Platform: Vita Developer: Idea Factory Publisher: Idea Factory (NA) Release Date: 3.29.2016 (US) / 4.1.2016 (PAL) RECOMMENDED? "Bugs and crashes made me completely drop it" Discuss on Message Board

   Originally I looked at Trillion: God of Destruction as a breath of fresh air compared to the recent deluge of Idea Factory games. It was marketed as a strategy RPG and had a mature storyline that didn't rely on the typical cheesecake the company is known for. As a lover of SRPGs, I thought to dive right in and see what I could get out of the game. The first mistake was expecting something good.

   The game mostly plays out in relatively static character portraits and some cringe-worthy voiced scenes. It's not that the voices themselves are entirely bad; it feels more like the voice direction is let down by very underwhelming visual accompaniment and a dull script. In the opening sequence, for example, the overlord goes into battle with the game's namesake villain, Trillion, and launches an all out attack that features slight shaking of the screen and a long yell. Then the yelling stops, nothing else changes, and the character says the attack didn't work. That is how the story scenes play out all through the game.

   Calling Trillion a strategy RPG is also misleading. It's more of a menu-based character growth simulator with mystery dungeon-style mini dungeons and boss battles. The bulk of the game play is actually the menu-driven character simulator too, so it revolves around reading dialogue and pressing the X button mindlessly until you can take part in a battle. The worst thing about that is the battles against the boss are actually interesting and do require some strategy, but they happen so infrequently that it feels like a mini game tacked on to a visual novel.

   Battles use the mystery dungeon staple of moving one square or attacking once and then all enemies move one square or attack once. Smaller enemies will run towards you and attempt to attack while Trillion stays back and launches multiple attacks. Trillion's attacks will leave coloured outlines on the ground showing the range and how close it is to launching the attack. White means there are several turns while red means the attack comes with Trillion's next turn. The players can also take small bodyguards into boss battles that can distract and destroy the smaller enemies, which leaves the player to focus on manuevering around the different attack ranges.

    But there is a reason this is a Deep Look instead of a full review: While playing, I've had the displeasure of experiencing multiple crashes. Not just simple freezes or hiccups in the game's functioning, but full blown send-a-report-to-Sony blue screen crashes. I've had this happen when going into battle, I've had it happen when trying to train my character, I've had it happen when I was trying to look at the shop. Trillion is way too unstable for me to keep throwing time into it. After more than a dozen crashes, on top of the freezes and hiccups, and the loss of several hours of gameplay, I simply got too frustrated to continue. I even googled the issues only to find that several people were suffering similar problems with no word from Idea Factory of a patch to fix the mess.

   I could enjoy Trillion for the battles, even with all the bad exposition and just dull characters and story, but bugs and crashes made me completely drop it. I'll end this with a simple warning: buyer beware.