Review: Citizens Of Earth (PS4)

The Youth Of The Nation 

Citizens of Earth is a curious case, originally put out by Eden Industries in 2013 as a Kickstarter it failed, Atlus then came along and picked up publishing rights for this title obviously seeing something in it. With it's Earthbound style visuals, comedy writing and classic "snes era" rpg gameplay we have been waiting on bated breath for this Rocky story to finish. 

Releasing amongst near enough every console at the moment, will this Earthbound style RPG reach the stars or keep it's presidential feet well rooted to the ground? 

Version reviewed Playstation 4 available off all digital stores across the formats.
Also available on Nintendo 3DS, Steam, PS Vita & WiiU

Review code provided by ATLUS. 

Citizens Of Earth pits you as the newly appointed Vice President Of Earth! snazzy huh?, in typical RPG style you are woken from your slumber by your Mum. The laughs and far out story telling start here, you meet your brother who works for delivery company FedUP, protesters carrying around placards with your face crossed out saying No (Which rightly gets pointed out as a double negative), a conspiracy obsessed guy and evil coffee beans all within the first half hour of the game. 

The writing for the characters is brilliant for it's comedic non-serious tone, the VP as he will now be known is a borderline idiot, characters around him will talk down to him, question him at any given opportunity and come out with some truly strange lines. The sub cast is such an eclectic mix that you want to talk to everyone just to hear/read some more, one example was a deer with a phone on it's head telling me it was going to "Fawn me an ambulance" simple but effective pun work!

The only let down for me writing wise is that it doesn't really venture anywhere new, this is to be expected with it for all intents and purposes being a comedy game, not to say it isn't well written as it is just when compared to others like it for example South Park occasionally some jokes are just over used one tricks and the backing cast aren't used quite as much as they really should be.

Graphically CoE is a beautifully vibrant game, very smooth and polished looking focusing on a Saturday morning cartoon artstyle. All the characters are drawn to a stereotype so you know who they are when you meet them, enemy types are creative and often amusing parody digs at current culture and in general it's a very pleasing game to look at especially as the cast are all really well animated both moving and idle.
Audio wise the voice work is average, the cutscene voice work really shines but the repeating voice clips during gameplay more than often annoy rather than entertain. I can't really comment on the musical score of the game because honestly it's nothing special and not a single track has stuck with me, it's not horrid it just serves it's purpose to the letter as being "Background music".

CoE plays like the turn based "SNES Era" JRPGS like it's heavy influence Earthbound, this can be seen in it's modern setting, comedy aspects, parodies & even the battle scenes show homage to it. The battle system is your standard turn based affair with Buffs, Debuffs, Attacks and Item usage, rather than MP it uses an energy system, you gain 1 EP every turn unless you use an attack that uses them, the idea being you can build up and play your usage to maximize damage output in relation to Buffs/Debuffs, staple JRPG battle system which works really well and keeps you on your toes especially in regards to boss battles.

Exploration is done in the same way as the inspiring titles with you wandering around the map, finding treasures, fighting enemies which are shown on the field, interaction with objects and talking to NPCs. For the most part CoE is your play by play vintage JRPG in a modern "Americanized" setting, the real hook for CoE is the objective of finding your party.
The party system basically starts off as having a side quest to help out this character, these can range from basic fetch quests to fulfilling an amount of the in game challenges I.E Kill 500 enemies. Once you meet the criteria they will then join your quest, each person has certain strengths and weaknesses and most of all talents, what this means is if you get the Car Salesman to join you, you will then have access to a car for quicker travel, another example is the School Mascot which can adjust the game difficulty and rewards.

Citizens of Earth is a fantastic Comedy RPG with lashing of nostalgia for fans of the "Golden era" [personal opinion - Ed] of RPGS, it doesn't strive to change the genre and in keeping in line with that style it sets it's self apart by being a good old time RPG title. It may seem a little bare bones for fans of newer titles and despite being somewhat of a parody the issues of old are still exactly that, issues. Fights can take sometime and difficulty spikes set in quite harshly but if you are experienced with the genre it should keep you more than entertained and challenged while you enlist all the citizens and smash all the challenges.

8/10 

Who Should Buy This?

• If you enjoy parodies I.E South Park SoT, Hyperdimension
• Yearning for the RPG systems of yesteryear
• Need to scratch that "Catch them all" itch you have. 

Who Should Avoid? 

• If the idea of a Snes RPG is a nightmare
• Wanting more of a fantasy RPG 
• Deep and meaningful story with tear inducing writing, yeah you won't find that here.