Cho Dengeki Stryker
Review
Well
with Avengers: Age of Ultron’s cinematic debut around the corner, what better a
way to celebrate that than a look at the best (and to my knowledge only)
superhero VN commercially available in English? Originally released as Dengeki
Stryker in Japan on June 24, 2011 by Overdrive and an almost year later English
release by Mangagamer June 22, 2012, the game would get an expanded Japanese
version (hence the ‘Cho’ name) on July 27, 2012 which was released in English
on March 28, 2014. This localized release came in quite a few options: an
expansion patch for those who bought the original release, a full digital
release for newcomers, an all ages release on Steam and a physical
version. Obviously MG did all it could
to make sure as many people as possible could play this game and the fact that
I’m covering this in anticipation of Age of Ultron means I find Cho Dengeki
Stryker good, but please allow me to elaborate…
Pros: Excellent
stories, great characters, excellent art work and animation, top line voice
acting, awesome soundtrack.
Cons: Zero Saga is a bit weak, Hilko’s route is a little on
the short side, villains are just okay.
WTF?!: Yes, one of the semi-major characters is a talking
dog (who can also fly and breath fire), and that’s awesome.
Cho
Dengeki Stryker’s story begins with an innocent childhood wish by a boy, Yuuki
Yamato, after he fails at protecting his childhood friend Haruna from a group
of bullies. This wish is to become the superhero he idolizes: Dengeki Stryker,
and as it happens Yamato encounters a mysterious old man who calls himself the
Memory Collector who grants the wish in exchange for Yamato’s memories. Years
later a strange group of people with super powers appear with the intention of
conquering Japan in the name of the Balbora Empire, but a lone hero stands in
their way. A hero who bears a strong resemblance to Dengeki Stryker…
When it
comes to the plot Cho Dengeki Stryker does a great deal right. First and
foremost it tells a good superhero story that fully embraces many of the tropes
of the genre be it from the kind we see in anime and manga to those seen in
comics and movies (and even a little sentai) and does a great job in
demonstrating why they work so well. The scenes where Yamato and many of the
other characters do something heroic always carry the right emotional weight to
feel genuine and often awesome. CDS also
takes a good look at some of those trope be they comedic, such as the ridiculous effectiveness of a change of clothes, or something more in depth
like a look at the concept of identity in relation to that of our hero. Best of
all the view the writing has regarding this superhero story, heroism and what
good can come of it is an overall positive one, but a well-balanced one too.
It’s not afraid of venturing into dark territory at the right story points, yet
it meets it with the right amount of heart backed up by good writing that keeps
it from descending into the pit of world weary cynicism some hero stories might
go to.
Second
of all the story has an excellent cast of characters who are just as, if not
more, appealing as the plot is (click here for profiles). Yamato himself makes for a good protagonist
with his altruistic personality fitting for a hero yet also hilariously
sticking out when in a normal environment in a way very reminiscent of Full
Metal Panic!’s Sousuke Sagara. His partner Jack the Texan ninja (sadly a rarity
here in Texas) makes for a great sidekick by bringing an even higher level of
strangeness into the mix, enough to make the already unusual Yamato the
straight man in many of their scenes. Of course in the area of character humor
the characters that have the lion’s share of good scenes are the Balboran
Vanguard from their group dynamic with one another to the contrast of how
friendly they are with Yamato outside of battle since neither one knows the
others’ secret identities. These scenes do a really good job in getting you
attached to these characters and get invested in their fates in each of the
story sagas and even the character development some of them go through.
Naturally
the heroines of CDS are really good too. While Haruna does come off as your
typical (non-tsundere) childhood friend type heroine at first she’s written
well enough to be likable and then gets better as the sagas give her some good
character moments later on. Sayaka brings quite possibly the best chemistry
with Yamato by essentially being the Kaname Chidori to the aforementioned
Sousuke Sagara analogy of our hero when it comes to his odd but well-meant
antics. It’s also helped that her backstory is interesting and connects well to
the plot of her saga. The new heroines of the Cho content are also really good,
but I feel I should explain a couple things first.
Normally
this is where I’d do a route ranking but the thing is Cho Dengeki Stryker kind
of has a route structure but also kind of doesn’t. The stories this game has to
tell are divided into six “sagas” (plus what’s essentially the common
route): Zero, Heaven, Sky, Love, Steel
and Light. In the original Dengeki Stryker release it was just Zero, Heaven and
Sky. The Zero saga is essentially the
introduction story and is kind of Haruna’s route; it basically introduces the
main concept of the story as well as story elements that are further explored
(and approached differently) in the next saga, Heaven. Heaven saga is a
different continuity than Zero being Sayaka’s route and Sky acts as an epilogue/true
ending that wraps up all the story elements there. Now of these two initial
continuities Heaven-Sky is unquestionably stronger due to its being longer and having
a much better ending while Zero has trouble standing on its own due to a weaker
ending and quite a few plot holes thanks
to the reveals in Heaven-Sky. Before the release of Cho it was assumed Zero
saga was essentially retconned by Heaven-Sky, but thankfully this expansion
fixes the former saga for the most part.
