Operation Darkness

Metacritic, due to its out-of-context aggregation of review scores and summaries, is fairly misrepresentative. The meta-score for Operation Darkness, a strategy RPG for the XBox 360 from Success and Atlus, is 46, based on 22 reviews, of which only one is classed as Positive Green. Since publication several websites have closed, now resulting in dead links, and of the surviving reviews the majority condemn Operation Darkness based on lack of understanding (or failure to read the manual), factual inaccuracies, reviewer impatience and general pettiness. They are reflective of a wide-spread failure in games journalism, where unrealistic deadlines, high weekly page quotas and low wages encourage ridicule of games which don’t quite deserve it. Operation Darkness isn’t the greatest strategy-RPG, but it’s certainly worthy of your time and nowhere near as bad as it’s been described.

In many ways it plays like a cross between Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles and Camelot’s Shining Force series, perhaps with a bit of Fire Emblem thrown in too. The military setting might also imply comparison to Nintendo’s Famicom Wars series, but really they’re nothing alike – Operation Darkness has a strong focus on individual character development, rather than faceless grunts. The similarities to Valkyria Chronicles are worth particular mention, since quite a few online have described Operation Darkness as the X360’s nearest equivalent to Sega’s fantastic PS3 exclusive, and they’re not wrong.

Both are set in a fantastical re-imagining of Europe during World War II, and feature supernatural transformations as a central story and gameplay element. Both also contain unique field commands to be called in, individualized trait-enhancing character skills, new weapon purchases & acquisition, character levelling, plus specialization for snipers and bazooka-carrying tank busters. Play badly and there’s also permanent character death – oddly this was condemned in Operation Darkness, though barely mentioned in reviews of Valkyria Chronicles, despite being far stricter in the latter. Hell, there’s even an unavoidable cut-scene in both games where a main character is killed by a sniper, in addition to numerous other smaller similarities. Astonishingly Operation Darkness came out first, and Valkyria Chronicles was released a mere six months later in Japan, making direct influence unlikely. The two games also obviously differ hugely when it comes to their turn-based mechanics, with Valkyria Chronicles mixing in real-time movement and attacks, but Operation Darkness is honestly the closest Xbox 360-exclusive alternative you’ll find.

The one good point that the critics have universally praised is Operation Darkness‘s storyline, which sees centuries-old British werewolves team up with Van Helsing’s granddaughter, an H.P. Lovecraft character, Jack the Ripper, a descendant of Sir Lancelot, and Dr Frankenstein’s monster (collectively known as the Wolf Pack), to fight the Nazis who are teamed up with Count Dracula’s vampire henchmen (the Blood Clan) and are commanding legions of mages, skeletons, zombies, and towering dragons, all while mixing in real-life historical figures and events. Although Atlus’ localisation is a little dry, the game is very effective at blending reality with fiction, basing certain in-game battles around real events. For example at one point the Wolf Pack meets legendary German tank-commander Michael Wittmann, who is disgusted to find his commanders using reanimated corpses to fight.

The colorful roster of characters is one of the game’s high points and, contrary to what some reviewers have said, the European actors used for the voice work do a sterling job, with a diverse and absolutely appropriate range of brogues and lilts. Also, the cool thing with the werewolf characters is that when transformed, all of their stats receive a massive boost, allowing them to travel further, attack harder and receive considerably more damage. The downside is it’s temporary, and lasts only as long as their dwindling Martial Spirit supply (called MS, but basically MP). Since characters will automatically use restoratives when low on health, one trick is to give the wolves restoratives which refill both HP and MS simultaneously, thereby allowing for an almost indefinite transformation (assuming they receive plenty of damage).

