the power of magic and healing. She also claims that her people used to live on Mount Sumeru and that someone in town might know what Kala is. Thorani joins Ajan’s party and the group of adventurers, which is getting bigger than it really needs to be, navigate through the desert. They meet a shielded desert wanderer named Qadira, who is looking for her long lost brother, and they make it to Port Maerifa which is under control by the forces of the Iron Kingdom. Qadira claims the leader of the Iron Kingdom has become corrupt and is trying to take over other regions, but that’s not what Ajna came here for.
Ajna heads to the Tower of Wisdom and meets Angwu, a historian of the world and has some past with Ajna’s father. Angwu states that Indr and her were one of the few heroes to seal Kala ages ago and that Indr is not Ajna’s biological father. Ajna was a fragment of Kala that was separated and turned into their own human being, and since she was a fragment her powers were able to unseal Kala. Angwu states that if Ajna wants to make it back to Mount Sumeru she has to locate three Chakra Gates around the world and activate them. Then she can warp to Mount Sumeru and confront Kala. Ajna finally realizing her destiny grabs her friends, gains the trust of a female pirate named Baozhai, and begins to travel around the world. To make new friends and stomp evil into the ground. Maybe there’s more than this destiny that awaits Ajna.
Gameplay
Get ready everyone, because this next section is going to be extremely confusing. Indivisible is a JRPG that blends together standard RPG elements, fighting game combos, the platforming of most 2D side scrollers, and the world design and progression of a metroidvania. All of these genres mix together to form some odd genre hybrid, but don’t worry somehow it comes out to work. You explore the world navigating around hazards, uncovering secrets, and unlocking new abilities that allow you to traverse the world and open up new areas. These abilities include clinging onto a wall using your axe a propelling yourself upward, a bow that can hit long distance enemies or objects, a mid-air dash, a plunge attack that breaks through certain surfaces, a dash where if you build up enough speed you can charge through breakable walls, a spear that ca fling you upward or pogo on spikey surfaces, and the list goes on and on and on till the ends of time. Fun metroidvania styled power ups to work with.
There are save points scattered throughout the world and certain hazards can knock off some of your health. If you do die while exploring the world you aren’t knocked back to a previous save. Instead your health refills and you get more chances to complete the platforming challenge you are on. I think this is the developers way of letting those who struggle with platformers have an easier time with the game, because the farther you get the harder the platforming gets especially when you have all those crazy traversal abilities I listed. The game starts off linear at first, but overtime that metroidvania aspect begins to expand by letting the player explore multiple kingdoms and blocking them off from certain areas and making them come back later.
There are tons of enemies spread across each area and you have the ability to strike them and initiate a fight. Ajna will spawn in three of her companions and the team will immediately charge up their energy bars for attacks. Rather than go for the turn based combat of something like Octopath Traveler or Persona 5 where the heroes and enemies will have set turns, here in Indivisible you can go as long as the character has the stamina to. When you are waiting for your stamina to recharge enemies will try to go in for a hit. The character being attacked can block it by hitting the button you set that character to, and if you time the block right you can restore some health.
Each character has a range of moves to you, each one can be performed by pressing their set attack button and tilting the left joystick in a specific direction. For example Dhar’s main action can hit multiple enemies at once with his sword, his upward action is a lunging slash that can launch a single foe off the ground, and his downward action summons a rock that will buff his next sword attack. Baozhai’s basic action steals coins from the enemy, her downward attack can bash foes, and her upward action fires cannonballs at the enemy and they can be empowered using the coins you collected. Every character functions in a different way. Characters like Qadira and Tungar are designed to get up close and personal to deal heavy damage. Zebei and Latigo are designed to fight from afar and attack in quick succession. Thorani and Ginseng are made to offer support. Everyone is different and the amount of characters you unlock throughout the game allow you to get creative with how you approach each fight.
There is a special magic bar that fills up the more you attack an enemy and by using it you can either perform a charged up attack or resurrect downed allies. It’s a reward for being able to keep up a combo. Much like the platforming challenges, if you die during a fight you are kicked back right before it happens with full health. I guess this is the developers also realizing players hate losing progression.
Some characters have to be unlocked by fulfilling certain requests and the further you progress into the story you are offered incarnation quests. These are personal quests characters may offer and by doing them you can majorly increase your bond. I don’t really know what bond levels represent, but I assume it’s how powerful the character is. After all of this, there really isn’t much else to say about Indivisible. The game works finely enough and is fun to play once you get a hang of it. With several friends on your side you should be able to defeat Kala and save the world.
