Azur Lane: Crosswave

The world of mobile games is shockingly expansive, all things considered! You’ve got your casual affairs like Candy Crush, your more in-depth games like Implosion and, of course, your lifestyle games like Azur Lane. By that I mean games that want to take up all your free time; they give you daily rewards for logging in, there’s incremental improvement over time…so long as you stick with the game, it’s going to have more to offer you. If you’re a naval history nut, Azur Lane’s the way to go. Now you’ve got Azur Lane: Crosswave, an updated version of the ship-girl shooter with a new battle system and plenty of torpedoes to go around.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept, Azur Lane is all about anthropomorphized ships based on historical vessels facing off in naval combat – with lots of busty anime heroines at the ready. No, I’m not going to bother trying to explain the appeal of that, just…just go with it. The best bots are Shigure and Unicorn, for the record. Check the wiki for your favorite ship sometime if you want your mind blown by how much detail goes into the research here. Anyway, Crosswave takes the concept from the mobile game, which was something of a bullet hell shooter type of experience, and translates it into a 3D Musou-esque affair.

There’s something of a plot going on, but in typical Musou style it’s less of a concern than blasting away and upgrading your botes. You control popular ships from the mobile game and battle the villainous Sirens while searching to understand the secrets of mysterious Cube materials that they leave behind upon defeat. That’s about it, really. You’ve got a good eight hours or so of ship-girl silliness to enjoy, but if it’s not Unicorn, does it really matter? I would posit that it does not. Good thing she shows up early.

Much like the mobile game, Crosswave’s gameplay boils down to, well…fire away and avoid enemy torpedoes. If your blasting isn’t enough to win a given battle for you, chances are you haven’t leveled up enough, so go gain a few more levels then come back and try again. There’s some degree of skill involved, but Azur Lane fans have probably come to expect that numbers are the real winners here. Grinding is the key to victory. Dodging is just a plus. Different ship-girls behave somewhat differently, but you’re pretty much good to go if you use your favorites and stick with them.

There’s something to be said for Crosswave’s performance, though! I’m pretty happy that it runs well, given it’s an Idea Factory game on console that isn’t a stuttering slideshow. Coming from the horrific Arc of Alchemist that’s a definite plus. Naturally, the ship-girls are appealing as well, so if your favorite happens to be here then you’re bound to have a good time…and if she’s not, you can hope she shows up as DLC. Idea Factory knows what their players want. There’s no multiplayer, by the way, so you’re playing with your botes all by yourself.

Anyway, that’s what Azur Lane: Crosswave boils down to: giving players what they want. That means plenty of cute interactions between botes with periods of somewhat simplistic combat in-between. Check the ship list, see if your favorite is included and, if they are, pick up Crosswave and go wild. If you don’t have a favorite yet, well, have you tried the mobile game yet? It’s pretty decent. Check it out.