“Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle! Maju Wars” is somewhere between an indie release and a low-budget commercial title. It’s also based on an anime of the (almost) same name by Kadokawa Corporation and developed by Preapp Partners and Deluxe Games. It also has a reputation of being REALLY bad… but it’s not too shabby, at least in its current state. I should probably say I’ve invested more hours in this game than most (over 50) and it’s a revision of a (fairly janky) mobile game that shutdown within a year, so a lot of its core mechanics feel structured around a mobile architecture but without the gatcha or P2W elements. The mobile game was first released in 2019 with an anime following it in 2020 and the PC/Steam game being released fairly recently during the end of March, 2021.
The plot centers around a male or female character who has just become the president of a new adventuring company. Adventurers are in high demand in this alternate fantasy isekai world of “Gatepia” as it is filled with treasures, monsters and “Kirakuri”, precious gemstones that are part of the foundation of the world. As the name implies, Gatepia is known for its various “gates” that open throughout the land which lead to mysterious dungeons and untold riches. This game revolves around a special dungeon known as the “Toichi Dungeon”, a dungeon which only appears every ten days and is the byproduct of a hidden computer system on the planet that is maintained by the gods (or in this case, goddess). What is the purpose of this dungeon? Why does it appear in ten day intervals? Why are its monsters (or “Maju”) so strong? Will you find the answers you seek? Hmmm…
Maju Wars is another game of the “Groundhog Day” variety, as in, you do some stuff, struggle, eventually die, and then repeat it again with some more upgrades and knowledge to use in your next run. As a Roguelike, the game doesn’t just stop there — it incorporates various rogue elements such as explorable dungeons that, while strategic, also have a bit of a mystery dungeon flair with spawning monsters, traps, floors, and a wretched big bad if you take too long to clear an area (he’s non-lethal, but takes a good portion of your income, which is… not good, more on this later). At its core though, it’s some light tactical shizz with mild management sim elements that are, again, revised from its mobile release. The game’s basic loop is: Explore/Invest/Spend for ten days, fight a Toichi Battle, Explore/Invest/Spend, fight another Toichi Battle, Explore/Invest/Spend, fight your final Toichi Battle on day thirty. If you clear the game or die at any point along the way, you will repeat the game from Day One (with certain specific days having alternate endings), get a final evaluation based on your performance, and get perks you can carry over into the next run. The game allows you to make logs on Day Ten and Day Twenty if you feel like you have a particularly good run and don’t want to start from scratch.
Most things in the game are randomized, such as dungeon layouts, treasures, party members you can find or recruit, and special days you can monitor on your calendar to recruit special characters or get discounts. Cash is vital in this game as characters do not level-up by defeating enemies; they grow stronger by upgrading your facilities and by equipping skills, and each unit costs a certain amount of money to deploy with “rare” characters costing the most (they have a gold frame around their portrait — the exception are DLC characters such as those from Compile Heart’s “Hyperdimension Neptunia”).
There are also six classes to choose from: Knight, Rogue, Hunter, Warrior, Wizard and Cleric. These classes do not get promotions and are quite rudimentary with pretty predictable differences (even though they are not clearly outlined): Knights are tanks, Warriors deal high damage and take the front lines, Rogues are weak but have (very) high movement and get treasures with 100% success, Hunters have high accuracy, Clerics are obviously healers (and decent backup attack magic users), and Wizards are glass cannons with good AOE abilities. In spite of all this, the game is clearly unbalanced as there are way too many Warrior-only skills and many of them are OP.
The best way to play this game is to accumulate as much money as possible each run through exploring dungeons — your total revenue carries over each game (first at 50% and then at 100% if you clear the game at least once), so don’t get your money taken by a gold thief. The game also has a thin main narrative and the odd decision to have all its character skits as separate unlockables that are not shown during the main game. The game is modestly fun and is usually ridiculously discounted (80-90%), so it’s worth it for that alone. Exercise caution…
This a vid showing various things. You can get the game at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1390600/Shachibato_President_Its_Time_for_Battle_Maju_Wars/
Enjoy.