Azur Lane Crosswave review: Girls und Wasser, er, water| Technobubble

Azur Lane: Crosswave is an excellent reminder that history is filled with many moments when enterprising humans received flashes of inspiration — moments when they decided to just, you know, combine stuff.

There’s ice cream and the waffle cone. A hamburger patty and bread. World War II ships and anime girls. Lemon and ... hold up, did someone say World War II ships and anime girls?

Yep, you heard it right. At some point in time, some person decided, “You know what would be cool? Turning World War II ships into cute, anime girls.”

Then again, Azur Lane certainly isn’t the first game to do so. There’s Kantai Collection, which actually isn’t the first ship girl game, either, but is arguably the first one to amass such a gigantic following. There’s also an assortment of otaku IP from way back earlier featuring anime girls equipped with armaments that sport a classic mechanical theme. You’ve got Strike Witches and its minimalist Striker Units, which are designed to look like World War II planes. Then there’s Sky Girls, which combines both classic and futuristic mech touches into one.

In that sense, Azur Lane is just the latest in a long, long, long line of, um, interesting anime girl concepts. That being said, Azur Lane is also noteworthy in the sense that it started as a Chinese-developed mobile game that proceeded to do gangbusters in Japan. It just goes to show you that if you create an entertaining product, update it regularly and listen to your community, it doesn’t matter what country your game comes from. The otaku community will reward you by opening their hearts and their wallets.

This brings us to “Azur Lane: Crosswave.” An offshoot of the Azur Lane mobile game or “mobage,” Crosswave is an attempt to bring the world of Azur Lane to consoles and PC. At the same time, it’s important to note that this is not actually the same game as Azur Lane on mobile. Instead, Crosswave is a wholly separate entity, even though it features many of the same characters from the original mobile offering. Crosswave’s story, for example, is new — centering around a fresh pair of characters as the focal point of the narrative. The combat meanwhile, replaces the side-scrolling 2D action of the original mobile game and replaces it with 3D skirmishes. Think of it as a side game that supplements the original Azur Lane, which continues to sail strong on mobile platforms to this day. This is actually important because being a fan of the mobile game doesn’t automatically mean that you will like Crosswave. If anything, it might actually cause you not to like some of the things that Crosswave does differently, particularly its 3D combat.

That being said, one thing that Crosswave does better than the mobile game is storytelling. Although the narrative in the mobile version feels shallow and disjointed, the storytelling in Crosswave has a nice flow and is surprisingly chunky. One added bonus is that it is also voiced in Japanese, and generously so. In fact, it has so much voiced dialogue that the game feels like a visual novel with fights sprinkled in between. 

As I mentioned earlier, the story centers around two new ship girls, Shimakaze and Suruga. The spunky, rabbit-eared Shimakaze boasts a cheerful, and eager personality — perhaps too eager at times as it causes her to get into trouble at times. She’s a good, earnest kid, however, and appears to possess a lot of hidden potential, which several of the game’s elite ship girls pick up on. 

Suruga, on the other hand, appears to exude a calm, confident personality at first glance but actually happens to be a bit of a ditzy mess inside. Unlike Shimakaze, Suruga prefers not to attract attention to herself due to her confidence problems. She’s the type who prefers doing just well enough to avoid placing at the bottom but not so well that she stands out. Such plans from Suruga are usually ruined by the over-eager Shimakaze, however, who ends up dragging Suruga into her pace. As a result, Suruga initially decides to not have anything to do with Shimakaze at first and even develops jealousy toward her shipmate as the rabbit-eared ship girl starts garnering recognition. Circumstances lead to both of them being partnered with each other, however, and they eventually develop a rapport despite their initial issues.

One similarity between Crosswave and the original mobile game is the mystery foe that’s manipulating events behind the scenes. Anchoring the conflict are futuristic enemies known as Sirens, whose machinations ultimately cause the game’s various factions such as the Sakura Empire, Eagle Alliance, Royal Navy and Ironblood to come together in the form of a joint exercise.

Overall, I found Crosswave’s story to be a pleasant surprise, especially given the hodgepodge feel of mobile game’s storytelling. Granted, Crosswave uses a lot of anime tropes whether it be in terms of humor or themes such as the bonds of friendship. At the same time, I was also impressed by the amount of work that was poured into it. The voiced dialogue is easily the best part of Crosswave, adding extra punch to the storytelling. These include touching scenes as well as more entertaining segments that rely on the Japanese concept of cuteness known as “moe” or funny instances as well. As someone who understands Japanese, I found several scenes to be even more humorous, such as poor Kaga’s suggestion to call tentacled Purifier “Tako Lady” instead. It really shouldn’t make me laugh but the proud, deadpan delivery was just perfect. Anyway, if you’re a big fan of visual novel-style dialogue and exposition, then Azur Lane Crosswave will hit the mark.

Conversely, while the storytelling is improved over the mobile game, the combat in Crosswave feels like it falls short. What’s especially interesting is that the same things that make the mobile game fun in short bursts make the new 3D combat in Crosswave somewhat lacking, unfortunately. The base mechanics are actually fine and are reminiscent of action games such as Virtual On and a plethora of Gundam games. By balancing the difficulty to match the mobile game’s penchant for prioritizing battles that last less than 120 seconds, however, the battles end up being too easy. That lack of challenge even when tackling skirmishes of higher difficulty end up sabotaging what otherwise could have been a promising combat system if it was just balanced more properly. Most of the time, battles just devolve into dashing in a direction and doing normal moves while waiting for your special attack to fill up, then firing said special attack, switching to a partner to fire her special, switching to another partner to fire her special attack and then repeating the cycle — provided you don’t kill everything too quickly.

Granted, I understand the developers’ decision to stick with the same concepts that made the mobile game popular. As the saying goes, you want to dance with the one that brought you. While quick skirmishes work well on a mobile platform, however, it ends up feeling shallow on home consoles, where players typically expect a more fleshed-out experience. It can still be enjoyable when you get in the flow. But it can start feeling repetitive rather quickly, especially since the ship girls don’t feel that much different from each other.

To keep players busy, Crosswave also throws in other features, including weapon farming and upgrading, various unlockable gear and ships, and the more challenging Extreme Battle Mode. You don’t get the same depth of content as the mobile game, however, so it doesn’t quite have the longevity of its “mobage” sibling. It’s a solid game but also feels like a first effort, especially if you’re coming from the mobile original.

All in all, Azur Lane Crosswave is a tale of two games. On one hand, you have the story mode, which features a chunky, entertaining narrative and doubles as a visual novel with nice art and excellent Japanese voice acting. On the other hand, you have the 3D combat, which starts out promising but eventually feels a bit sparse and shallow. It’s pretty much the opposite of the mobile game. That being said, as someone who’s been called an otaku by my Japanese friends, I still enjoyed my time with Crosswave. Then again, I also feel that the game could have been much, much better if the combat and overworld mechanics were polished just a bit more. Crosswave won’t be for everyone, including some fans of the original title on mobile. If you love the lore behind Azur Lane, however, it still might be worth dipping into this pool for the story mode alone.

• Rating: 7 out of 10
• Cost: $49.99, $99.99 for Limited Edition; PC and PS4
• http://ideafintl.com/azurlane-crosswave/

Jason Hidalgo covers business and technology for the Reno Gazette Journal, and also reviews video games as part of his Technobubble features. Follow him on Twitter @jasonhidalgo. Like this content? Support local journalism with an RGJ digital subscription.