The Caligula Effect: Overdose (Switch) – Review

PhantomZ2 heads out with the Go-Home Club to escape from the Mobius in The Caligula Effect: Overdose for Nintendo Switch. Great thanks to NIS America for sending us a review code!

It’s me, PhantomZ2, with another review and another JRPG, The Caligula Effect: Overdose, a strategy JRPG developed by FuRyu and historia? Or historia? (I can’t really tell because the game says Furuyu and historia, the website just says FuRyu, but the Wikipedia page says the original game was developed by Aquria.) However, it’s published by NIS America, so you know I’m all over that. Originally released as just Caligula in Japan and The Caligula Effect in America on the Vita (sleep well old friend), The Caligula Effect: Overdose remakes the original title with Unreal Engine 4. Now that I’m looking at it, the original Vita version doesn’t look too bad. Alright, so let’s see if The Caligula Effect: Overdose on the Switch is not only superior to the original game, even though I’ve never played it, but is generally a good game that you should purchase! Thanks to NIS America for sending us a review code! However, let me state something really quick: I have not finished this game. It’s a JRPG and I’m still a full-time student, even with me playing in portable mode, I don’t have the time to beat what’s probably a really long game in just a few days.

Story:
So, what’s the story of Caligula Overdose? Uhhhhhhh, so basically this virtual idol, μ (pronounced Mu), has created a virtual world called Mobius that is meant to be a utopia. People, or more like these high school students, don’t have to worry about growing into adults or the stress and issues of real life. A group of students under the school club, the Go-Home Club, want to return to the real world and their real lives, ya know, so they can actually have a life to live. However, that’s not so easy as this world is infested with Digiheads – those within the Mobius that are brainwashed and taken over by their own faults and want to stop you from escaping this world.

As the protagonist, your objective is to get out of Mobius. However, that’s clearly not going to be easy when you can’t fight and are trying to do it alone. That’s where Aria comes in. She’s a virtual doll that had also created the world with μ (I think), but now wants to stop her because that chick is crazy. So how is she going to help us out? Well, remember those Digiheads? They exist because they were taken over by their faults. Aria uses the faults of the Go-Home Club members and stabilizes them, by making them “Gooooooo liiiiiiiiiive” so they can fight: this is called the Catharsis Effect. And yes, she kinda says that every time a member of the Go-Home Club activates their Catharsis for the first time. Speaking of the Go-Home Club, here are some of the members: Shogo Satake is a 3rd-year student and the President of the Go-Home Club, and he literally has no problem with headbutting some chick he just met. Kotaro Tomoe is a noisy, trouble making student, but he’s also very protective of his friends (think Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 3). Kotono Kashiwaba is a charming 3rd-year student who was able to activate their Catharsis pretty easily. And lastly, for the sake of time, Mifue Shinohara – a cheerful and athletic 1st-year student.

However, μ isn’t the only antagonist of this game. Remember when I said μ is a virtual idol? So this game is kinda like other VOCALOID inspired titles such as Kagerou Project or Shuuen no Shiori, but this time music producers are actually part of the story, where they’re known as the Ostinato Musicians. They include OSTER Project as Sweet-P, Mirei as cyoucyo-P, and a new character named STORK, who’s based on Deco*27, the composer behind “Mozaik Role.” These guys and more are trying to crush the Go-Home Club in their efforts to go home. Can you make it through and return back to reality?

Throughout the game, characters will, of course, develop as the story unfolds, but Caligula also attempts to organically develop the cast through its WIRE mechanic. Text the other characters or NPCs and talk to them to grow your friendship and receive items you can equip to increase your stats. It’s too bad the dialogue repeats very quickly and gets boring and uninteresting very, very quickly. In fact, the story in general (from what I’ve played) isn’t well presented. You’re just thrown into the world and kind of expected to learn as things continue forward, but it gets annoying because you don’t know what’s going on or why. This is especially egregious as Caligula doesn’t grant you full control over your character until you’re 40 minutes into it, preventing you from freely walking around and fighting until then. Cut-scenes go on for so long because of an abundance of dialogue, but I can’t skip it because if I do then I won’t have any idea what’s going on. Actually, I still have no idea what’s going on because I’ve been using the game’s website to actually help me with explaining some of the story because the game itself still has me confused.

Gameplay:
Caligula Overdose’s gameplay involves traveling through dungeons in order to get to the areas that progress the story. Now although the first area of the game – a high school – may not seem like a dungeon, the way it’s mapped out is very much like one. However, due to the aesthetic of the area looking very mundane for this first dungeon, I got confused and lost because everything looks alike – even with the help of a map. There wasn’t a lot of defining set pieces that set one area apart from another.

