Materialize!
The story starts somewhere after episode 13 in the Japanese animation. Players will be able to choose from 9 characters at the beginning. This includes Arika, Nina, Natsuki, **** Haruka and many more of your favorite characters. There are also 6 other slots waiting for you to unlock.
In festival(story) mode, players will have to beat all 8 battles and one final against dark Nina(Shikkoku no Kongouseki Nina). Beating the festival mode with different characters will unlock different stuff, such as photo album, new characters and other playing mode. Battle system is based on fly-and-fight mode. In other words, you won't have the chance to stand on the ground, but flying in the air and release your powerful moves. In the battle screen, character will have the ability to move 3 directions from up, center and down, also 360 degrees around the screen from left to right. There are basically 3 attacks a character can perform during battle: normal attack, strong attack and special attack. Plus some other moves like blocking and dashing in/out. By using these basic moves, players will be able to make different combos to defeat their opponent. The battle system may be confusing and hard at first, but as long as you are familiar with the controls, it will be fun.
The graphics for this game is alright, magic effects are well done. The only thing that looks weird is the character's face, which is using a combination of 2D and 3D graphics. Sound is good, a brilliant job by the Seiyuus(Voice Actress), same goes to the background music and intro.
The previous Mai-hime on the PSP didn't go very well, but this time, Sunrise had all the bad things corrected and came out with smart one. The game is specially created for all the Mai-otome fans, so if you like the Japanese animation, this is definitely for you.