REVIEW: Mugen Souls Z (Switch)


Title	Mugen Souls Z
Developer	Idea Factory, Compile Heart
Publisher	EastAsiaSoft
Release Date	September 14th, 2023
Genre	RPG
Platform	Switch
Age Rating	Mature
Official Website

After I reviewed EastAsiaSoft’s release of Mugen Souls a few months ago, I was really hoping they would pick up the sequel, Mugen Souls Z, and I got my wish. I was very much looking forward to checking out this game again, and having all of the CG’s and bath minigame intact would just be icing on the cake. That time has finally arrived, and I’ve spent about 40 hours playing the game. Now, let’s see how this port turned out, was it as good as the last one? Let’s find out.

The story here begins as Chou Chou is exploring space for a world to conquer. She soon spots twelve shiny worlds that seem to fit the part. Upon exploring these worlds, she soon runs into the newly-awakened Ultimate God Syrma, who has a strange coffin with her. Chou Chou, as we know, has to check out everything she find interesting, so she begins to examine it. She is suddenly sucked into the coffin and her Undisputed God powers are absorbed, making her tiny. The only way to restore Chou Chou to her normal form is to absorb the powers from the other Ultimate Gods, spread throughout the twelve worlds.

I think the story of the first game is a bit better than Mugen Souls Z, but I really love the new characters introduced in this game. The well-mannered Bertram having a huge crush on Alys with her idol status is just funny, and Reu is just a wild child that gets super close to Shirogane, making Tsukika a bit jealous. All of the other great interactions the old cast has with the new cast really make the story a lot of fun. If you were a fan of the original, you’ll find more to love here as well.

Graphically, Mugen Souls Z looks about on par with the previous game’s Switch release, but I do think this release looks a bit better. It’s not the drastic upgrade it was on the PS3 between the two games, but you will notice. The character models look great, and each of the Twelve Worlds has a different look and feel. The CG artwork is certainly a highlight here as well, be they for the bath minigame or the story based ones. The performance is pretty good on the Switch as well. The game runs at a solid frame rate docked or handheld, but you will notice some dips when playing in handheld. It’s very playable, but not quite as smooth as it is docked.

I think, over the years, I have gotten a soft spot for these classic Idea Factory tunes, since I found myself really enjoying the soundtrack here. I know there is nothing special about it, but I found myself humming along as I slayed 100’s of foes and having a great time doing it. The game is voiced in both English and Japanese, but just like last time, the bath minigame is voiced in Japanese only. I think I like the Japanese cast a bit more, but the English crew does a good job giving these characters life as well.

The gameplay here hasn’t changed a lot from the previous game, so rather than retread old ground this review, I’ll focus on the new things. The combat is mostly unchanged from the last time. The captivate system returns, and again, each enemy will have a personality with some sort of fetish they like, and you have to pick a personality and pose to change into in order to capture the peon. This system is somewhat improved this time, since it shows you what the successful outcome of each of your actions will be before you do them. This really helps you gather peons faster, since it’s much easier to get the outcomes you want.

The other major change to combat is the Coffin Skills. When an enemy is turned into a peon, it will trigger a Coffin Skill from Syrma’s coffin. These range in effects from stat boosts to HP recovery, and you can set this to whatever skill you wish. The Peon Ball back, but is now known as the Ultimate Soul. This is a joint attack between Syrma and Chou Chou. It powers up in exactly the same way, based on the number of Shampurus you have collected throughout the game, though you will have a limited number of these to use on each world before returning to base. This limit will increase with the number of Shampurus you have as well. The damage for Ultimate Soul will get a nice buff if you have a ton of Peon Points banked from doing actions during a battle, but this will deplete all your PP when you use it. The overload rate increases when anyone is KO’d in battle, and if the overload level goes too high, just like with the Peon Ball, it will blow up in your face usually resulting in death. The last new feature is Damage Carnival. If you do enough damage during a battle, you’ll get bonus points at the end of combat. You can upgrade this to make it require more damage to activate, but provide a bigger bonus.

As you complete worlds, you will gain Ultimate Fusions. These are field skills ranging from the ability to snag floating chests to the ability to swim. When you capture certain Peon Points, you will gain power ups to these skills. These include Ultimate Vault, which allows you to jump higher; Ultimate Snag, which allows you snag locked floating chests; Ultimate Hunt, which allows you open locked chests; Ultimate Warp which allows you to use certain warp points. These are all boosted versions of the Ultimate Fusion skills. Years ago I said this was the most annoying part of this game, and I still stand by this. They spread these skills all around the maps in a way that makes for endless backtracking. You may have one skill needed at the top of the map, but the Peon Point with the skill may be on the bottom. This made for a lot of needless running around, seeing as you will be visiting all these worlds multiple times as these skills unlock to start with, this just seems very tacked on.

While Mugen Souls Z does have some issues, it’s still a really fun game. The combat is still very unique, the story is great with a lot of fun interactions between the characters, and the bath minigame finally being uncensored is a great addition to the game as well. I spent about 40 hours with the game and got the true ending. I have also done some of the absurd post-game battles thanks to the crazy amount of included DLC that will make you very OP starting out, but these post-game battles are still a big challenge. I feel like this one is well worth the asking price of $39.99. It’s not perfect, but fans will find a lot to love here.