Characters

During play each character on the maps receives a turn to perform moves. A list showing the order is displayed on the right of the screen (which can be toggled with Y to show a mini-map/radar). When a character receives their turn is based on their SPEED stat in conjunction with WEIGHT, which is based on all the gear they’re carrying, tallied up against the stats for all other characters on the map. An especially light and fast character is going to be able to perform two or even three moves before a slower, heavier character can act. This is a masterful set-up, since it forces you to prioritise the best equipment and work efficiently with the available tools – sure, you can load up a character with a bazooka and 10 spare rockets, but they’re going to be slow as hell. Hilariously on one of the most damning reviews of Operation Darkness, the writer tried to claim the game was glitched, and couldn’t make up its mind when to give him his turn, despite the system being clearly explained in the manual, quite obvious if you have even a basic grasp of physics (weight = slow), and is very easily manipulated for your own gains. A magic user like Cordelia needs no weapons, and with a weight of around 5 if you count restoratives, she can dance circles around the enemy. Also, if you run out of ammo you’re given the choice of dumping your gun – one good strategy is to bring weapons you intend to throw out, for example a bazooka to take out a single tank.

When the turn for a characters comes up you can move along the squared grid and then attack (or attack and then move), with movement range being based on stats and chosen skills, and attack range based on specific weapons. Alternatively you can sacrifice moving and attacking to cast a spell, which tend to have decent ranges and area attacks. A few critics complained they couldn’t move AND cast spells at the same time, which is a ridiculous argument – the game is easy enough as it is, and the ability to move while also casting devastating spells would have utterly broken it. The current dynamic works well. The third choice during a turn is to ignore the above and make use of the Cover system.

Even more significant than the game’s setting is the unique, exceptionally brilliant, and inappropriately named Cover system. It actually has nothing to do with taking cover from attacks, and is split between Cover Move, Cover Ambush and Cover Attack.

Cover Move: If you select Cover Move, you must then select another character on the field, and then a point you want the first to run to. When the secondary character performs an action, the first will then run to their pre-determined spot. While they won’t be able to attack, and won’t move until the second character acts, their movement range is increased. Basically: if Keith’s turn comes up, and you see that he’s too far away to engage the enemy, you can choose to have him move to a specific area after an enemy starts moving, or even have him following another member of the Wolf Pack. If there’s a lot of distance to cover, and the turn order shows every member of the Wolf Pack acting after each other, you can choose to have all of them Cover Move on the guy at the bottom of the list. While he’ll have to move normally, and therefore a shorter distance, everyone else will travel much further. In the above screenshot Herbert, and the yellow arrows pointing to him signify that there are several others waiting on his action before they move.

Cover Ambush: Set a character to Cover Ambush and they sacrifice both moving and attacking for that turn, but they will then attack every single enemy who moves and is within range. The downside is that attacks done will only be 1/3 their regular strength, while if they’re attacked they’ll receive 125% damage and stop ambushing (sometimes it’s actually worth attacking your own troops to knock them out of ambush mode prematurely). Also, if an enemy casts a magic spell, such as the Magiers, they won’t actually be ambushed, since it only seems to work for enemy movement and weapon attacks. If you put someone like Cynthia in Ambush mode she’ll be able to dominate the entire map with sniper rifle, which is important when you consider…

Cover Attack: If a character sacrifices their move and attack for that turn, they can be put in Cover Attack, which basically means every single time another character attacks an enemy they’ll join in, assuming they’re in range and have ammo, at 100% normal strength. This in conjunction with Cover Ambush shows not only how masterfully crafted the strategy of Operation Darkness is, but elevates it to genius. If you place one sniper on Ambush mode, and then several others on Cover Attack, it’s possibly to sit back and watch as every enemy that moves gets cut to pieces by three, four, or even all 10 members of your squad.

Obviously there are shortcomings to this, since small arms won’t affect vehicles, and getting attacked while in these modes will cancel them and give you more damage. Plus if your Ambush guy gets cancelled, the remaining characters will just stand there until their next turn comes up (you can have multiple people in Ambush mode). But generally most of the maps are built around taking advantage of this system, which is something unique and not really seen in other strategy RPGs. There are group team-up moves in some games, such as Agarest, but not on quite such a wide-reaching and cohesive scale. While Operation Darkness warrants comparisons to Chess, with its grid-like layout and individualised characters, in terms of functionality the Cover system puts it perhaps closer to the East Asian board game known generally as Go (or igo, weiqi and baduk).

