There aren't many games that can emotionally move me as much as this game does. It starts off as a slice of life story between a high school couple and a simple date to the movies. The story then quickly spirals into a mystery where strange occurrences appear throughout the town. Lots of supernatural and fantasy elements here.

The story deals with some serious and mature themes and even starts off with a warning of such nature. Despite the colorful tone and atmosphere early in the game, there are a lot of dark heavy moments hiding beneath it that left me uncomfortable at times. The emotional journey does end with a satisfying conclusion albeit leaving some plot points up to interpretation.

Other than the main characters, there's a lot of NPCs to interact with and a decent chunk of them are involved in the main story. Their personal stories are decently developed despite their small screentime. The writing as a whole is well executed.

The art direction and the pixelated graphics looks great with a decent range of animation.

The music is on the pleasant side with many well composed piano pieces. There are a few vocal tracks that help supplement the emotional moments.

The gameplay is similar to point and click adventure games. You move a character on a 2D plane and enter different rooms or areas on the side. There's a large amount of NPCs roaming the area that you can talk to. Puzzles are placed throughout the game and range from incredibly simple to more complex ones. The latter are not very common.

There's a mechanic that allows the player to dive within the mind/soul of a character to help resolve issues. All of these involve solving puzzles in some form.

Despite how it seems, there are actual combat moments which mostly involve inputting QTEs. These aren't difficult in general fortunately.

There are collectibles and a few optional sidequests in the game. However, getting all of these collectibles can be a hassle if you want to view a bonus scene at the end of the game. Many of the collectibles are chapter locked so there's no way to go back and get them if you missed out the first time other than do a completely new playthrough. Fortunately, Youtube exists.

Overall, the gameplay is decent and relaxing most of the time. Just a few frustrating moments on some of the QTEs and puzzles. The gameplay is actually very similar to 13 Sentinels' story portion of the game for those that are familiar with it.

The game takes about 10 hours to complete on a blind playthrough and recommended for those that want to experience a strong emotional story.

I played on the Twilight difficulty (hard) and it was a challenging game for me, but rarely did I feel frustrated at a situation or fight. I died a lot, but most of them were due to careless error. Checkpoints were generous so even deaths didn't lead to much loss of progress which would be my biggest issue with these type of games.

All boss fights are against other humans and many of their fights can get pretty intense. Some feel unfair at first, but it feels great to learn their attack patterns after a while and successfully parry stuff. In regards to the parry mechanic in general, it's not really needed against the mob enemies. Their health aren't very high in general so simple combos can quickly dispatch them. Boss fights on the other hand really emphasize the need to parry. Their attack chains are very long and deal heavy ki damage (stamina) even if you block them. Even a successful parry however doesn't necessary turn the situation around since they recover fast and can quickly continue another attack chain. Oftentimes, it takes multiple parries to deplete their ki and leave them exposed to a critical attack as opposed to the grunts which just need 1-2 parries.

My main issues with the combat is that too much of the actions are tied into ki. Blocking damage and dodging can quickly deplete the ki gauge which makes parrying more important than I'd liked. Fortunately, less of an issue for mobs. Camera can also be a pain to deal with. Being pinned against a wall or object will make the opponent invisible so you can't even see the attacks to properly respond.

I did enjoyed the open world stuff, but it has those types of maps where you’re not really exploring for hidden secrets. Nearly everything of importance are shown on the map. Even then, I just enjoy going through the scenery and seeing some parts of Japan’s locations recreated in the game. Kyoto in particular has a lot of pretty sights. Gliding around is fun as well. The maps aren’t too big and the collectibles never feel overwhelming either. This segment reminds me a lot of Ghost of Tsushima which had open world elements that I found relaxing to complete.

There's a ton of loot scattered throughout the game just like in Nioh. It was annoying at first, but I learned to just ignore them for the most part. I only upgraded my main weapons if I get a new legendary one. I only bothered checking the armor if I find myself dying multiple times to the same boss. Having an auto-sell function and being able to filter out specific rarities to sell is a nice QoL though.

What did surprise me though was that I found the story to be very intriguing. Taking place during the Bakumatsu period, the game did a good job reflecting a lot of the political issues and developments during this time. You can make key decisions at various points to change the timeline and create some what-if scenarios compared to actual history so that’s also interesting. You get perspectives on both sides of the two major factions and both have likable characters so it's not a clear cut answer of who is in the right.

Character missions are entertaining in general. I liked the story behind them and many of them could fit very well into the main story due to the content. While most of them are of the serious nature, there a few amusing ones as well.

One issue with the story though is that there’s a strange disconnect with what goes on in the main story and the side stories. Due to the game’s structure, you can shift alliance frequently and do missions on behalf of the “other” side which puts allies as enemies. They might say something about it afterward, but the characters still continue to act as allies of sorts. It's best to think that the player character is a Ronin that plays both sides and while characters might be frustrated with that, they'd understand.

Overall, had a really fun time. Finished the game at about 70ish hours and not going to bother with the post game Midnight difficulty stuff. I only did one mission for the trophy and while it wasn't incredibly difficult compared to Twilight, the boss had become a damage sponge annoyingly. More parries are required to deplete the ki gauge as well.

I'm not very experienced with the Under Night games with the only prior game I played was Late[cl-r]. From my casual perspective, UN2 is very similar to to the previous game, but with some new additions.

The combat is fast paced with a lot of depth to it. The mechanics can be quite overwhelming at times though. There's just so many of them and the obscure terminology for them doesn't make things any easier.

Combos can range from simple to very long and technical. Watching them in motion is a treat for the eyes. Overall, the combat is just very fun and almost fills my GGX2 void.

The character sprites haven't changed much from what I noticed, but they still look as great as ever. Background environment and scenery could still use some work since they are uninspiring compared to the other big 2D fighters out now.

Character themes have been remixed, but they still sound great.

The game modes from the previous games have returned so there's a decent amount of single player content. I am disappointed that there's no Chronicle mode or a major dedicated story mode. The story is told through the standard arcade mode which feels like a step backwards.

As for the story, the lore is interesting and reminds me of Type-Moon stuff. Lots of organizations and heavy use of terminology. The execution of the story however could be better since there's only a few cutscenes in each character's arcade mode.

I didn't play online too much, but the connections had been great. Although, the online community appears to be mostly dead for the PS5 at this point.