A.W. Phoenix Festa takes the four main girls of The Asterisk War: The Academy City on the Water and turns the ?Phoenix Festa? tournament arc into a combination of dating sim and light action-RPG. For the uninitiated, this is one of those sci-fi franchises where ? in the wake of the Earth?s destruction ? the government decides that the best idea is to set up schools where a bunch of superpowered kids beat the crap out of each other. You play as a guy just admitted to one of those schools, Seidoukan Academy, and are just lucky enough to have all the attractive, notable female students after you. And while protagonist Ayato Amagiri seems to be canonically interested in the amazingly-named First Princess of Lieseltania, Julis-Alexia von Riessfelt, this Vita spinoff gives you the opportunity to woo one of the other main girls: mature student council president Claudia, air-headed childhood pal Saya or the shy and easily-embarrassed Kirin, who?s actually the top-ranked student at the school. A.W.: Archetype World"
None of these characters establish identities outside of the prototypical anime archetypes. Kirin will always react with blushing mortification to anything with even the slightest hint of sexuality; Julis, the resident tsundere, will pretend not to like the lead character despite it being incredibly obvious that she does. That?s not such a terrible thing on its own, as even the most archetype-laden project can make me crack a smile if written well enough, but A.W. ...