I was very excited for this game when it was announced. So much so, that I bought it twice on launch day, one copy for the Switch and another one for Steam.

I ended up beating the Steam version with a friend, but I played a fair amount of the Switch version....And I have thoughts.....

I like this game, but....I feel like this is kinda of a disappointment and a bit of a stepdown from the first game. It just feels like they took a lot of what made the first one work and either removed it, or doubled down on it so hard that they kinda ruined it.

The enemies feel a lot more annoying in this one, specifically the new colored enemies that hit harder and kill you faster. For some reason, those types of enemies were literally UNKILLABLE in the Switch version, and took like a million hits to take down...But then in the Steam version, this wasn't an issue...

Idk if I encountered a bug or what, since nobody else seemed to have experienced that, but it was really annoying and one of the reasons I didn't bother beating the game on the Switch. Another annoying thing between both versions, was the mediocre online mode, since even on the Steam version, trying to play this game online implied playing it with like -15 frame rate and intense lag.

Again, I don't know if these are things that others experienced, or if they patched these issues in later updates or whatever...But they made playing this game absolutely tedious.

Other than techincal issues, I think this game has too many collectables and side missions that it doesn't really need? Like, the first game had the hidden statues that you had to break in order to unlock the secret final boss, but that was it. Here, they want you to take pictures for Godai, or find cats on the street and take them to Mihoko, or tell you to go somewhere and talk to an NPC or get an item, only to have to backtrack like half of the stage multiple times.

Also, Kunio and Riki are in the cover, but they really have no place in the plot. Same thing with Hasebe and Mami, they only show up once in the whole game and I was hoping they would be playable in this one, cuz they were my favorite in the first game...But that's just nitpicking.

I don't hate this game, in fact, there is a lot of stuff I like about it. It feels bigger in scale, I love playing as Marian and Provie, I like that there are recorded voice lines for each playable character in the story and not just Kyoko and Misako; I still enjoy these characters and this game's sense of humor, the bosses are great and the combat still feels really good!

It's mostly the fact that I spent such a significant portion of time troubleshooting the game instead of actually playing it, or complaining about the online lag. It still is a really good game, it's just not better than the first one in my opinion, which was a letdown for me.

I want to replay it and give it another shot. Who knows? Maybe they did fix these issues...Or perhaps I am just a schizo and none of that actually happened.

Reviewed on May 05, 2024


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