With Go it’s all about control of territory as represented by areas cordoned off by either black or white pieces, or in some cases early in the game controlled entirely by a single piece in an important position. Astute players anticipate the shifting of territories as single pieces are placed in positions which can later be linked up. So it is similar with Operation Darkness, where the maps are arguably the biggest ever featured in a strategy RPG. They vary, but on some (such as Mission 24), they’re 120 by 120 squares, amounting to a total of 14’400 positions on the field. With such open geography there’s little opportunity for choke-points or bottlenecks, and instead success is based around interpreting the map as areas of territory, as defined by a character’s movement and attack ranges, and the protection afforded by buildings and ruined vehicles in-between. Two snipers in the middle of an area, perhaps protected on one side by a destroyed tank and set to Ambush and Attack, will pin-down all infantry across vast sections of map, allowing other characters to move within rocket range and eliminate remaining vehicles or the equally resilient skeletons. Additionally you can control an area by moving someone, such as Keith in werewolf form, directly into enemy range, knowing he will attract and absorb all enemy attacks. This is also a good tactic if you’ve foolishly moved a weaker character ahead and they’re getting pummeled, but aren’t due for another turn for a while.

Operation Darkness features a genuinely well thought out and well balanced strategic system, with an expertly defined set of tools and equipment, where every choice of tactics or weapons or spells feel meaningful. This brings us back to that Metacritic score of 46, and the many negative reviews it’s received.

The universally raised criticism is the awful camera. It’s over-sensitive, refuses to pass through physical obstructions, and is generally unwieldy. There’s no denying it, the camera is not good, though considering that this is basically a glorified version of Chess or Go, it’s annoying but not really a game breaker. Besides which, the game makes things easy by giving you a mini-map/radar, displaying all characters and key obstructions, in addition to letting you cycle through enemies with LT/RT and your own characters with LB/RB. There’s little need even to navigate the map since it’s much quicker after choosing an attack, to cycle through the enemies in a few seconds and note the HIT% you have for each.

Another criticism is the difficulty. Overall it’s a fairly easy strategy game if you’re tactically inclined. Some places online and even the official guide have made a big commotion about how there is only a finite supply of items to buy from the in-game depot, which is only sometimes restocked during story missions. The implication being that every bullet missed is one you’ll need come the end game, and that it’s possible to end up in an unwinnable situation. In reality, you can waste a tremendous amount, as there will be a ton available by the end game, as long as you only buy and equip what you need, being extremely generous but not silly with it.

Related to this are criticisms about the items themselves, and how many you can carry. Some weapons can’t be bought from the depot unless you’ve played the online multiplayer mode – which is actually pointless, since all of them can be found in abundance by looting dead bodies. So don’t worry about it, everything can be acquired playing offline. The looting of enemy bodies is actually an intrinsic part of the game, since not only can you find extra scraps of ammo or meds, but some nice equipment too. So it’s sad to find that some reviewers bitched about being limited to carrying only 5 weapons and 5 support items, ignoring the fact that carrying too much weighs you down. A major component of strategy games is managing resources, and 5 items per character is ample. Some of the most exciting moments in Operation Darkness are when you run out of rockets or medkits, and scramble to a fallen enemy to make use of their own gear. The game is actually very generous with loot drops, and it encourages you to enter battle with the minimum and then wage a guerrilla war, stealing as you go, because if you wade in with a full pack you’re going to lose turns. Personally, I clocked over 30 missions using around a hundred Stielhandgranate, all of which were looted. There’s a fantastic trio of missions right before the final mission, where you can’t resupply between them, meaning all you’ve got is what you carry in and everything else is OSP (On Site Procurement). Timid players might be frightened at reading this, but rest assured that if you’ve been playing intelligently up to this point you should be ready to handle it, and besides which, you’re still able to save between missions, so it’s thrilling yet painless.

