Medium: Game Boy Advanced Cartridge
Developer: Epoch Co. Ltd.
Release Date: 12/21/2001
Successful anime breeds video games. This rule does not change with Angelic Layer. Angelic Layer joined Magic Knights Rayearth and Card Captor Sakura as the third Clamp title that has a game released based on the series.
The game has two modes - Advanced Mode and My Angel Mode. Advanced Mode is based on TV animated version of Angelic Layer. You control Misaki (and Hikaru) in their quest for the Angelic Layer national championship. It has most of major fights in the anime. Spoilers: Probably one of the biggest difference one will see between the game and the anime is that you can beat Hatoko (in fact fairly easily) in the Tokyo regional tournament.
My Angel Mode allows you to have some degree of freedom in creating your (Misaki's) original angel. You participate in free fights with other characters in the anime.
Basically the game has two modes. One is the adventure mode, which basically you walk around, talk to people, buy stuff to upgrade Hikaru and the original angel. Another one is Fighting mode, which you got to fight with other characters as part of the tournament or free fights to earn credits that are used to buy Angel upgrades.
Fighting is fairly simple. You choose your technique, and you have to key in the correct sequence of key (similar to Bust-a-Grove) to have the technique correctly preformed. You got to customize what types of techniques you can use with your own Angel. Similar to the anime, Misaki "steals" (or copy) techniques from other people. You can also buy techniques from shops.
I personally think fighting in that game is very easy. Once you are familiar with the keys, it may become very hard to lose... May be the game is designed for a younger audience, so they make the game easy.
Since it is GBA, you cannot be very demanding on graphics and sound. There are some voice acting in the game. All Angel Entries are voiced, and Misaki's "Na" and Icchan's "Icchan Nyoro" and "Batsu geemu" (Punishment Game... Poor Ogata) are voiced too. The Angels and character faces are decently drawn in the game; I will consider the game's graphics is good in GBA standards.
I will give the game a 7 out of 10. It is a fan game. Graphics are well done, and there are some voice acting. But the game is simply too easy, and it lacks replay value.
The Game Boy Advanced portable game console is patented by Nintendo.
Angelic Layer is copyrighted by Clamp.
Click here to return to Angelic Layer main page.