Release date: November 11, 2000
I guess I was expecting something a little different from this game. It's the only 3D title of the Patlabor series so far (discounting crossover games), but it feels like a retrace of steps from the SNES game to me.
First, it's nice to finally see the Labors in full 3D. The graphics are pretty good for its time, and movement feels good enough. The game is a mission-based game, just like the SNES game.
The story here is game-original. You play as a silent, nameless protagonist, who was just assigned to Vehicle Section 2. You'll pilot the Ingram Unit 3, which is a nice touch for fans. If you ever watched Patlabor, you may remember Section 2 actually received three Ingrams, but the third one was used as spare parts for the other two and also for tests. The other characters also participate (Noa and Asuma as Unit 1, Ohta and Kumagami as Unit 2), while your backup (your commanding officer), is the "heroine" of this game, a girl called Midori. Like you, she just arrived in Section 2.
One thing of note here is that the story is told through a "visual-novel" of sorts, between stages. And this is fully voiced, with some of the cast of the show. This is a huge bonus for fans. Not everyone could make it into the game, though: from the main cast, only Noa, Asuma, Ohta, Kumagami, Shige and Captain Goto participate. Kanuka Clancy and some other characters didn't make it in. Those segments last a few minutes each, but you can just skip them if you wish. There are no options to choose or anything.
The story is also told through in-game cutscenes, although those dialogues are faster. They can also be skipped if you so wish.
Staying true to the TV anime, after each mission, you get a newspaper clipping detailing your battle. Just like in the series, they're not very positive towards Section 2, since they just demolish everything in their way...
The plot here is sorta like the first movie: a scientist named Krishna created a virus that can control Labors remotely. He is voiced by Norio Wakamoto (Cell from Dragon Ball Z). At first you only get a few incidents with runaway Labors, but pretty quickly you start to get into battles where the enemy will actually attack you. And differently from the SNES game, some of them attack you with guns. If I remember correctly, three of the enemy Labor models can use guns.
Well, that's pretty much it for the plot. The game has 13 stages. The first stage is a training match where you fight against a Labor instructor, in which you both pilot Dorfans. Starting from the second stage, you get Ingram Unit 3, and keep it until the end. The villain Krishna uses a game-original Labor called Ganesha. It isn't a bipedal Labor, it actually looks sorta like a Tachikoma (from the Ghost in the Shell series). You also end up fighting the Griffon. This fight isn't really connected to the main TV series plot, they probably put it in just as fanservice. The final mission has you fighting a berserk Alphonse (Ingram Unit 1). It was a final victim of the virus released by Krishna, and it attacks Section 2. So of course you must stop it, all the while Noa is hurling insults at you for wrecking her Alphonse.
The other missions are just your run-of-the-mill filler stuff. One really weird mission is when Midori is trapped inside a rampaging Labor, so Captain Goto is your backup in that mission. He'll say stuff like "Do you really want to shoot? It's not like your partner's in there... oh wait", and he'll actually CONGRATULATE you for shooting the Labor. Just Goto being Goto.
Lastly, if you're wondering how the other characters participate, you can actually get one of the other Ingrams to help you briefly (it depends on who is with you in that mission). The other Ingrams just appear for one attack and leave, which I'll explain in the gameplay section below.
Now for the gameplay. When you first take control of your Labor, you'll think this will be an action game. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. You move your Labor around in the fully 3D environment, but your freedom stops there. To damage an opponent, you must actually initiate an attack on it, almost too much like in the SNES game. Almost.
The way attacks work is like this: you have a bar. Let's call it Grapple Bar. When this bar is full, you push O and your Ingram rushes towards the opponent in a straight line. If you connect with the opponent, the Ingram grapples with it, and you now enter a button QTE. Depending on which buttons you push, your Ingram does different attacks, building a combo that ends up knocking the opponent down. There's a timing to these QTEs, of course. If you miss the timing, the game gives your opponent a chance to counterattack, and you a chance to block this counterattack. You still take damage if you block, but it's pretty minimal.
And this is where the system grinds to a halt. Even a full combo will usually do minimal damage, specially to the later opponents, which means you must grapple with them as much as 10 times. And that's if you don't miss any of the combos. You must initiate the attack by grappling every single time. And that's... let's just say this gets old pretty fast.
You can also shoot your opponent with the Riot Cannon (the revolver that Ingrams use), but you only have 6 bullets. Also, you need to align the crosshairs to score a hit, or you'll just waste your bullets. The farther away the opponent is, the more erratically the crosshairs move. If you manage to score a hit, the opponent will be stunned for several seconds, during which you can just run up to them and grapple them.
