This review contains spoilers
(Note: This review is old and likely doesn't match my current opinion. Will likely rewrite in the future)
As I say all too often, I'm surprised how much I enjoyed this game. In almost every single area, it's a step up from the original.
The combat is fun as hell and more balanced than the original, but it still lets you get completely overpowered if you want, which I like. The OST is great too, and I found myself enjoying more songs. The dungeons were also much more fun and I never felt like any of them dragged on too long, unlike Inaba Pride Exhibit and Clocktower. Even the longest dungeon in this game, the musical, felt a lot shorter due to the fact that you went through two floors at the same time, which made it not feel longer than the others.
At first I was so so on the new characters, at the beginning Hikari and especially Nagi were just kinda..... there. In the original Q, I felt much more attached to Zen and Rei since not only were they there from the beginning and were always open with the main group, but they were also playable in battle, and I used them throughout the entire game, despite not being all that great. However, as Q2 progressed and Hikari started to open up more and we got to know more about, I ended up liking her even more then Zen and Rei, and I thought her story was better too. Maybe it's because the story hit home uncomfortably well, as I could really resonate with how she felt and have had similar experiences before. Hell, the entire musical labyrinth is uncomfortable just to go through when you realize it represents Hikari's fall from a happy innocent girl to a depressed outcast, and it's implied that she would've commited suicide over it if she didn't receive help. Even then though, I feel that the story is just more coherent then the first.
This game isn't perfect however. The special screenings are fine, however they have so much dialogue and take forever. The quests from Q, despite also having dialogue, didn't feel as long. With special screenings, they basically combined Strolls and Quests from the first game and now you're forced to do both at the same time. I wasn't a huge fan of strolls in the first game, so being forced to in this game was really annoying and took up more of my time then I would've wanted.
Another thing I wasn't a huge fan of was Enlil. She wasn't bad, just meh. I found the clockwork god to be a more compelling villain.
Those last two things don't matter that much in the big picture however, since at the end of the day I still think Persona Q2 is a great game, my second favorite Persona spin off, behind Strikers, though beating Strikers in terms of quality is a hard task to accomplish.
Overall a really good game, just a few relatively minor issues.
As I say all too often, I'm surprised how much I enjoyed this game. In almost every single area, it's a step up from the original.
The combat is fun as hell and more balanced than the original, but it still lets you get completely overpowered if you want, which I like. The OST is great too, and I found myself enjoying more songs. The dungeons were also much more fun and I never felt like any of them dragged on too long, unlike Inaba Pride Exhibit and Clocktower. Even the longest dungeon in this game, the musical, felt a lot shorter due to the fact that you went through two floors at the same time, which made it not feel longer than the others.
At first I was so so on the new characters, at the beginning Hikari and especially Nagi were just kinda..... there. In the original Q, I felt much more attached to Zen and Rei since not only were they there from the beginning and were always open with the main group, but they were also playable in battle, and I used them throughout the entire game, despite not being all that great. However, as Q2 progressed and Hikari started to open up more and we got to know more about, I ended up liking her even more then Zen and Rei, and I thought her story was better too. Maybe it's because the story hit home uncomfortably well, as I could really resonate with how she felt and have had similar experiences before. Hell, the entire musical labyrinth is uncomfortable just to go through when you realize it represents Hikari's fall from a happy innocent girl to a depressed outcast, and it's implied that she would've commited suicide over it if she didn't receive help. Even then though, I feel that the story is just more coherent then the first.
This game isn't perfect however. The special screenings are fine, however they have so much dialogue and take forever. The quests from Q, despite also having dialogue, didn't feel as long. With special screenings, they basically combined Strolls and Quests from the first game and now you're forced to do both at the same time. I wasn't a huge fan of strolls in the first game, so being forced to in this game was really annoying and took up more of my time then I would've wanted.
Another thing I wasn't a huge fan of was Enlil. She wasn't bad, just meh. I found the clockwork god to be a more compelling villain.
Those last two things don't matter that much in the big picture however, since at the end of the day I still think Persona Q2 is a great game, my second favorite Persona spin off, behind Strikers, though beating Strikers in terms of quality is a hard task to accomplish.
Overall a really good game, just a few relatively minor issues.