Clicking the left shoulder button re-centers the camera on your character’s point of view in Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains … at least until you move again. You can also use the D-pad or the nubby C-stick on the New 3DS to rotate the camera with agonizing slowness. The few times I got grabbed by a Titan, it was either because I couldn’t get the camera positioned to actually see them or couldn’t see their attacks at all, which I’ll talk about in a minute.
If this title had been written for a console with a responsive left stick for the camera, it might have been easier. But the camera controls here create a fatal flaw in the 3DS game.
Above: Time to kill the Titans. Again.
It excels at repetitively repetitive repetition
Playing through the 42 missions of story mode requires you to take on the role of characters other than Eren about half of the time. Unfortunately, their gameplay exactly mimics Eren’s, as do the missions. Even the cutscenes are the same, with the exception of Sasha; hers focus on her love of food.
Humanity in Chains has just three settings: the city, the forest, and the plains. Those landscapes themselves are incredibly bland: a gajillion lookalike buildings, all with the same roof pitch and materials; a similar number of identical trees; and near-empty grassland. It hems you into an arena covering part of the landscape for each mission.
Above: You are in a city full of rooftops, all exactly alike…
About 90 percent of the gameplay is repetitive killing of Titans. The other 10 percent is split between annoying “collect item/revive human” tasks on the ground and races. You will use a few inventory items, including replacement sword blades, gas cylinders for your jets, and water to speed your healing.
You do get to play as a Titan in some missions (for a reason I won’t spoil here for people who haven’t watched the series), but that change only requires repeatedly pressing a single button to win. Races force you to zigzag between checkpoints in the air or on horseback.
All told, you’ll spend the half-dozen hours the story mode takes almost exclusively killing Titans in exactly the same way, hundreds of times.
Above: Zoom!! I’m speeding toward him! Wait, no I’m not. Wait, yes I– dammit.
Technical wonkiness feels unfair
AoT is fond of dramatically speeding up or slowing down your progress as you fly toward a Titan. Often, this happens during the QTE where you’re attempting to judge when to press the attack button for the second time to fire off a critical.
The dramatic zoom is great for effect — you really feel a little of the vertigo that a jet-assisted plunge toward a freaky giant would cause. But it can sometimes make it unfairly difficult to score a critical hit by abruptly speeding up your round target’s shrinkage just as you’re about to hit it.
It may also be partially responsible, in combination with the horrible camera, for another annoying issue: I almost never saw a Titan’s attack coming.
Most Titans lumber slowly. Yet somehow in most cases where I was caught by one, they managed to draw back their giant arms, slowly swing toward me, and grab me without my ever once seeing that they were moving. So much for that killer dodge I learned in the tutorial.
Using the handheld’s 3D settings exacerbate this problem and the speed up/slow down issue. I quickly abandoned any efforts to increase the depth, as 3D mode made the game nearly unplayable.
Above: If you’re caught in a Titan’s grip (as your teammate is here), you’re doomed to be eaten unless someone saves you.
World mode teases you
A few hours in, you’ll unlock world mode, which offers a hint of the complexity this game so desperately needs. Here you can create a new member of the Survey Corps with the items and components you’ve collected in Story Mode. You’ll set up a base, upgrade gear, recruit new followers and (if you wish) play with others online.
If this sounds like an obligatory nod to Monster Hunter, you’re right. Unfortunately, the system grows stale quickly, offering none of Monster Hunter’s depth or open gameplay. It features some of the more annoying elements of the Story mode, while offering no real variety in the types of missions you carry out.
Above: We’re as unhappy about this game as this guy.
Conclusion
There is so little original content in Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains that its full retail price feels like robbery.
Flying around on your ODM/jetpack gear feels terrific, but it’s marred by a horrible camera, terrible Titan A.I., and utterly repetitive gameplay. The World Mode offers too little content, too late.
Fans of the series will find nothing new here to entice them. While folks new to the anime will likely enjoy the music, cut scenes, and story, they’d be better off watching the actual show than playing this dreck.
Score: 20/100
Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains is now available for the Nintendo 3DS. The publisher Atlus provided GamesBeat with a download code for this review.