Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy

Role-playing games, by their nature, tend to be a little more complex than other genres, but this game really gets bogged down by its menus. See, players want a great deal of control over their characters' styles, personalities, equipment, abilities, action, and development. The problem is, the more control players have, the more complicated a game usually gets. Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy is a perfect example of the struggle to find balance. It gives players a huge amount of control over the creation and development of their characters, but by doing so, it buries itself under a mountain of menus, statistics, options. You spend more time in the game's various menus than you ever do actually moving the story forward. For people with an intense love of micromanagement, this may not be a bad thing. But for the majority of gamers, it can be pretty overwhelming.

Another problem facing Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy is its status as a sequel. For newcomers to the series, it's a bit jarring to jump right in. While the game does try to explain some of what's going on in the world, you can't help but feel like you've just walked into the middle of something. It takes a while before new players can figure out what Blood Codes mean, what Variants are that you're fighting against, and just who the heroes and villains are supposed to be. Even when you do get the basics down, you're still left scratching your head at what it all means. It's an interesting universe that you're thrown into, but that doesn't mean you ever understand most of it. And since you're just sort of tossed right into the action, you never really get the time to take it all in.