Traveling is only the first part though, let’s get into battles. Digiheads will be walking around the dungeons, and you can initiate battle by kicking them with the B button. Alternatively, a battle will ensue if they spot you because you were too close to them. However, you can literally just sneak around some of them (even ones that are meant to be guarding items) just by sticking to the wall. Anyways, we’ve got to actually fight them in order to progress through the game. Caligula’s battle system – called the Imaginary Chain – is actually very fun. Battles take place within a small arena of the actual dungeon, so the flow from a battle into the dungeon is pretty seamless. Once you’ve selected your skill to attack with, or even if it is a defensive skill, you can actually time the action of your skill and see what your opponents will also be attacking or guarding with so you can act accordingly. Now of course, if things just went together that easily, then this game would always be on easy mode. Like every other game, you need to make sure your stats are ready for battle so you not only hit hard but can take hits and ensure your attacks don’t miss. Also, remember how you can talk to people and grow your bonds with them? Well, with the Causality Link, you can talk with and befriend students getting them to join your party as your bond grows closer. With over 500 students to talk to, your goal to go home isn’t that far away.

Although this battle system is in fact very interesting, it gets tiring very, very quickly. With Digiheads constantly walking around in high amounts and with a very quick re-spawn after you traveled back to a pretty distant save point, you’ll find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. And with the constant repetitive music within the first dungeon that seems like it never ends, I grew tired and exhausted, especially because of this game’s presentation.

Presentation:
Now although I haven’t referred much to Caligula’s original Vita version, I will for this section as the presentation for Overdose changed a lot from its initial form to this remake. To start off, let’s talk about the UI because it’s easier. The original Vita version had a huge sense of personality owing to the strength of its UI presentation, even if I may not be able to speak on how much easier it is to navigate through. Conversely, I think the remake’s UI is very clear cut and straight to the point, but so much so that it doesn’t have a lot of identity or personality to it.

In terms of the overall look of the game, the Vita again just looks better overall. The artwork of the characters, in general, is pretty damn amazing, but the way they translate into 3D within the remake is laughably bad. Their faces look unfinished and lack a lot of emotion, looking super pale and malnourished within the school’s lighting but alive and vibrant within the 2nd dungeon. The textures for them seem to be low quality as well, but I don’t actually know anything about that so take that with a grain of salt. Now, that doesn’t mean the Vita version IS better. Through looking at the footage, the Vita version definitely chugs in a lot of places – but in some areas, the Switch version suffers some slow down as well. Actually, through the animated cut-scenes, the Vita and Switch versions both look bad, but with the scenes that were added in the remake, it almost makes me question what was the point of adding them if they’re still going to look like this.

The music, as I stated earlier, is very repetitive within the first dungeon alone. “Peter Pan Syndrome” as composed by 40mP and sung by the voice actor of μ, Reina Ueda, will get very annoying and ingrained into your head very quickly. It also kind of sucks because I normally don’t like 40mP’s music and I really wish that wouldn’t end up affecting what I think of the game’s music. However, I do love the tracks “Tokimeki Reverie” and “Love Scope” as composed by OSTER Project and Deco*27. One of the first songs you’ll also hear is μ’s theme, “Orbit,” as composed by mikitoP who is already one of my favorite VOCALOID music producers. Although the vocals that are with the track isn’t amazing, the music itself is pretty good. I encourage you to listen to mikitoP’s music as he makes some pretty great tunes and has a wonderful singing voice himself. In fact, I encourage you to listen to Caligula’s soundtrack in general. It may be repetitive when playing the game, but I think it’s pretty diverse and will be one that many VOCALOID fans will enjoy listening to.

Final Verdict:
Damn, I guess I really didn’t have too many compliments to give to Caligula Overdose. It’s not a bad game, but in terms of graphical quality the remake gives off a very half baked feel. The gameplay is fun but repetitive and the music can be good but is also repetitive. Maybe as I continue to play the game on my own time, I’ll become accustomed to it, but that still doesn’t change what the quality of the game actually is. I wouldn’t say to not buy the game, definitely give it a chance if it’s something you think you’ll enjoy. However, I think the game taking the visuals of the original Vita version and combining it with the remake’s battle system would’ve been better. As for the story, maybe watch the anime instead?

I’ll be giving The Caligula Effect: Overdose, 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Once again, thank you to NIS America for sending us a review code. Like always, thanks to our patrons and our Super Patron, The Duke of Dorks, for supporting us. Also, thanks to Cart Boy for looking over the script for me. This has been PhantomZ2 and if you enjoyed this review, check out some of our others. Like and Subscribe, check out our website and Patreon as linked in the description, and always remember to return to the Source.