A further criticism, related to equipment, is that like Valkyria Chronicles you don’t know what you’re up against until you’re in the field, which can make preparation a matter of guesswork, or restarting a mission. There is merit in this argument, but it’s also something that happens with many other, highly praised strategy titles. Almost every story mission in Valkyria Chronicles featured something unpredictable. In fact something championed in many games is the element of surprise, when you’re required to adapt to a changing situation. Besides, werewolves with rockets, rifles for the snipers and a few weaponless magicians is usually a good bet regardless. Furthermore the argument is ultimately redundant, because even if it bluntly described what you’d initially encounter, almost all missions in Operation Darkness feature waves of reinforcements after a set number of enemies are dispatched. Some of the most exhilarating moments are when you encounter a third wave of skeletons or tanks with no ammo in your guns and no meds in your backpack, forcing you into a climactic rush to loot a few spare Panzerfaust rockets and Morphine before the enemy’s turn comes round. As mentioned earlier the loot drops, though random, are rather generous, so scavenging among the dead has an empowering feel to it. Inevitably though there are those who dislike unpredictability in their games, in which case they should just use a guide. With knowledge of where enemies will appear it’s possible to set-up Ambush and Attack before they even arrive, making the game obscenely easy and slightly pointless.

Then there’s the permanent character death, which adds tension, encourages careful planning, and makes victory all the sweeter. However, permadeath in Operation Darkness is mostly easy to avoid. Every character can be equipped with skills which can be levelled up, such as Detect Weakness which increases the damage% of gun attacks; or Guard, which allows you to reduce damage by half; or a variety of MS based skills which increase total MS, increase MS strength in addition to cost, or another which reduces overall cost. The #1 essential skill is Auto Recovery, which fundamentally changes how Operation Darkness is played, and in itself is a revolutionary idea for the genre. If a character is attacked and their HP drops below 20% they automatically use a restorative, starting with the weakest. Basically this gives you additional health bars, up to 5 if you so choose, and allows you to take massive damage repeatedly, even a tank round in the face, without dying. The game is designed around exploiting this.

However, in the event that you send a weak character into enemy territory while short on restoratives and they get killed, you can revive them using Herbert. His range is pretty good so you don’t have to get too close, and it’s quite cheap so you can do it a few times before needing an MS restorative. It’s also much more lenient than Valkyria Chronicles, where if a character goes down they will permanently die if an enemy touches their fallen body, or three turns pass. In Operation Darkness you have until the end of a mission to deal with it, regardless of how long it takes or how many enemies run over your comrade. Even then, what if Herbert dies? Well, focus on keeping Herbert safe, because he’s the only one who can sort things out when it goes awry.

Having said that, there is one legitimate criticism regarding character deaths, and that’s the fact Gallant, Cordelia and Edward are all essential story characters who aren’t allowed to die, not even a little bit. If they fall it’s instant Game Over. They’re unlikely to die as a result of getting attacked, as long as you equip enough medkits, but any character touched by a vehicle dies instantly. This can make levels with tanks a bit tricky. It makes sense if you complete the mission and a story character is dead – then you should be forced to restart. But it’s a bit unfair to have Gallant run over by a tank and not be given the chance to let Herbert revive him, especially if his turn is up next. One solution would have been to put the game into “danger mode”, where a klaxon sounds and you’re instructed to revive them before the mission ends. As it stands, be sure to keep these three away from vehicles. Everyone else can die and be resurrected by Herbert without worry, though.

A lot has also been said about the graphics and animation. They are pretty low tech, considering the hardware, though everything has its own distinct, stylized look. It’s not water colors like Valkyria Chronicles, and it’s not anime like Disgaea, but it’s got an unusual flavor. It’s the same with the camera problems: this is a turn-based strategy game, and there’s little need for dynamic lighting, detailed textures, or delicately crafted polygon models. They’re functional with a distinct look, and that’s fine. The colors can be a little drab at times, and an injection of intensity could have made it look better, but the visuals are not a game breaker.

