Well, as many of you don’t know, I own 8 Japanese video games for the PSP, and one for the PS3. Today I’m going to talk about To Aru Majutsu no Index, the GAME. I bought it off of PlayAsia. Why? BECAUSE TO ARU MAJUTSU NO INDEX RULES THE WORLD.

Here’s the rundown of the game… It has 6 different story modes. The first 5 are the main ones. Those story modes are Touma Kamijou, Accelerator, Kaori Kanzaki, Sasha Kruezhev, and Shizuri Mugino (who has not been introduced to the anime yet). Each story take like… 10 minutes. Really short. Think that more will be unlocked? Hahahaha… You’re wrong. It’s only those characters. So Mikoto Misaka who is a main character, does not get a story, or a firm place in any other story. Neither does Kuroko Shirai (the most ignored character in the game, possibly), Stiyl Magnus… It continues. But the stories do not. In total, story mode is only around 2 hours of gameplay. Here are the rundowns of the stories…

Touma Kamijou

 

The CG for Touma's route. And it's NOT OF TOUMA!

This story is an abridged version of the first anime series. You know the drill… Stiyl, then Mikoto on the bridge, then Accelerator to save the Sisters, and then the weird thing: They introduce the Kazakiri arc for less than a minute (less than a second, actually), and then SKIP THE ENTIRE THING. Well, that’s of course because Sherry Cromwell is not included in this game. It skips to season two (whoo!), where you fight Oriana Thompson. And then it skips WAAAAAAY ahead to the battle with Aqua of the right. (wait, what?!) That hasn’t even been introduced in the anime yet! So, for me, who’s never read the novels and just reads wiki articles, I’m like, “Whoa, that was out of nowhere.” And then… IT ENDS. Yup. That’s it. No climactic friendship scene or anything. That’s it. And then the other 4 stories are opened to you.

Kaori Kanzaki

 

Kaori and Itsuwa in Kaori's route.

Kaori is doing something for Amasashiki, along with Itsuwa, a minor character in the anime as of now. They then find something fishy afoot, and fight Stiyl, a dummy for the English Church! I’m sorry, I don’t remember much, I kinda spaced out during everything. I couldn’t care less about Kaori. Except her love-life with Stiyl (IT WILL HAPPEN).

 

Accelerator

 

HONEY! That's my boyfriend over there! See?! He's not lolicon, what are you talking about?!

Ladidadida, Accelerator and Last Order are outside together. THEN! Suddenly, Mikoto Misaka wants revenge. Not caring, he beats the ever-loving crap out of her. Noooooos~ Oh well. And so! They continue, only to meet up with Tsuchimikado and Touma. Flashback! Accelerator wants REVENGE. So, he beats Tsuchimikado and Touma to a bloody pulp. Wait, was our main character this weak?! It’s actually kind of funny.

Touma: No way… (THUD!)

I know I laughed. DID YOU? BUT THEN. LE GASP! Last Order is kidnapped by an unknown person. I WONDER WHO IT COULD BE?! Why, of course, it’s the bad guys, Kihara (just introduced to anime) and Shizuri (not yet introduced). I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED. Bad guys kidnapping, come on! Well, of course Accelerator has to save his little sister (NO LOLICON, ACCELERATOR IS MY BOYFRIEND, PAWS OFF!), and Tsuchimikado somehow revives himself and offers to help save Last Order. And so they run the path of youth! No, but really, they reach Shizuri, who has a superior complex (is that a complex?) so she has to defeat every single other esper ranked higher than she is.  Accelerator beats her too. Then, he runs to find Last Order, ONLY TO BE BETRAYED BY TSUCHIMIKADO. Well, sorta. Tsuchimikado uses the betrayl to Accelerator to find out where Kihara was. AND SO THEY DO. So, after beating the ever-loving crap out of Tsuchimikado (AGAIN), Accelerator approaches Kihara, Last Order kicks Kihara in the nads, and so the battle begins…! Not. For some weird reason, Kihara is avaliable in the character roster, but you can’t use him in battle, so of course you can’t fight him. Oh but before that, you fight Fuse Kazakiri, even though Kazakiri is still sane in battle. Well! You get the beat the crap out of Kazakiri, so who cares?!

 

Sasha Kruezhev

 

The CG from Sasha's story mode. She smiles?!

