An interesting continuation of the Madoka Magica IP with some fun action gameplay and brilliant bosses that underpins a slightly repetitive overall package.

Developer Artdink Publisher Bandai-Namco Franchise N/A Genre Action PSTV Yes Physical English No – JP only

World-building & Story

In Madoka Magica, a group of high school girls make a pact with a cutesy cat-like creature named Kyubey which turns them into powerful magical girls. With their new-found powers, they join the fight against demented creatures known as witches in otherworldly labyrinths with the goal of protecting their hometown of Mitakihara from an impending invasion.

Now, spoilers ahead for the anime (so look away if you don’t want to know what happens) – this fairly standard anime setup quickly gives way to one of the most dark and depressing plots I’ve ever seen. The titular Madoka, who is initially hesitant about making the pact to become a magical girl, uncovers the reality of the situation – that doing so is a death sentence as the girls themselves eventually become witches as their souls become tainted. To top it all off, the most powerful witch in all reality known as Walpurgisnacht is approaching the city and threatens to destroy everything in her path along the way.

The anime focuses on a girl named Homura Akemi, who is revealed to be from an alternate timeline where Walpurgisnacht has already won, whose goal is to stop Madoka becoming a magical girl in the first place and save her from an eternity of suffering. This is where Battle Pentagram deviates – Homura’s goal here is to keep each of Madoka’s friends alive and to strengthen their bonds so that they gain enough power to defeat Walpurgisnacht together, which has the potential to set up an enthralling story in an equally fascinating world (and feels like a natural fit for a ‘what if’ scenario rather than being a pointless side-story).

The problem is that Battle Pentagram doesn’t make the most of this – rather than hitting the same bleak and thoughtful notes of the anime, it goes for a more light-hearted feel. You’re more likely to see the girls going to a shopping mall or having a tea party than experiencing shocking revelations like Sayaka losing her soul gem or Mami being needlessly slaughtered and as such the game loses a lot of the emotional impact that the Madoka Magica anime series had.

But of course, that is for good reason – after all, this is a story where Homura is trying to make the other girls form strong enough relationships with each other that they’re able to defeat a powerful enemy. And in this respect, the game succeeds – it’s nice watching characters like Kyoko and Mami who weren’t ever together previously spend some quality time chatting, meaning that a piece of epilogue fanservice for a series which many people (myself included) hold dear, there’s lots of sweet and touching moments here.

There is the potential for a happy ending (after a few playthroughs) here too which should be enough for any superfan, but for anyone looking to get into Madoka Magica I’d definitely recommend the anime first.

Presentation & Sound

As Artdink’s first Vita release, Battle Pentagram shows some technical teething problems that let things down – although it’s still a fairly pretty game that captures the feel of the feel of the series perfectly.

Character modelling is exactly as you’d expect from an anime tie-in on Vita – that is to say each character looks pretty good, capturing the feel of their design from the series and featuring little touches like flowing hair which moves when they run or weapons like Madoka’s colourful bow or Mami’s exaggerated guns. Enemies are spot on too – one level will have you fighting disembodied school girl legs while another will pit you against lumbering zombies and weird apparitions. You can expect the screen to be awash in particles as you fight them but unfortunately this impacts on performance, regularly dropping the framerate to unacceptable levels.

I do have to give special props to the witch designs – although they’re ripped straight out of the anime, seeing things like Charlotte’s cute form followed by the monstrous alternate form represented in a 3D game is a sight to behold. Somehow, Artdink have managed to capture that completely schizophrenic Slavic-inspired artstyle perfectly and little touches like the way the enemies move in a jerky manner show that some real passion has gone into recreating the source material, which as a fan I really appreciated. There’s also some lovely visual novel scenes that again look professional and like they could be straight out of the anime.

The attention to detail extends to the labyrinths which cover everything from idyllic school classrooms in the sky to volcanic craters. They do suffer from feeling a bit confined at times and are obvious corridor-fests but this is thematically fitting – after all, they are supposed to be witches’ labyrinths. Unfortunately, there isn’t quite enough variety meaning you’ll repeat the same few over and over, which can become a little tedious after a while.

All the original voice actresses return here which is a great get, but so too does the fantastic soundtrack which is even better – a stirring selection of music that really captures the grim and unsettling mood.

Soundtrack highlight – Venari Strigas

Gameplay & Content

An action take on the Madoka IP with an emphasis on dungeon crawling, Battle Pentagram is an enjoyable game which suffers from some repetitive content which ultimately dulls the experience.

