I posted Rick and Morty’s Rushed Licensed Adventure recently and while on the subject of games based on TV shows we might as well talk about Attack on Titan. Like Rick and Morty I highly recommend the show, though it’s a completely different style and subject. A post-apocalyptic fantasy, where the world is overrun by human-devouring giants and the remnants of humanity are left living in a small area behind enormous walls. It’s extremely violent, but the attention-grabbing part is its high degree of unpredictability – we’ve seen a great deal of media involving humans on their last legs, but it’s the feeling that any horrible thing could happen to any person at any time which really conveys a sense of danger.

There’s a good explanation for the odd title of the show here, but it does contain some spoilers. The short answer is that “Attack on Titan” was the imperfect-English subtitle for the original Japanese comic, the full title being: “Shingeki no Kyojin: Attack on Titan.” Even though it doesn’t make much grammatical sense, they decided to keep it for the English version.

All right, so that’s all well and good for the show but how does this translate into a video game? Well there are a couple visual novels offered as pack-ins with the blu-ray releases of the show, but only one full-fledged licensed action game so far, released for the 3DS. As with most licensed games the answer is: poorly. It translates poorly, reviews of the the 3DS game have been almost universally negative. The dull and overly simplified combat being a common complaint among the reviewers.

Now, if you’ve seen the show this should be a disappointment and possibly a little confusing: combat in Attack on Titan is anything but simple. The characters move around by means of high powered grappling hook mechanisms that they wear around their waists and attacking the giants means getting up very close and cutting out a portion of their necks using swords. It’s fast and acrobatic and dangerous and movement involves coordinating many things at once. This has all the components of a thrilling and very challenging game and the idea that the developers would dumb that down to the point where movement is a couple of button presses and attacking just means a rudimentary quick time event… It’s disappointing.

Disappointing, but probably shouldn’t come as a surprise: the whole point of a licensed game is to cash in on audience enthusiasm. The developer pays a lot of money for that license and needs to appeal to the broadest audience possible, that means avoiding a complicated and difficult movement system in favor of something more accessible.

So what happens if you start with the same idea but the game isn’t made by someone who needs to make a return on the license? Say, by a fan? Just doing it because they like the show? You get the Attack on Titan Tribute Game. It’s bare-bones, graphically simple, but it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the source material: moving and fighting in AoT Tribute Game is damn hard and it’s a skill which you must develop as you play. Mastering something like this is both a chore and very rewarding, I am nowhere close but I’ve had little moments where it’s come together for me – little flashes where I’m not thinking about the controls and am instead soaring from building to building, flying around corners and working my way behind the horrifying giants. It’s a wonderful feeling.

One thing that’s missing and which I would like to see, but which might be difficult to implement: actual physics-relevant wires. As it is, the wires which pull you along are just graphical dressing – they clip through buildings and they can’t bend or otherwise be used to whip around the aforementioned corners. It’s a significant mechanic in the show, but I can see why it hasn’t been implemented here. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

If you’ve watched Attack on Titan and you’ve said to yourself, “Holy crap, that’s awesome. I wish I had grappling hooks like that, and also a city which didn’t mind that I was constantly poking holes in its buildings.” Well this is as close as you’re going to get.