Tokyo Babel is made by propeller, same people that made Ayakashibito and Bullet Brothers.
To put it in a general outlook, it’s ok. It’s not necessarily bad, but it was also no Ayakashibito.
The music varies from forgettable to pretty cool.
Sprite quality feels lacking, but I believe that’s because it doesn’t feel like Propeller’s sprite work to me. Their work is kind of odd in a sense that it’s hard to confuse itself with other works(Overdrive does the same thing, usually). I’m not sure why they decided to translate this one instead of Bullet Brother aside from maybe wanting to use a newer title.
Sougeki no Jaeger’s art style is much closer to what I’d describe when I think of Propeller. On the other hand, Propeller has several art styles, but the most consistent seems to be the ones I enjoy.
Sprite quality aside, the CGs are fine.
The translation isn’t a literal translation so avoid it if you can’t handle that kind of work. Overall, I have no problem with it aside from a few instances with Samael, but I also understand that it might’ve caused issues with Steam’s policies.
There’s three routes, Raziel, Sorami and Lilith. Lilith’s ending is only unlocked after reading the other two. There’s also a Setsuna ending, but you’ll have to go through Lilith’s route with a different set of choices.
There’s a bad ending in each route, alongside a normal route for one route(which is a technically a bad ending).
The main issue is the story itself, or rather the incentive and the transitioning between sections. It’s actually quite creative, each major character feels thought out and given roles to the specific route. It’s not a generic “the demon is evil” type of story. However, I never really cared about any of the main characters nor the support characters, bland is a close description. It’s very meh.
By transitioning, I mean when it goes from a serious section to a comical one, or the reversal of that. The ones during the pilgrimage are especially unnatural. Not to say they all transition poorly, but you’re going to remember the poor ones moreso than the ones that were quite funny.
The second, and while I teeter between the two on what’s most important, is the writing. I know I’m repeating myself, but I just didn’t care, thus lacked an incentive for me to continue. Half the time, it felt like the main character had no way to lose, and that’s quite a large portion of the novel. Each route has a really cool action scene, three tops. I believe Sorami had the most interesting fight scenes, but the fight themselves wasn’t really explained compaired to one of Raziel’s scenes. Basically, you have to watch all three, combine them and you’d have a really cool route.
I recommend going with 1/4 way through Sorami’s route, then Raziel bad ending, then the good ending. Then back to Sorami, get the bad ending. The rest is fine in whatever order.
Not sure what the score would be. I’d say C+ with splashes of B.
Future update: I forgot propreller’s weird ass ending music strikes again. Oh, you got a bad ending? Here’s some happy jrock music for you~
Mainly a Visual Novel Blog now 