You play in the 30 day period before Walpurgisnacht appears and your goal is to train the girls and form bonds between them so they’re able to beat the ultimate witch. Gameplay is split into two segments – the first of which is relationship building, which is done by observing visual novel-style conversations between various groupings of the girls (normally you’ll have two choices, meaning you can pick which you want to see, although bonds are also raised by fighting together). These are functional, but rarely exciting and don’t feature any conversation choices.

More engaging is the labyrinth exploration, which takes place at night and presents you with a map of various locations and usually allows you to pick which one you want to face at any given time. You’ll then choose two magic girls to go out and cleanse it – one will be the player character while another will be controlled by the computer, although it’s worth noting that the AI in the game is fairly useless and rarely does more than throwing out a couple of hits before running off (usually into another pack of enemies which just makes more of a headache for you).

Each labyrinth is a series of gated corridors and to progress, you’ll either need to beat all the enemies in the area or find a switch and hit it. As such, it’s not exactly the most engaging progression system although each maze will usually end with a boss battle either with a familiar (powered up version of a normal enemy) or a witch, the latter of which are spectacular encounters where you’ll be doing things like dodging flying furniture, avoiding traction beams and taking every opportunity you can to inflict maximum damage in the attack windows given.

In general, I’d describe the combat as simple, but enjoyable. Each girl can jump and dash with x and circle respectively and you’ll unleash basic but powerful combos with triangle – usually your foes come in big Warriors-esque waves that you can mow down with ease. You can also launch special attacks that are dependent on an MP meter with square and can be changed on the fly with the directional pad – these are what you’ll use to take down more powerful enemies as many can be activated from range (they’re also character-specific and fit with each girl’s skills from the anime – so Madoka shoots bows and Homura wields rocket launchers – which is a nice touch).

Extra complexity is added through things like a ‘tension’ gauge, which slowly fills as you attack and take damage and can be used to activate a special unity attack with your partner – but the biggest draw is the soul gem system. Each girl has one with a set number of uses which allows tactical play – for example, if you die you can spend 3 gauge to revive, while spending 1 gauge while alive will fully fill your MP meter (but depleting it means game over). Thinking how and when it’s best to use early on definitely adds a tactical layer and encourages thoughtful decisions (if you revive an ally it only takes 1 gauge vs 3 for self revive, for example).

Once you’re done, you’re awarded relationship points as well as points you can use to upgrade various aspects of your team’s stats (e.g strength, vitality etc). You’ll also be able to buy new skills and choose passive bonuses (e.g reduced MP usage) which means the customisation options here are actually pretty nice – each girl is distinct, but you can tinker around the edges to make them better suited to your playstyle.

So with all this praise, what’s actually wrong with Battle Pentagram? Well, the problem is just how little variety there is after the first hour or two – labyrinths are repeated over and over (as are foes) and although they do put up more of a fight than your standard brainless swarm in something like Senran Kagura, the early challenge really isn’t there. It’s only later on that you’ll begin to be pushed which mostly comes from the (admittedly fantastic) boss battles alongside the inability of the AI to move out of dodge whenever a giant sofa comes hurtling their way.

To be fair, Artdink have thrown in 1v1 magic girl duels to attempt to mix things up which somewhat succeeds, but they’re far too brief and infrequent to make much of a difference. A playthrough will probably take you around 6 hours and then you’re encouraged to go back and do it all again to get better endings – which I did, taking around 4 extra hours for each one.

Let me stress that I did have fun playing Battle Pentagram – it’s a simple but enjoyable action game with some nice encounter design and characters that are all unique to control. It’s just as a whole, I wished for a bit more out of the game than I got – and Artdink have shown that they’re capable of more on Vita.

Ease of Understanding

There’s plenty of visual novel sections here so if you want to follow the story, you are going to need a working knowledge of Japanese and translation apps are unlikely to get you very far. Aside from that, things like menus, skill trees and everything else is very easy to get to grips with and can be played with nothing more than Google Translate.

As such, I’d classify this as a fairly easy import – if you’re in it just for the gameplay, it’s perfectly serviceable. I also found this trophy guide to be extremely useful for figuring out the game’s basics, so you might want to have a skim through if you’re thinking of picking this up.

Conclusion

As a continuation of one of the best anime series I’ve seen in years, Battle Pentagram offers a unique epilogue to the story that’s hardly essential, but offers some nice content for fans. As a Vita action game, what’s here is enjoyable and I definitely had fun messing around with each character and fighting the brilliant bosses, but a level of underlying repetition keeps it from greatness. Still, if you’re looking for an easy import title to try out on your handheld, you can do far worse than this.

6.5/10