Title: God Wars: Future Past
 System: PS4, PSVita
 Price: $49.99
 Release Date: 06/20/2017
(Special Thanks to NIS America for providing the Review Copy)

Published by NIS America, God Wars: Future Past is a tactical RPG that has an old-school feel which will have fans of Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactic Ogre titles feeling right at home. However, God Wars: Future Past does not follow a medieval theme, but rather a tradition Japanese folklore.

Story

God Wars: Future Past takes place in the ancient land of Mizuho, with three nations: Fuji, Izumo, and Hyga. A princess has been sacrificed in order to keep peace with the nations with another princess, named Kaguya, waiting to be sacrificed. Kaguya is saved by a young man named Kintaro and his furry friend Kuma. Together, they set forth on a journey to find  Kaguya’s mother and discover why Kaguya was left to be sacrificed. I won’t go too deep into the story, but I can say it is a damn good one; not to mention it has some of the most memorable characters I have seen in a tactical RPG to date.

Visuals

The art style of the whole game looks amazing, especially the cut scenes. When starting the game, you are introduced to the story by blazing into the gorgeous looking manga style story panels, then right into some grade “A” anime cut scenes. Not only that, you transition over straight into the 3D grid based environments for battle. Most of the 3D models look nice, but something to mention is that the enemies start to lose their identity and start looking the same after you make your way though tons of battles, unless you end up fighting a boss. They look outstanding!

Gameplay

During most of the game players will find themselves playing battles, which is the best part of God Wars: Future Past. The battles are turn based, and the order of each character relies on their individual stats. This, and the leveling up system, is what fans of the older tactical RPG titles will really enjoy.

Leveling up character stats and move set is job-based feels similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. Each character will have jobs, or classes, where they gain “Job Points” to be used in each “job’s skill tree” for gaining new abilities.  Each character is allowed a main job and sub-job that players can change at anytime, but they are also assigned a unique job which cannot be switched and is specifically for that character. With the three jobs selected, players can mix and match skill sets and abilities to fit each character during battles. The drawback to this option is that any acquired class skills are not usable during battle unless that character has that job set as main or sub. I found the this as the most addicting part of the whole game. Feeling like I had an attachment to my characters and knowing I built them the way I wanted was very rewarding because of the time I spent figuring out which characters I wanted to be in the front line and who will defend, or heal.

God Wars: Future Past took me back to the roots of the tactical RPG’s that I loved while I was growing up, and I will say I recommend this title to anyone who is a fan of the older Tactic games, so pick this up as soon as you can! For new players, this is a great title to see if you like the genre. As for my score on the title, I give God Wars: Future Past an 8 out of 10.