Obviously
the new sagas were Love, Steel and Light. The Love saga is Hilko’s route and is
more character focused and has less action than the other sagas. I found it
entertaining since it brought in more character dynamic from the Balboran
Vanguard and giving more insight into Hilko’s character than we see in the
other sagas was interesting and had some payoff in seeing how she is when she
genuinely cares for another person. The only problem the Love saga has is it’s
basically a side story compared to the others thanks in part to it being
comparatively shorter and the ending comes off as a bit too hasty a wrap up and
its ignoring some major story elements from the other sagas is a tad off putting
even though I know it’s supposed to be a side story.
The
Steel and Light sagas are continuations of the Zero saga and like Heaven-Sky
the former is the main story and the latter is the epilogue/true ending. This
storyline does a good deal right in taking on the monumental task of fixing
what was the weakest saga in the original release. The all new heroine it
introduces, Clie, makes for a welcome addition to the game’s cast being both a
likable character and providing her own brand of humor that makes for a good
play on Yamato’s altruistic personality, especially with the context of how
he’s developed since the events of the Zero saga. It also helps that of the heroines she’s the
most badass and perhaps one of the few flaws of this saga pair is we don’t get
to see as much of her in action in the latter saga. This saga also does a good
job developing Rin as a character too as it gives her as much character focus
as Clie so it’s technically a shared route for them, though the only difference
in which of the two Yamato spends more time with is a couple of scenes.
So
basically we have two main continuities: Heaven-Sky and Zero-Steel-Light. The
former offers a traditional story of heroes while the latter focuses a tad more
on world building than that. Of the two it’s a tough decision but I’d say I
favor Heaven-Sky a little more since I find it to be a stronger conclusion
while Zero-Steel-Light leaves a couple minor things up in the air and a big
dramatic scene is a bit confounded by my wondering “wait, why didn’t they
just…?” at a couple parts of it. Other than that I can say both continuities
lead to overall satisfying conclusions and are well worth reading.
As for
any other flaws concerning plot, the only major one is the villains are just
okay. I’m not talking about the Vanguard as I don’t consider them villains, but
some characters that show up later. While not annoying or anything like that
(though I will admit one of them does toe the line at being too invincible)
there’s no real depth to these characters and really have no remarkable traits
aside from being the quintessential final boss for the heroes to defeat (though
I suppose you could argue Zero saga’s villain as an exception). Not that
there’s anything wrong with those kind of characters, it’s just that when all
the other major characters are so good they stick out like a sore thumb in
comparison.
In the
area of presentation Cho Dengeki Stryker hits it out of the ball park on every
front. The artwork is excellent with each character having their own unique
look, the CG perfectly capture the action of the scene they illustrate and look
like a good screen shot from an anime and so much of the design harkens back to
the anime/manga designs of the 90s that were greatly inspired by the 80s
anime/manga. That was probably intentional considering the vocalist for the
game’s opening themes is Masaaki Endoh whose done vocals for several anime, one
of the most well known being The King of Braves GaoGaiGar/Yuusha Ou GaoGaiGar
which CDS does seem to draw some design inspiration from. The rest of the music
is also really good in how well each tune captures the mood of their respective
scenes, and furthermore in the sound department the voice acting is top notch
with the vocal talent including Megumi Ogata who I’m sure many recognize as the
voice of Shinji from Evangelion, Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cookie from the Majikoi
games and Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho to name a few. Finally the animated scenes
are directed by Shinichi Watanabe director of anime like Excel Saga and Tenchi
Muyo! GXP and also did work on the aforementioned GaoGaiGar and while these
scenes may be reserved for the beginning and end portions of the game they’re a
great site to behold and honestly has me wishing for a full on anime for this
game (provided it’s a good adaptation of course).
As for
the ero scenes, assuming you decide to get the adult version, they’re…okay.
Haruna, Sayaka, and Hilko have theirs occur at a fitting late point in their
routes and the first two also get an extra one each that you can access from
the extras menu after clearing said routes and all of them are fine as ero
scenes. Rin and Clie’s are unlocked after clearing the Steel saga after making
the choices on which of the two to focus on respectively but their scenes
are…odd. In Rin’s case it reads like a second or third ero scene as it
references a previous scene we never see, while Clie’s is just strange and I’m
not exactly sure what the writer had in mind when writing it. The overall thing
is the scenes don’t really have much plot importance which I’m sure is why an
all ages release was possible.
In Conclusion:
Cho
Dengeki Stryker is a visual novel game that is well worth experiencing. It’s an
excellent superhero story filled with enjoyable characters supported by great
artwork, a phenomenal soundtrack with vocals from Masaaki Endoh, grade A voice
acting and well implemented anime scenes directed by Nabeshin himself (sorry no
cameos as far as I could find). While the game has its flaws they’re overall
minor ones and barely detract at all from the experience. In this entertainment
era of superheroes I can declare with certainty that Cho Dengeki Stryker is a
story that should not be missed.
Final Score: 8/10 Awesome
Author Recommendation: Buy it now.
You can buy the regular digital release here, the hard copy here or here (warning NSFW images on those links) and the all ages Steam edition here.