Thoughts
Indivisible is a game that kept getting better and better as time went on. Sure there are quite a few shortcomings which make it an extremely flawed game and some of these problems may make Indivisible frustrating for others, but I enjoyed everything it for what it had to offer. First thing to touch upon is the animation, which is so wonderful to look at. The character designs, the fluidity of each frame and action you perform, wide amount of colors, the lighting and shading which all have this glossy feel. It looks splendid, and combine it with the environments which are also hand drawn and you get a really good looking game that is fun to play because of the animation. The combat is another thing I really liked. Due to the amount of combos the player can perform in a turn the developers had to give the enemies big health pools, so that’s why some fights may lag on longer and become more button mashy than they really should. However, the tediously big health pools to pick away at are made up for with how satisfying it feels to pull off attack combos. The impact of each blow, the stylish animation we already talked about, swapping between character move sets so that they coordinate their attacks, and the amount of things you can do at any given moment.
I like how the game handles progression. It starts off linear at first with Ajna navigating through areas with the restrictive abilities she has, but as Ajna unlocks more abilities and as the game goes on it kind of turns into a metroidvania. The one core aspect I had mixed feelings for was the characters and story. Ajna tries to help out the world around her, but fails to do so due to her clumsiness and misjudgment of her surroundings. The beginning half of the game was mainly just her being an unlikable jerk that you don’t want to be around, but overtime she learns from her careless mistakes and how to handle problems in a more mature manner. Ajna' is selfish, bratty, and doesn't really do much to support her allies. However, with time you grow to like her a bit more. She's not a great character and I wouldn't say she's one of my favorite female protagonists, but you become more interested in her journey as you encounter more allies.
There are tons of characters in this game and when I say a ton I mean a ton. The game just kept rolling out character after character to the point I thought Indivisible wouldn’t have enough time to build up the world and properly develop them as characters who play a role in the story. Which ended up happening, because the story struggles to keep up with the ever expanding cast and develop an interesting world. Don't get me wrong, some of these characters are actually interesting and their background kind of makes you want to discover more about them. Maybe even do the side quests they have late into the game. However, the game just keeps pushing them out of the way to focus on Ajna. Anything that feels like character development is Ajna's allies reminding her what her goals are and to keep pushing forward. When I reached the final area I decided to do all the incarnation quests in one go. It took awhile, but in the end it didn't feel like it was worth it because the rewards for increasing companion relationship levels aren't much and don't have any effects in general besides attack power during combat. It's a very mixed bag when it comes to story and world building, but at least the writers tried.
The soundtrack is pretty good. Hiroki Kikuta did a great job composing each of the tracks for this game. Indivisible is great and succeeds at animation, music, the combat, and finding a way to blend multiple genres together. However, there are a few more problems with Indivisible that preventme down from saying it’s a masterpiece. When the game transforms in a metroidvania state, backtracking becomes a pain in the ass especially when you are trying to get to an area to continue a side quest or the main story. It kind of sucks that you can't flee from fights, because that would have saved up so much time when backtracking through the world. Plus every turned based JRPG I know gives you the ability to flee from combat when you think a fight is too much to handle or if you don't want to waste any time further, so why can’t you do it here? As I mentioned earlier, enemies have big health pools and once in a while a fight is dragged out way longer than it really should. I do like the combat, but I can see people getting really annoyed with it as the game goes on for more than ten to fifteen hours.
The platforming is cool and offers downtime between fights, but there are times when platforming sections are made more complex than they should be. With this one long stretch near the end of the game being a really good example. There are also moments when you need to conserve health for any future fights, but you keep losing it due to making a mistake during a platforming section. Sometimes enemies will have attacks that have to be blocked at the right time and if not they knock off a good chunk of your health bar. Around the time I reached the Iron Kingdom is when I started to face off against gunmen and these are the foes that took a bit of practice to get used to. Side quests also kind of limited at first because they have minibosses several levels higher than you, and the game does a bad job at indicating when you can handle them.
These flaws make the game sound like a disappointment, but Indivisible is a really good game. It’s sad that Lab Zero Games had to shut down meaning the version of Indivisible we got is the one we’ll have to stick with, but it’s still a fully functional well designed game. I played Indivisible on the Nintendo Switch and the game ran perfectly well. No glitches, no framerate drops, no downgraded textures, it’s one of the few better indie game ports. So in the end what is my final score for Indivisible? Overall I am giving Indivisible an 9/10 for excellence at best. May seem a little high for everything I just said, but there's something special on offer here and we aren't going to see anymore games like this in the future. Indivisible is great and I do recommend it.
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