Today I invite you to get acquainted with an extremely rare Japanese tRPG called Operation Darkness. By the way, exclusive to Xbox 360! I decided to do a review when I found out that a dozen people in the CIS know about Operation Darkness and they haven’t made a single video about it on Russian YouTube, they’ve forgotten. Meanwhile, Operation Darkness is a colorful game. Here the graphics are nice for their time, and the developers messed around with the camera and took a setting atypical for a tRPG. Behind the keyboard is Pavel Vasilevich from the channel "To Fans from Fans". After this episode you will regret that you didn’t subscribe to the channel earlier!
At first glance, what makes Operation Darkness stand out from other tactical RPGs is its setting, full three-dimensionality, and the camera behind the hero. Moreover, competitors have not been released even today in 2022. Let’s figure out what was unusual. Operation Darkness is a tactics game about the Second World War. It’s interesting to lead a detachment to victory over the fascists, in whose hands are not swords and shields, but machine guns, machine guns and bazookas! So she’s worth a look. Between moves, you can rotate the camera around the hero and examine him in 3D. The characters are all drawn in anime style and look cute even today. And during the move, the camera dramatically follows the running hero, cinematically showing how bullets whistle past and grenades fly by. Operation Darkness was supposed to be a solid, beautiful game at full price, the kind that has sequels coming out. For all this time, not many tactical RPGs from the Japanese about the Second World War have been released. The only remotely similar things we can remember are Ring of Red and Valkyria Chronicles.
I’ll start with the mechanics. Operation Darkness is mechanically divided into a tactical part and an organizational part. Let’s go over the tactical part now. During the tactical part, you can move a hero, attack, use an item, or end your turn. I note that a fighter against fascism can first attack the enemy, and then, in addition, use a first aid kit. And this is in one move. In conventional tactics, you can either attack or heal; the eternal tactical dilemma of finishing off the enemy or healing yourself is not here. When later in the story in Operation Darkness, the heroes receive additional skills, they will be treated automatically, and the turn to use a useful item can be spent on another useful action, that is, 4 actions per turn compared to 2 in conventional tactics. To make fighting less monotonous, all characters were divided into classes. Not a magician or warrior, but also unusual. There are 8 basic characters in the squad, three with light machine guns, among them the main character Edward and the brunette Cordelia, they can shoot close, but 3 cells in a row and theoretically can knock down three soldiers with a burst if they line up in a line. The other three can fire heavy machine guns over long distances and over small areas. Another, gray-haired Gallant carries a bazooka and shoots across the area, can destroy heavy tanks or hit 3 or more enemies at the same time or blow up enemies in the trenches. And there is another red-haired sniper girl, Cynthia, she shoots at ultra-long distances, hits painfully, but only one square. This already creates diversity. And when you find out that the opponents of the Nazis also have all these classes: sniper, machine gunner, machine gunner, you as a player get a lot of space for experimenting which class fears whom more. You can check whether it’s worth hunting someone else’s sniper with your sniper, having a sniper duel, or whether it’s better to bypass it in a roundabout way with machine gunners and finish it off quietly from behind. It becomes exciting, there is even a challenge when you see that the enemy has particularly fat units like self-propelled guns, and later tanks tigers and panthers. They cannot be destroyed by anything other than a bazooka or grenade. You will need to go around the gardens to get to the weak point and destroy the enemy with one blow. And there won’t be any similar units in the game. In the future, the enemy will have units that are not afraid of bullets and run close for close combat, as well as magicians from the Second World War who hit with magic from afar. I’ll talk about this dubious part of the Operation Darkness plot at the end. As you can see, just studying units and their capabilities can keep you busy for a good ten hours. And then there are unexpected surprises in the form of mines on the roads, unexpected misses on enemies, and Nazis hiding in trenches.
To prevent Operation Darkness from merging into a series of incessant battles, players are encouraged to relax between missions by resource management. Players are encouraged to show their supply talents and purchase first aid kits, ammunition, and weapons. Operation Darkness has a separate store where you can buy all this stuff: bazookas, grenades and first aid kits. It’s a pity that there are a limited number of resources, you can’t buy bazookas with all your money and feel like Rambo. After the purchase, you need to remember to give everyone in their pockets what the unit will take on the next mission. Just like a parent getting his son ready for school. You may not give anything, and then in the next mission the helpless hero will have to strangle the Krauts with his bare hands or bend the steel barrel of a tank. I’m not kidding. If there is no weapon, there is an option to hit the enemy with your hand. Even during breaks you will need to read the chatter of the heroes. I usually don’t like plots in tactics and read the dialogues fluently. They talk about different topics, they develop their own relationships, but this does not affect the game and therefore it was not particularly important to me. I scrolled through almost all the dialogues. There is still the opportunity to hire additional fighters. The fact is that according to the plot they give 8 heroes, whereas usually you need to take at least a dozen for a mission. The barracks come to the rescue, where you can choose the fighter you like from the ones offered. These will be green newcomers in berets, who differ from each other only in names and minor characteristics. You don’t have to take newcomers, but they will be very useful, because in Operation Darkness every move is worth its weight in gold. And at the end they give you the opportunity to approach the battle map, where you can choose where to go for the next mission. For example, you can choose to stay to fight in Egypt, sail across and fight in Italy, or sail further and fight in France. I played a long time ago and I don’t remember whether unexplored points are closed forever or you need to go through everything before you advance in the plot.