Having said all of the above, there are some issues to raise against Operation Darkness. One is the Valhalla Reports – from Mission 13 onwards a random member of a specific enemy type on each map carries 1 of 12 Valhalla Reports; the enemy type is always the same, but which specific enemy is randomized, and there is no hint who carries it. If you collect all 12 reports by looting the appointed soldier, you unlock 20 bonus missions called The Eagle’s Nest, accessible after completing Mission 26. Devoid of scenery or story, they’re all about pure tactics and are a great place to level up. These stages comprise roughly 1/3 of the game’s overall content: in addition to 27 Story Missions and 15 Armed Recon missions, which are basically there to earn EXP and some bonus skills. So the Eagle’s Nest is pretty substantial in terms of quantity, and yet it can easily be missed. And you can’t replay story missions, so if you miss one page, that’s it.

The problem with this scenario is that between Missions 13 and 24 you’re always scrambling from one corpse to another hoping to stumble on it. Most of the time you end up wiping out all enemies but one, and then have to run around Benny Hill style while the sole survivor gives chase. You also have to make sure to cancel all Ambush and Attackers, because otherwise when he moves he could get killed and end the mission before finding it. The whole concept sucks, since it cripples the strategy by forcing you to divert your attention. It would have been better if they’d given you a clue as to who carried it, or made the Eagle’s Nest unlockable via some other means. For secret characters like Max it’s no so bad, since if you miss him it’s just a small percentage of gameplay, but 20 missions is a bit excessive to lose out on.

Another problem, which Valkyria Chronicles rather elegantly solved, is balanced levelling for characters. Sega opted to grant universal EXP after mission completion which could be spent on character classes at the training camp – meaning, for example, every sniper could be levelled up as a whole. With Operation Darkness you have to level each of the 11 main characters individually by using them. This is a terrible system for casual strategy players who rely on strong characters, since it leaves weaker ones like Herbert under-levelled and unused. There is a concession though, in that simply attacking with a character will grant EXP, regardless of if they kill the enemy. It’s quite possible to have a low-level character with a bazooka do only a fraction of damage to a tank, but shoot up three levels in doing so. The advice here is be smart when managing characters: if a strong and a weaker character both have a turn coming up, have the strong guy loot bodies or something, while the weaker one pulls off the kill shot and the big EXP. If you can’t manage that, just grind your weaker guys in the Armed Recon missions. Oh, and don’t bother with the generic recruits, except for a single female to act as Ambush spotter and looter, since if the generics do any heavy lifting you’re just wasting the EXP.

Relating to the difficulty is the fact you can’t save mid-mission, unlike with Valkyria Chronicles. Admittedly with battles lasting around 45 minutes each, and some towards the end topping the one hour mark, it would be nice to have a sleep function – perhaps a temporary save that deletes itself after you load it, similar to how Shenmue did it.

Further niggles include the music, which is generic, tuneless and utterly forgettable. Then there’s the fact there’s an Achievement which encourages you to rush through in 35 hours, when really you’re looking at around 60 hours for an enjoyable play through. Please ignore this and just enjoy the game at your own pace – rushing for a fictional medal will only ruin the experience. Finally, there’s no post-game content, unlike Valkyria Chronicles, though you can still mess around in the Armed Recon and Eagle’s Nest missions.

 

Operation Darkness has some issues, but it’s still a pretty good strategy game. In the wake of Valkyria Chronicles, and other strategy games later in the generation like the rebooted X-Com, it surely has some visual and and UI issues, plus some other odd and annoying design choices that the other games don’t. Still, it doesn’t quite deserve the reputation it has, and as long as you can put up with its quirks, it’s still worth looking into to.

It never received a PAL release, so Europeans are out of luck unless they import an NTSC-U system. Given the scorn poured on it by the press, it’s little surprise no one wanted to release it in Europe. The Japanese release meanwhile, for those with Japanese 360s, apparently has English subtitles for the Japanese dialogue, if your system’s internal language is set to English (according to feedback comments on Play-Asia). Keep in mind this text was not translated by Atlus, so will differ from the US release.