Code Age Brawls

Code Age Brawls
Developer(s)	Square Enix
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Writer(s)	Miwa Shoda
Composer(s)	Kumi Tanioka
Series	Code Age series
Platform(s)	DoCoMo 3G FOMA Mobile phones
Release date(s)	JP December 19, 2005 [1]
Genre(s)	Role-playing game

Code Age Brawls (コード・エイジ　ブロウルズ^?) is a video game developed by Square Enix for mobile phones and is part of the Code Age franchise. It follows a woman on another world who has been partially transformed into a powerful creature called a Warhead, who must continually battle other creatures known as Coded in order to take over their bodies and stay alive. The game's battles are rock-paper-scissors-like contests using colored badges across five rounds. The game was only released in Japan, like its sister game in the franchise, Code Age Commanders: Tsugu Mono Tsuga Reru Mono.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Code Age Brawls is focused on collecting and using colored badges in a contest similar to rock-paper-scissors. Battles consist of five rounds, in each of which the player and their opponent each select a badge to play. Once both players have made a selection, the badges are revealed, and the winner does damage to the opposing player based on the difference between their levels. The badge colors are ranked in power from highest to lowest as yellow, red, blue, purple, and gray. If players play the same color they both attack, and if one player's color is higher only they attack. Players may choose to not play a badge in order to save it for later rounds; if both players do not play a badge then then neither attacks.^[2]

Code Age Brawls is a subscription-based game, where players must pay a monthly fee in order to continue to be able to access the game.^[3]

In April 2006, four months after the game was released, Square Enix added the ability to battle other players in addition to the AI. The Battle Arena, an area of the game that allowed three versus three matches between the player and a computer-controlled opponent, was modified to allow matches between two real players.^[3]

Story

The game is set in the same world as Code Age Commanders: Tsugu Mono Tsuga Reru Mono. The two games were released within months of each other as part of Square Enix's system of "polymorphic" content, which they defined as "multiple game releases from a single franchise on different platforms at the same time".^[2] Like Code Age Commanders, Brawl is set in an "intraglobular world" (球内世界, kyuunai sekai?), a fictional hollow world similar to a Dyson sphere, with people living on its internal surface. The center of the sphere is occupied by the Central Code, a spherical structure which goes through a transformation called Reborn about every ten thousand years, destroying all life on the globe and allowing for the birth of a new one.^[4]

The game begins near the end of a Central Code cycle, with the humans under attack by Otellos; a new, warped species which possesses humans to turn them into mindless puppets named Coded, although for some people the possession instead turns them into powerful, free-willed creatures called Warheads.^[4][5] The game follows a human who has attempted to become a Coded in order to survive the Reborn, but is instead turned into a Warhead, although an incomplete one. As such, she must battle Coded in order to steal their bodies, as hers continually falls apart.^[6]

References

1. ^ (Japanese) What's New | SQUARE ENIX
2. ^ ^{a b} Gouskos, Carrie (2005-09-16). "TGS 2005: Code Age Brawls Hands-On". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/mobile/rpg/codeagebrawls/news.html?sid=6133467&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;2&mode=previews. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Tochen, Dan (2006-04-12). "Square Enix brings PVP to Code Age Brawls". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/mobile/rpg/codeagebrawls/news.html?sid=6147577&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures%3Btitle%3B1. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Karlin, David (2005-10-17). "Code Age Commanders PS2 Preview". 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3144803. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
5. ^ Clayton, Phillip; Beck, Adrienne (2005-03-31). "Square Enix Unscrambles Code Age Commanders, Decodes First Details". RPGamer. http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q1-2005/033105a.html. Retrieved 2011-02-16. 
6. ^ Eller, Ian; Beck, Adrienne (2005-07-27). "Code Age Starts Brawl, Reveals Story". RPGamer. http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q3-2005/072705c.html. Retrieved 2011-02-16.