Operation Darkness is both a https://fantasticspinscasino.co.uk/ tactics and an RPG, so the heroes are pumped up in levels and their strength increases many times over in battles. Edward and his allies start with a measly 250-350 hit points and over the course of the game grow to level 40-50 with 20-30 THOUSAND hit points. Experience is awarded for killing enemies and vehicles. At the end of the game, each hero will be able to inflict 6-8 thousand points of damage. There is growth! In addition to improving the lives and parameters of each fighter, each one learns special skills over time. It will be possible to automate treatment if there is little health left, plus super blows will appear so that you can tear the enemy to shreds with your claws, plus magic will appear. Even nameless recruits will upgrade their skills and learn a few tricks.
There are a lot of nuances in Operation Darkness, because the game is large and complex. If you buy a grenade launcher, but don’t buy supplies for it, the hero will be useless. You will learn abilities, but you will regret spending time and setting them up – you will not receive bonuses. If you don’t finish off a German, the next fighter will get all the experience for him. I want to touch on the mistakes of the authors that complicate the game and anger the player. For example, in Operation Darkness you get angry if you walked from one point to another and you didn’t like where you came, you can’t cancel the move. Probably the authors wanted me to start the mission again. It’s also annoying that, along with the three-dimensionality of the game, it has become inconvenient to indicate where to go. Although YOU are looking from above, you see a piece of the terrain around the hero and you need to crawl around the map for a long time to understand where to go. Fortunately, the directions of enemies are indicated by orange arrows. At least you know which way to go. The convenience and clarity of isometric tactical RPGs is a long way off. It’s also annoying that the heroes in Operation Darkness die forever. If someone dies, then after the battle he will not resurrect. If a story character dies at the beginning of the battle, restart the game from the beginning. Imagine, if there are 10 heroes on a mission and 8 of them are plot heroes, then you are shaking over each one so that someone does not die at the end of the battle and you do not have to replay 2 hours of the game. What’s also annoying is that the enemies are slow-witted and always choose the nearest fighter as a target until he gives up his soul. And if the plot hero stood in the danger zone? It’s also annoying that you can go through the game, and enemies will appear right in front of your nose, shoot the plot hero and lose the mission in an instant. If the death of the hero did not lead to the failure of the mission, then it would be tolerable. It’s also annoying that the hero gets experience for killing an enemy, and not for an action. From this, one will only wound enemies and not gain experience, and the second will only finish off and collect all the rewards. Also ill-conceived. And it’s also annoying that the latest missions are poorly tested. There are often 2-3 times more enemies than heroes. Due to the fact that the latest missions are poorly balanced, the majority of enemies choke you and you don’t have time to do anything. And if a plot character dies, then the mission is failed again. By the way, because of this I failed the last 26th mission only because there were more enemies than ammo. I would complete the mission, but there is nothing.
Separately, I would like to dwell on the plot in Operation Darkness. I didn’t read in detail which hero loves whom and which one he hates, I told you before, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t follow the course of the story at all. From the very beginning of the game, chronicle footage is shown, Hitler walks and commands his soldiers. Do you believe that now the most historical battles as retold by the Japanese will take place before you?. In the story, you command English soldiers who fight in Egypt, then move to Italy and move across Europe to Berlin. Someone dies, the main character Edward takes a bullet and is transferred under the command of the elderly Gallant. Gallant’s squad carries out covert operations and finds a secret uranium production plant. You watch in one breath what happens next. Maybe they will find that secret V-2? Blow up tanks, bypass mines. And then something happens that you never expect.