FIRST! Let me say that Sasha’s story route has TWO CG! A new record! It’s…! It’s…!

…A rock.

Yes. That’s right. A ROCK. But not just ANY rock! This rock is special! It’s called “Tenshi no Namida”, or “Angel’s Teardrop”. It has great power, and so Sasha, along with her hired help, Oriana Thompson, have gone to Academy City to recover the artifact and bring it back to the Russian Holy Church. HOWEVER! There are obstacles in the way of this mission.

“…This is my first question, but what kind of obstacles do you imply?” Well, that’s a good question, Sasha! Or Misha. I don’t know anymore. Anyway, the first obstacle is the British Orthodox Church. Kaori and Stiyl demand the stone be left to them and brought back to their church. However, Sasha won’t deal with that. So she fights them, and wins. Yays! Next, um… I think she meets up with Kihara and Mugino, who are of course, determined to keep the stone away from the hands of the church(es)(chicken)(tee hee). After a few other random battles between the Sisters (the Misaka clones), Sasha (I keep wanting to call her Natasha) gets the stone, but Oriana and her realize that the stone has been altered by Academy City, which is what they had feared from the beginning. Nevertheless, they take the stone with them. Sasha is last seen in the story calling back to Russia, smiling.

 

Shizuri Mugino

HOLY CRUD, THIS BITCH IS CRAZY!

Mugino starts out with Kihara. Kihara explains that he has a special project planned, and that she should beat up all the Level 5′s in Academy City. Of course, she gladly agrees, so Kihara gives her one of the Sisters as her partner. First, she meets Touma, a level 0. She beats him up, and then all hell breaks loose. All the girls in love with Touma start coming after her! First, Mikoto, of course, and Kuroko and her one-time appearance (Too little!). Next, Kaori and Itsuwa. Then just about everybody else. Finally, she meets up with Accelerator, who is utterly confused! Mugino takes the chance to fight with him and win. Finally, after all the level 5′s are gone, Kihara reveals his true plan… To use Mugino as a vessel for his plan (which was far too complicated to understand). When she refused, he set Fuse Kazakiri on her. Once again, you enjoy the pleasure of beating up Kazakiri! Yays! And so crazy Mugino is free to roam the streets once again.

THE FINAL BATTLE

 

B-But I don't want to leave!!! Don't kill me!

Yes, after 2 hours of repetitive gameplay, the game is ending. This one’s a little complicated, so I’ll do my best to explain. Basically, Academy City is the present. You, the “Blue Player”, are in the past. The “Red Player”, or your opponent, is from the future. Controlling the characters in the game, you fight for what you believe in. However, the Blue Player, you, never wanted to control people for your own means. In a few final battles, you decide the fate of Academy City. First, your players are Touma and Index (geh!). Next, it’s Touma and Mikoto (yays!). Finally, it’s a one-on-one battle, Touma versus Accelerator. Before the final battle begins, Touma tells you that he believes in you. He tells you that he’ll let you control his body one last time to win. Once you win, you ask Touma to use his Imagine Breaker to send you back to the past. Touma wavers, not sure he really wants to send you back. After all, you’ve become a true friend (aw). However, you insist to go back, saying this isn’t your time, and you can’t meddle any longer.

“See you.” Touma waves as he sends you off.

THE END!

Review

I’m tired, so I’m going to make this short.

Good points:

Fluid, Tekken-styled fighting game.

Good basic 3-D design.

Great voice acting!

Inserted esper abilities into battle

IT’S TO ARU MAJUTSU NO INDEX, DAMMIT!

 

The bad points:

3-D faces look like they plastered a cheap, screenshot mask onto characters.

Kuroko’s limit break is almost impossible to activate on magic users.

Guarding is nearly impossible.

A few characters who should have been included were not.

Kihara has no fighting ability

VERY, VERY SHORT.

Lack of change-in lines (when one character calls to another) in the voice bank.

Lack of character interaction.

Little CG at all.

Touma’s story felt recycled.

The fast-foward crap is not fun. AT ALL.

No walking around Academy City, which would have been fun.

 

As an extra, here are some of the 3D CG of the characters!

Mikoto Misaka

 

Summer uniform.

Winter Uniform

Touma Kamijou

 

Summer uniform

Winter uniform