Lately I’ve been playing a little 3DS game from 2012 called Project X Zone. It is a sequel to a title called Namco X Capcom that I believe was never released in the United States and is designed to cross several game characters together into a crazy, nonsensical story. In Project X Zone, the characters come from Namco Bandai, Capcom, and Sega games.

This is a game for Otaku. I mean real Otaku in Japan, the sort who go to Akihabara to buy the latest action figure displaying your female character of choice in a position that puts all of her brick house on display. This isn’t even a fun little thing such as Marvel vs. Capcom or Super Smash Bros. This is a fanatic’s wet dream, loaded with character crossovers, obliviously busty women, and a lot more blunt innuendo than I’m used to seeing in a Japanese role-playing game. Perhaps it is the presence of multiple “ecchi” characters, so to speak, as opposed to the one “ecchi” character fulfilling the archetype.

Yet I do not wish to discuss its nature of catering to the fanbase. Or rather, fanbases, what with the buffet of franchises on display here. Instead I’d like to take a moment to discuss the combat system.

Like many Japanese RPG’s these days, watching a gameplay video may only confuse you at best. You’ll see a lot of things happening on screen, a lot of characters punching, kicking, hacking, slashing, and spraying fireballs all over the place, with little indication as to how it is happening. The trick is, it’s not actually complicated at all. You press the analog stick a certain direction and then the “A” button, and suddenly the characters are unleashing a chain of attacks. It’s the least effort anyone has ever put into actually managing a shoryuken.

Despite sounding so simple, however, there’s actually a really clever system going on underneath. While many of these characters are from RPG’s, a lot of them are also from fighting games. The combat system is thus a combination of both genres fused together, both aesthetically and mechanically.

The real trick is managing to juggle your foes while also getting as high a combination as possible. If you chain attacks in a specific order or if you time your attacks poorly, many of the attacks will catch nothing but air. So just like in a fighting game, it’s not just a matter of attacking your opponent, it’s a matter of timing your strike and how best to chain your attacks together.

The greatest reason for this is to increase the “XP” gauge, which in this context has nothing to do with experience points. The XP gauge powers special abilities that can increase a character’s attack range, restore health, or boost gained experience. The points can also be used to counter or defend from an enemy’s attacks. However, once the bar reaches 100%, the player can unleash a devastating super combo that deals an exorbitant amount of damage. If you defeat an enemy using such a move, you’ll also gain an additional 20% experience bonus.

So a good combo score is a very, very useful thing to have.

Most characters are paired off for combat, but there are select “solo” characters that can be tacked on from pair to pair. You can summon them once in a fight in order to deal additional damage. If you’re in an adjacent square to another allied pair, you can also summon them at least once in combat. Timing is also key here, as you not only boost your combo multiplier by a great deal, but can also push the XP gauge beyond the 100% threshold. However, you can only manage this if all characters are striking the enemy at the same time. So your basic pair that you are controlling the attacks of must be striking at the same time as a supporting pair and/or the supporting solo.

In execution, it is all very deceitfully simple. The first several battles in the game are quite easy and the player can defeat most enemy units in a single turn. Using other pairs for support or even solos are more optional than anything, and you don’t really need to use any bonus abilities.

Eight hours in, however, and things are starting to become more difficult. Enemies are starting to take more to go down, and I’m getting the feeling a lot of my characters are lower in level than they ought to be. While Project X Zone does a good job of boosting a low-level character’s experience after combat, the gap in strength is still noticeable.

What I’ve been discovering is that I haven’t been using a lot of my character’s boosting abilities, and I haven’t been paying much attention to attack patterns. Some pairs are more compatible than others. Some pairs will deal a lot of damage while a foe is being juggled above while others do better the closer to the ground a foe is. This means some pairs will get you hardly any bonus XP and the combo will see hardly any boost, not to mention less damage being dealt. There’s also a matter of timing these attacks and when they should be dealt.

I’m still learning the game, naturally, but this past battle I did a bit better over time as I tried new techniques and strategies. It actually amazes me how much thought can go into a game whose battle system is as simple as pressing a direction on the analog stick and punching “A”. Make sure not to repeat any moves, either, or else you won’t get a bonus attack!

It is a perfect example of a design that is “easy to use, tough to master”. We’ll see if it can be as entertaining after another eight hours, though. Word is the game gets a bit repetitive after a while. I haven’t hit that point yet, but it has been a huge blast and a refreshing take on the tactical RPG.