Halfway through the third mission, the plot of Operation Darkness turns upside down. All killed Nazi soldiers become zombies. Unexpected for a historical game! Yes? The uranium production factory turns out to be a laboratory where they learned to control people’s souls. Further – more. Heroes will kill all zombies. In this mission, in 2014, I was amazed at how powerful the Xbox 360 was, how many units it could handle on one map! Gallant and his subordinates turn out to be werewolves. No, they are not spies of the Soviet Union, but real werewolves with fur and a wolf face in military uniform. At the beginning of the game, Edward was transfused with Gallant’s blood and he also involuntarily became a werewolf, although he did not understand it. The hero finds out that everyone in his squad are werewolves and they are such mythical creatures needed to destroy the occult German forces. Apparently, ordinary soldiers are unable to realize that zombies and werewolves exist, so we need those who are aware of all the German devilry. At first, all the fantasy mess won’t be so noticeable. Over time, you will start to come across armored Nazi robots, then the Nazis will bring Jack the Ripper, then you will find out that in Hitler’s service there are vampires Alexander and his sexy assistant Carmilla, then you will meet walking skeletons with swords that go straight to your heroes. And in the last 26 mission to storm the Brandenburg Gate you will meet Hitler himself and his entire gang of Gereng, Bormann, Himmler, Hess. I even looked at Hitler that he has 97,647 HP, compared to the average hero of 35,000 HP. That’s probably why it was difficult to kill him in real life, since he’s just as healthy as three people. During the final mission, all logic falls apart. The leaders of the Nazi party are not shy and paralyze the heroes with the force of their greetings, others cast fire magic with gestures. Hitler himself calls a giant iron fist from the sky, which crushes everyone in the area. I suspect that because of these historical liberties Operation Darkness was never published in Europe for moral reasons. So that schoolchildren do not remember that Hitler was a magician, and not a Nazi, so that they do not remember that he called for an iron fist and that was why he was bad, and did not destroy people in concentration camps. If you try to comprehend it, the Japanese came up with a plot for Operation Darkness that was remembered as such a good trash movie.
You’re probably thinking right now that Operation Darkness isn’t worth your attention. I’ll try to explain to you. There’s a lot of fun in Operation Darkness. For example, it’s cool when you see how soldiers are treated with painkillers, but the special effects were drawn as if they were for a Japanese RPG. It’s cool when tanks arrive on the battlefield in the middle of a mission and you need to urgently orient yourself on the fly and think how to get out of the changed situation. Missions with Frau Carmilla – my respects. It was so cool to fight with her. The camera took such unusual and depraved angles. I was glad that in general there was no shortage of girls in Operation Darkness, neither in opponents nor in our own. Women decorate games! On the side of good were dark-haired Cordelia and red-haired Cynthia, with a boy’s haircut. And I was also pleased with the opportunity to personally take down Hitler. I wanted to make you happy, but it didn’t work out for me. The developers made him very strong and he was treated very often. In Operation Darkness, Hitler is a fucking cheater, he alone takes out my guys with one left and heals so much that he nullifies my attempts to wipe him off the face of the earth. The opportunity to defeat Hitler is good, but the implementation is bad. I wonder if you kill Hitler in Operation Darkness and leave the rest of his hangers on, will the game end automatically or not?? It would be cool if it ended automatically. After all, the goal of the war has been achieved.
Operation Darkness is a great game, but due to its specific theme it could not be published in Europe. The company lost a third of the world market and making sequels was unprofitable. In future parts it would be possible to turn around. It was possible to release Operation Darkness 2 about the Vietnam War or Operation Darkness 3 about the Iraq War. Where else could they fight?? And explain that the main character doesn’t age because he’s a werewolf. Werewolves do not age, they are immortal. In the second part it would be possible to correct the shortcomings of the first, those things that made me angry that I mentioned earlier. And after all, the competitors didn’t seize Operation Darkness, there were no competitors at all. Operation Darkness was released in 2008, a roughly similar game Ring of Red was released in 2000, another – Valkyria Chronicles – in 2008. I can also guess why there was never Operation Darkness 2, because the popularity of games about the Second World War began to decline and Operation Darkness made no sense to continue. If in 2008 they started making games about modern warfare, then Operation Darkness 2 would no longer have sold. But Operation Darkness 2 could have been made dark and bloody. So that scraps from the Germans fly everywhere.
In conclusion, I want to recommend how you can play Operation Darkness today in 2022. I have bad news because almost nothing. Everyone criticized Xbox for the lack of exclusives and a bad thing happened to Operation Darkness, it turned out to be an exclusive. Just not so much that the game is on Xbox 360 and PC. Operation Darkness is only available on Xbox 360. And period! Operation Darkness cannot be played on PC, it is not available on modern Xboxes. However, it is not enough to have an Xbox 360 to run Operation Darkness. So, get your fingers crossed to technically play Operation Darkness today. You must have an Xbox 360 flashed for freeboot Xbox 360, that’s two. Then you need to find and download the image. And this is not an easy task, because it cannot be found on Russian torrent trackers. That’s three. That is why, due to such difficulties, only 1000 people know about Operation Darkness. Pavel Vasilevich was behind the keyboard and you were on the channel to Fans from Fans. Keep in mind that after this episode you will regret not subscribing to the channel earlier! Thank you for your attention.
Who do we have here?? And this is Frau Carmilla herself! In the center of any frame with her, her enormous breasts occupy the lion’s share of attention. Carmilla became the unofficial sex symbol of Operation Darkness.