This is a tough one for me to rate because I really love the card based combat system and how different every hero plays. Thinking of synergies, utilizing the environment or using ridiculous amounts of moves by exploiting the mechanics is really fun.

But at the same time the entire thing just lacks any sort of tension. Since you can basically grind out infinitely you're never really in any danger. Other than Xcom, which had you in one continuous campaign that can fail, you're now given infinite times, can grind out the craziest cards, heal and train your heroes and have virtually no meta progression. The "hero ops" are a joke mechanic and there isn't really any decision making since you can just build and get everything with no issue. The only real decision you make is being a light or dark hero and even that feels really lame, because the only difference are a few cards that are either stronger or weaker and one passive ability you can equip.

I also wasn't a big fan of the "free time" part of the game. It's cool to bond with your fellow Midnight Suns, but the dialogue tries really hard to be witty and it just comes across as embarrassing sometimes. Like each of those heroes is a teenager that tries to be smart or smug the entire time. It has some nice moments and interactions, but towards the second half I just ended up skipping everything because there is soooo much dialogue. Also running around the area feels like a mistake. It really should have been a menu, since walking between areas is tedious and the exploration part is just there.

But if you can just look past that, maybe skip all the dialogue and just try to have fun with the battle system it's a decent time. The finale in particular was an enjoyable power trip and I at least grew somewhat fond of the protagonist, the "hunter".

Maybe I'll replay this someday with the DLC stuff and go for a dark run, but for now I'm a bit tired of the repetitive gameplay loop.

Probably enjoyed this more than I should. The platforming is a little awkward, but for some reason I like dealing with these finnicky jumps and figuring out how to get up those platforms and walls. The movement had it's unique quirks that made it fun, although the camera made it hard to deal with.

Combat is what you're doing 90% of the time though and it's fine. I like the parry system and how flashy the combos are. There's also magic spells to find and use, and orbs to collect. Gotta love orbs.

The enemy design is pretty lackluster. Most enemies seem to only have one or two attacks and you can just wait it out with your block and then press the attack button to counter, no real timing required. Bosses made it a little harder since they have counters of their own, but jumping over them or to the side and hitting their backs did the job fine. Yakuza 3 tactics, baby.

Probably won't play this again, but had lots of fun in the 5-6 hours I spent with it.

A pretty safe sequel that brings the franchise to the 6th console gen. Considering this was a PS2 launch title and coming out just a year after the previous AC game one can't really complain about it's shorter length.

It has some new mechanics like the heat gauge and extensions, but overall it feels like a prettier AC1: PP, due to it's shorter length and added arena that consists of one ranking list.

Music was pretty good, I liked the way it looked and found the difficulty on normal to be quite manageable. Definitely helped that I went through the entire arena at some point and had absolutely no money problems anymore. Plus you could always do a human plus run if you wanted.

Good times, just kind of unremarkable in the sense that there aren't that many new interesting weapons and the final boss being a little lackluster. Curious about Another Age.

Also might be worth mentioning that I played this with the dual analogue stick mod which improved the controls significantly in my opinion.