Toaru Majutsu no Index (PSP game)


 * This article is about the upcoming PSP game. For the franchise overview, see Toaru Majutsu no Index.

Toaru Majutsu no Index (PSP game) is an upcoming fighting videogame based on the Toaru Majutsu no Index universe. It was developed by ASCII MediaWorks and was released for the PSP handheld console on January 27, 2011. The video game features an original story by the author of the series, Kazuma Kamachi. The opening theme is ANSWER, performed by Maon Kurosaki.

Gameplay
As with many fighting games, players choose a character from a lineup, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with an opponent. It is primarily a competitive two player series, but a human player can fight an AI-controlled character for practice, amusement, or to advance the game's story.

In the game the player has the option of using a partner to be used as support during the match. All the characters can be used as partners, however, both Index and Last Order are exclusively partner-type characters, and can't be used for fighting. All fighting characters can be partnered up with every other character, however, some partnerships work better than others. For example, Kamijou Touma and Misaka Mikoto are more suited to be partners than Kamijou Touma and Accelerator. A notable aspect is the different interactions a character has depending on their opponent before the beginning of the battle.

Players engage opponents in various locations derived from the Toaru Majutsu no Index series, like the bridge where Mikoto fights Touma or the streets of Academy City. However, some stages can only be unlocked after finishing a character's route in story mode. For example, the Oowarai Beach stage can be unlocked when the player is doing Touma's route.

Elements

 * For movesets and specials see the Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP Game Moveset list article.

Aside from the special moves that characters have (called Overdrive moves), there are team-up moves called Unison Raids. These moves can only be performed when the player uses a pair of characters with a certain frequency, and an amount of "partnership" is required. This "partnership" factor can be increased by playing the VS CPU modes, with a maximum level is 5 (3 being the minimum requirement for a Unison Raid). Partnership appears to shorten the time needed to call the player's support character.

Story Mode
The player is to pick among five character routes which unlock certain characters as the story progresses. Each of the five routes follow a certain storyline, and requires fighting against certain characters to advance to the next stage. Upon completing a stage, the character defeated by the player will be unlocked in the roster of characters available for use in the Versus Mode. After completing all five character routes, the player unlocks a final chapter. In the final chapter, it is revealed that the mysterious voice is a magician from the future. At the end of Touma's route, that voice is, in fact, talking about the player's memory loss and not Touma's.
 * Kamijou Touma - the player relives Touma's experiences and the combats he faced throughout the Light Novel series. This includes fighting against Stiyl Magnus, Kanzaki Kaori, Misaka Mikoto, Accelerator, Sasha Kruezhev, Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Oriana Thomson, and Acqua of the Back (Kazakiri Hyouka makes an appearance only, and Sherry Cromwell is excluded from the story.)
 * Accelerator - after recalling the experiences that Accelerator has in the Sisters Arc, he works with Tsuchimikado Motoharu, who eventually betrays him. It appears that he works with the dark side of Academy City, with Mugino Shizuri and Accelerator's past "mentor" Kihara Amata involved.
 * Mugino Shizuri
 * Kanzaki Kaori
 * Sasha Kruezhev

The player is revealed to be an esper from the past, and is actually controlling the characters of the current period. The future magician reveals his intentions of changing the present using the player, however, the player will reject the idea, thinking that it is wrong, and Touma comes and helps the player break the future magician's illusion.

VS Mode
Versus Mode allows players to play against AI-controlled opponents, either in Solo Mode (where players fight against opponents without any support) or in Cooperative Mode (where a player fights against an opponent with a support character each).

Some characters are available as exclusively supportive characters (Index and Last Order), and cannot be played as a main character.

Training Mode
In training mode, a player is transported to the training area stage, here, a player can train their their skills on a character. Players can either set the AI to be stationary or fight back in order to practice various combos, tactics and strategies, and it immediately recovers health after incurring damage.

Challenge
Categorized into two sections: Survial and Time Attack. Survival mode is where a player is pitted to fight opponents to increase their score, the opponents get increasingly more difficult after each win. Time Attack type is similar to Survival, however, the player's time is recorded in order to determine how long a single run of the challenge was played.

The Ranking section features the rank of the character(s) after one run of the challenge; for the Survival mode's ranking, it is determined by the character(s) scores, while the Time Attack's is determined the length of time.

Gallery
The Gallery section of the game contains various extras for the user's perusal, such as the CG artwork that the player unlocks after playing the story modes, changeable backgrounds and sprites for use in screeshots, the soundtrack of the game, voices, as well as the total score the player has earned after playing the game and the statistics regarding the player's achievements.

Easter Eggs
Index appears before the main menu comes up to the screen and will complain to the player if the player does not play the game for one day. If the player changes the date to 1 or 2 days before or ahead of the save data, index will become suspicious but welcomes the player or bites the player. Kousaka Kirino from Ore no Imouto will also appear either she is rather suspicious or welcomes the player.

Usable characters

 * Kamijou Touma
 * Index (support only)
 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Accelerator
 * Stiyl Magnus
 * Kanzaki Kaori
 * Tsuchimikado Motoharu
 * Misaka 10032
 * Shirai Kuroko
 * Last Order (support only)
 * Sasha Kreuzhev
 * Itsuwa

Unlockable characters

 * Mugino Shizuri (CV: Ami Koshimizu)
 * Oriana Thomson
 * Acqua of the Back (CV: Hiroki Takahashi)
 * Fuze = Kazakiri

Other characters

 * Kihara Amata (non-playable character) (CV: Keiji Fujiwara)