In 2012, Psycho-Pass from beloved animation studio Production I.G. began airing in Japan to immediate success. Combining a cyber-punk setting with a corrupt dystopian future, crime drama, and incredibly mature psychological themes, it’s no surprise that the show spawned a second season, an anime movie, and is now considered to be within modern anime. Sporting such loveable characters and an intriguing setting, one would imagine that Psycho-Pass would be ripe-for-the-taking for a video game spin-off, and luckily developer 5pb. have answered the call to expand the wonderfully corrupt universe of the critically-acclaimed anime with Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness, a visual novel game for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and sometime this year, PC. Oddly enough, the game was originally released as an Xbox One exclusive in Japan, but there is no localisation of this version from publisher NIS America. With a setting with so much potential on their hands, do 5pb. deliver on adapting the world of the Sibyl System to consoles, or do we have another Psycho-Pass 2 on our hands?
Taking place somewhere within the first 8 episodes of the first season of the anime, Mandatory Happiness has you portray the role of either an Enforcer, Takuma Tsurugi, or Inspector Nadeshiko Kugatachi, as they join Division One of the Ministry of Welfare’s Public Safety Bureau (MWPSB). Together they team up with the cast from the anime to take out a corrupt AI known as Alpha whose main objective is to bring happiness to everyone through illegal methods while also bypassing the Sibyl System. Both characters experience the same story, but they both have something they are missing that they must reclaim as the game progresses that ties into the main story. Kugatachi is suffering from amnesia and must reclaim her memories. Tsurugi is trying to find his missing girlfriend.
Since this game is a visual novel, the main emphasis is obviously on the story, which is written by Nitroplus and Season 1’s writer, Gen Urobuchi. In almost every area, Mandatory Happiness manages to hit all the right notes in keeping consistent with the anime’s writing quality. The game fleshes out the world of Psycho-Pass better than ever before, introducing us to Sado Marine City, a once futuristic location closed off by a dome. It incorporates elements from the second season and movie such as the mental stability drugs that don’t seem out of place or inconsistent in the context of the first season of the show, and it gives characters from Division One of the MWPSB even more screen time in the show such as Kagari and Kunizuka while also fleshing out the characters of Tsurugi and Kugatachi rather excellently. By the end of the game I wished these characters were part of the show as their dialogue and interactions with the returning cast are fun and work way better than you’d imagine, despite how quickly they’re introduced. Alpha also manages to be an enjoyable villain, most likely because he doesn’t really act like one as the story progresses because he’s not fully in control of himself.
Many people are immediately turned away from visual novel games because, as the name of the genre implies, there’s a much bigger emphasis on story over gameplay, and Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness writes the book on how to have as little gameplay as possible in a video game. The most joy you’ll find yourself having with the gameplay of this game is pressing a button to scroll through some more text and occasionally making a choice that can lead the story in a different direction, even resulting in a few bad endings in some cases. That’s all there really is to it though, you won’t find yourself using the Dominators to subdue enemies in any first-person sequences or any chase sequences to apprehend criminals. This is a game you’re going to read rather than play and going into it with this in mind, I was nowhere near disappointed. Especially since the story it tells is fantastic.
Another area where the game doesn’t need to or try to impress is in the graphics. The game looks like pretty much any other visual novel with still artwork for backgrounds and character portraits with only a few frames of animation for blinking and mouth movements, equaling to nothing particularly special looking and definitely nothing strenuous on the PlayStation 4 or Vita. Despite this, the game does have a very nice UI, styled after the UI of the devices such as the Dominators and Psycho-Pass Scanners found in the show, which was a very welcome touch and helps separate it from looking like ‘just another visual novel’.
Because of Funimation’s lack of involvement with the localisation of this game, the only voice acting present here is the original Japanese voice over with no trace of an English dub. This didn’t bother me, as I watched the entirety of the anime subtitled, but I can see it being a deal-breaker for fans of the dub. The original soundtrack composed specifically for the game, while now exactly resembling the anime’s soundtrack, holds its own as a contextually fitting one with some great songs that suit any moment.
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness, while a bare-bones visual novel in terms of gameplay, more than makes up for this by hosting one of the best stories in the Psycho-Pass universe, introducing three great characters while also bringing us back the lovable MWPSB Division One cast for another case. It also extends this universe through some well appreciated world building and respect for the consistency of the timeline, all the while with a fitting soundtrack, beautiful artwork from the team at Production I.G., and a stylish UI. It may not be the best starting point for the series if you’ve never seen Psycho-Pass before (which you can and should watch on Crunchyroll right now), but it’s not impossible to jump in with this game as it does a good enough job contextualizing everything. If you’ve never watched any of the show, maybe check it out and see if it’s to your liking, and if it is, it’s time to check your Hue and steady your Dominator.
Developer: 5pb.
Publisher: NIS America
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS Vita
Release Date: 16th September 2016