Action Taimanin is fun!

 

It's time for another gaming post. I wanted to switch things up a bit and add a third blog post on gaming, so I delved into my library to dig out a worthy candidate. I found myself drawn to the gacha game, Action Taimanin, a very interesting addition to what is usually a very spicy franchise of which I confess I am a fan. Demon hunting ninja are cool, ok? Anyways, the game was first developed by game developers Gremory Games as a mobile game with it being released for download Japan on December 24th, 2019. A global release followed on October 6th, 2020 before the game was ported to PC on Steam by Infini Brain Inc, working with Lilith Soft (Lilith Limited) and subsequently, the two servers, Global and Japanese, were merged into one on the 4th of May, 2021. The game is notable for being the first SFW game in the Taimanin franchise, even though some of the costumes as well as the private room feature and the intimacy events are stretching the limits just a little bit. 

When first booting up Action Taimanin, players are greeted with a nice looking menu. It's clean and easy to navigate with anything the player could need being labelled legibly. It is here that players will spend the most time as it is the catalyst for doing pretty much anything in the game from launching into the quest menus, to events, to looking at the store, peeking at what's available in the gacha, checking the mailbox for rewards, collecting achievements, heading to the private room, doing special activities... It all begins at the main menu, which is like a hub. It is customisable with players being able to swap between the backgrounds, which also changes the music and overall feel of the menu as well as what characters greet the player. In short, it's a well designed hub that's easy to navigate and has anything you'd need. 

In the quest menu, you are able to choose between the main quests, which is essentially the story mode, events, which are their own mini-stories sometimes taking place within a certain timeframe during the events of the main story, time attack and the special mini-games. The story of the game is actually not that bad, it's clear that Gremory Games knew a bit about the franchise or at least researched it well enough to get the details right and even make subtle references to past games within the Taimanin franchise. Once again, the main character is technically Kotaro Fuuma, the young head of the Fuuma clan of Taimanin. In this continuity, Kotaro become the leader of the Taimanin Task Force, a special unit consisting of the best units from Gosha Village, Chinese Union, UFS, Freelancers and even some Demons. They deal with terrorist attacks and demons. Their first mission is to retrieve a bioweapon that had been stolen from a UFS base. Things don't go according to plan, with some unexpected twists occurring, such as an adversary who knows Asagi Igawa, the Almighty Taimanin, appearing and disrupting things. On top of that, an unexpected alliance is formed with the team. It is a serviceable plot that features existing characters within the franchise as well as a few new additions, made solely for the game. 

The gameplay itself is rather simple, yet oddly satisfying. I am merely speaking from having experienced the Steam version of the game, which I played with a controller, but I enjoy it. Players freely move around in a area of a map with the usual buttons or analogue stick if using a controller like I do, additionally there is a button for attacking and a button for dodging. To make the most out of the gameplay, you have to find the combinations and inputs for the Taimanin skills of the character you're playing as. Thankfully, no two characters play exactly the same and as such, you can switch between various characters and have a different experience. 

The 3D graphics are really nice and solid. It stands out in the Taimanin franchise, but in a good way as the characters still resemble themselves and everything is clean. Really quite impressive for what started life as a mobile game, especially when you notice the jiggle physics! Yes, there's jiggle physics and rightfully so. This is a spicy franchise after all and should always be so. I am tired of the people constantly virtue signalling about fanservice as they are often not even fans of the product they are moaning about in the first place. It is also called fan service for a reason, it is service for the fans! Anyways, the game also runs very smoothly, I haven't had any dropped frames nor performance issues of note and I think the way that enemies are handled, usually in small groups, helps with this a lot. 

Another positive that I can safely state is that it is very easy to play the game as a free to play game. Gold is often given at a very fair rate, allowing the player the option to roll the gold gacha, upgrade some of the special activities, etc, quite frequently. Gems are also given out at a pretty nice pace, once again making Gacha rolls pretty easy to come by and the option of saving the gems for purchasing costumes or models for the private room are there. 

The private room allows freedom to create screenshots and videos of your favourite characters in various poses and with different backgrounds. It is a fun addition that allows players the chance to be creative and imagine a variety of scenarios. From what I have seen, it can get quite suggestive! It is still kind of SFW, but definitely can teeter on the edge, especially with some of the risqué costumes.

 Now the game is not without its negatives. For example, Gremory introduced the character Annerose from Koutetsu no Majo Annerose, following her winning a 2022 character popularity poll. Sounds like a good thing, right? Well, actually Annerose became the first and only character that players had to pay for with real-life currency without prior notice. This poor decision making led to a very negative reception of the game's second anniversary event. Thankfully, no characters released after the second anniversary have been paid-only and I hopethat Gremory learned their lesson. 

There was also the issue involving a remixed version of an American electronic musician's song being used in the game with no credit going to him. Au5's Snowblind had appeared in the game in a remixed version of the song. When some players pointed this out, Gremory apologised, removed the music from the game and vowed to not repeat the situation again in the future. 

Overall, even with the negatives taken into consideration, I believe that Action Taimanin is a very fun game that is at least worth trying out. It is accessible to both fans of the Taimanin franchise and for those unfamiliar with it. As a fan of the franchise, the characters are handled rather well and the world is treated with respect. The much more vanilla aspect or approach of the game is also a rather welcome choice. Also, bless Gremory for giving me the option to play as my waifu, Asagi Igawa, right at the beginning of the game. Her Taimanin suit is still the best though!