Drive Girls Game Sample - PS Vita
36What do you think of when you hear of "Tamsoft"? Not familiar with them? I wouldn't be too surprised: while they were first put on the radar with "Battle Arena Toshinden", they remained incredibly niche for some time, developing a lot of budget and "Simple Series" titles. They're an interesting dev team with a few under-rated titles under their belt (some of which are featured on this channel including "Abalaburn", "Guardian's Crusade" and "Tokyo Beat Down") but later returned to the limelight with their "Zombie Hunter" (better known as "Onechanbara") and "Senran Kagura" series. If I had to describe Tamsoft with one word, it would be "Campy", but they have many titles in their portfolio -- most of the action variety.
Drive Girls is another action game from Tamsoft and is basically if you took a bit of "Transformers" and replaced the bots with anime girls, then took some of the fan-service of SK, threw in a little inventory system and the mob-clearing gameplay of Dynasty Warriors, then removed most of the good parts. Okay, while that sounds harsh, I can't stress this enough: DG does not have many redeeming qualities. For starters, let's go over the story real quick. The game stars a well-to-do young woman named Lanciera Revolution with a heart of gold who wants to make a difference in her city by becoming a member of the Emergency Response Team. Through a series of events, she misses her entrance exam but gets a "make-up" test where she is tasked with slaying monsters known as "Bugs". While reluctant, she passes with flying colors and is sent to Sun Isle, the combat headquarters of the mainland where she becomes an unwitting defender of justice known as a "Drive Girl". The game has little character development or plot and things kinda just go nowhere. There isn't even any backstory on the characters or setting in the digital manual, which is another red flag.
Granted, you don't buy a game like DG for its plot as provocatively-dressed women just turn into cars and strut around without anyone batting an eye, but considering scenes are numerous and longer than they have any right to be, they should have SOME substance. If this was the game's only problem, it could pass as mindless fun, but...nah. The game has extremely limited assets with only one or two CGs in the whole game, only about a half dozen enemy types not counting bosses (and some of the bosses are so lazy they need to be seen to be believed), almost no stage variety, worse controls than your average mob combat game, and even the game's fan-service is an afterthought. It also doesn't help that the audio/visuals are nothing to write home about, though the main character models are pretty good. The game is limited on features, although you can play "unique" multiplayer missions (same maps, different mobs or conditions) to grind for gears and "stickers" you can't get in the main game (you CAN do them solo, so that was at least one good move), and the game's equipment system is one of the few bright spots in the game as a whole.
Characters can earn credits and buy upgrades from the in-game shop or from finding them on levels, and besides offering obvious buffs, they give cosmetic differences to your characters in humanoid form and decals in car form. If you find the same item of each type, you can equip them as a set and get additional buffs to your characters. Each character requires their own gear, so keeping everyone updated requires considerable grinding, though you can clear most missions with attack buffs and recovery items which are rather generous. Each character also has minor variations in their combat abilities, though the game has gear to mostly tailor any character to your liking.
We've talked about the "Car" for a while now, but is it any good? Not really. It's required for a few brain-dead race missions and you can use it during normal missions, but it's not easy to control and if you get hit even once, you revert to humanoid form, not to mention obstacles often prevent you from cruising around anyway. You can spam your car's spin attack, but it's ultimately not worth exploring as the humanoid form is easily more versatile. You have to hold buttons to do charge attacks as well as change into a car and besides using the analogs, you need to use the d-pad to use items or (almost useless) guns. There is also a targeting system, but as the mobs are relentless, you will rarely be fighting one-on-one and you're better off flailing in the general direction of enemies, Musou-style. The camera also isn't great, and that's putting it nicely. Dashing has all of one invincibility frame, so you can't even weave in and out of skirmishes reliably. For a game this simple, the control scheme is convoluted. The only reason I can see for this is to frustrate players into the "obligatory clothing damage" system where characters become half-naked when in distress. It lasts for all of 1.5 seconds and then the monotony resumes without rhyme or reason.