There's another problem with this system, though.
You can only grab the opponent from the front. If you connect with them from the sides or the back, it'll just miss. No attack will be initiated. Usually opponents are willing to fight you (so they keep facing you), but a few are actively trying to run away from you, so this can become a pretty annoying issue. Also, if the enemy has already initiated an attack of their own, running at them will just earn you a slug in the face.
All that said, how do opponents attack you? Well, they have two methods: melee or ranged. Most Labors don't have guns, so they only have melee. The enemy Labor will walk up to you, an exclamation mark will appear on-screen, and the opponent attacks. If you don't move out of the way fast, the attack hits you. Some other Labors (Abrahams, Brocken and Ganesha) can attack you with their guns, and this is very dangerous. There's no warning that they'll shoot, so you must look at them and pay attention when they start it. Usually running to the sides avoids all their shots, so they're not impossible to dodge if you're paying attention.
Not everything is bad, though. The game has other nice gameplay elements. I just didn't like how your only attack options are so limited. Let's talk about those other elements.
The Ingram has an operational limit, just like in the anime, so you must pay attention that you don't run out of battery. It starts at 999 and decreases steadly, but it's not such an imposing time limit. Except for a single mission where you fight 2 Labors, every other mission is against a single opponent. One very nice touch here is that if you just stomp around buildings and vehicles, you get penalties based on how much damage was done - this penalty deducts a portion of your battery, and your teammates usually chastise you about it. I once went towards the Labor carrier, thinking it recharged my batteries just like in the SNES game, and ended up stepping on it. Whoops.
As you build combos, you'll see a bar being filled (bottom right on the three above images). This is your special move bar. When you get either a 50% or 100% full bar, you can use special combo finishers, which are highlighted in red letters. I didn't see all of them, but they usually play a pretty nifty cutscene. The ones I remember:
- Call Ohta: Unit 3 holds the enemy in place, Ohta appears in Unit 2 and shoots the enemy 6 times.
- Call Noa: same as above, but Noa appears in Alphonse and attacks the enemy with the baton.
- Call Noa: same as above, but Noa appears in Alphonse and attacks the enemy with the baton.
- Ippon Seoi Nage: a judo throw.
- RAM Unit Break: Unit 3 pierces the enemy armor and crushes their RAM unit.
- Gun Combo: the combo in the images above, where Unit 3 shoots the enemy lots of times.
- German Suplex: just what it says.
Usually special moves do a ton of damage (some do more than 1000 damage), but together with a full special bar, you must also follow a pretty specific combo path. See, this game has "combo paths", where some moves only come out if you do, let's say, use SQUARE, O, TRIANGLE as your first three attacks. Also, some moves are situational: first you must either go to the enemy's back ("AROUND" combo option), and then those options open up. For example, the German Suplex above can only be done if you do AROUND first. Other situations are knocking the opponent down with a leg sweep first, or grabbing the opponent with a choke.
One weird combo option that seems like it does nothing, is "ADV COMMANDER". What this does is make Unit 3 hold the opponent in a choke, and your backup (Midori or Captain Goto) will come forward and try to convince the enemy to give up. Of course, not every one of them can give up, but the ones that do, must be knocked down to 20% health first. And you still must win another QTE. If they're down to 10% health, it seems this option works better.
The controls are pretty simple here, since you don't really do a lot besides running around and grappling.
D-Pad: move in that direction
Down, Down: quick backstep
L1,R1: turn in that direction
X + D-Pad: run in that direction
O: grapple
R2/L2: pulls the Riot Cannon out. Now you must hold TRIANGLE to initiate the targetting, and finally push O when the crosshairs align.
X+L1 or R1: turns in that direction faster
Start: Pause
Well, that's it for this game. If you're a fan of Patlabor, grab this at least for the fanservice and Wakamoto's performance. The game is rather short, you can probably finish it in under 2 hours quite easily. I heard there's a demo of this game that was bundled together with some other game, and in that demo, the gameplay is a little different. I'll post about it when I get this demo.
If you're interested, I've posted a save game on GameFAQs. It has all the options unlocked, including infinite bullets and the grapple bar fills up faster.
The youtuber HellHound13th has a playthrough on his youtube channel. His playlist is here.
Can I play this without knowing Japanese?
Completely. You'll just miss out on the dialogue. There aren't any weird failure conditions like in the SNES game. You can just kick everyone's asses.
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