The Caligula Effect has just been released for the Playstation Vita this year courtesy of  developer, Aquria. If you enjoyed the gameplay and storyline from Persona 2, then it’s refreshing to see such a Vita title to make its way to North America as it is from the same writer. However, how does it play out in the end?
The Caligula Effect takes place in Mobius, which is an alternate world created by a virtual idol named Miu.  In this world, you have a population filled with teenagers no matter how old these users are in the actual real world. Eventually, the truth about their predicament is unveiled as they need to form a group and find their way out of this alternate reality.
I would best categorize The Caligula Effect as a third-person dungeon crawler where you explore labyrinths as you progress through the story. The dungeons are presented as shopping malls and libraries. Getting around and finding the hints are pretty cryptic, so you may find this game repetitive going around every corner to determine what to do next.
Along the way, you run into a variety of NPC characters that you can befriend as well as your enemy NPCs, which are also known as Digiheads. The latter can be equipped with giant equipment and there are six types of these NPCs.
When you engage in battles, you’ll be taking turns choosing from a variety of attacks, such as ground and aerial, and can even chain them together. While it sounds good in theory, you can just repeatedly execute the same number of basic attacks on almost every enemy you encounter. There are boss encounters that add some diversity to the gameplay experience.
A lot of focus have been placed in The Caligula Effect in terms of the social links involving 500 characters. You can have them join your group by solving their problems and improving on the relationships with them. It’s a standard affair where you just talk to them, send them text messages for ideal chatter, and even form a bond if you want some of them to open up even more. On top of that, you can acquire special skills from them which can contribute to your attributes.
While The Caligula Effect does look decent in the graphics department, there are frame rate issues when there are lot of animations going on screen. It can be quite problematic not having this fluid experience. The music on the other hand is quite enjoyable and energetic while the sound effects do bring out the excitement in the game.
Overall, The Caligula Effect does have issues that keep this Vita title from attaining perfection. But there are some great degree of involvement and detail attached to both the story and character development. My recommendation is to try this out first before you actually purchase this. It may or may not be your cup of tea.
