It's prettier than the first one, the battle system has a lot more variety, the characters are well-drawn and capable, and enough of the original approach was preserved that it still feels like a "Summoner" game.
But I never got excited about this one.
The first one didn't really grab me until a plot twist about a third of the way into the game, but that twist really ramped up my desire to play the game, to finish it, to explore every corner available to me. Summoner 2 has nothing like that--there is no truly compelling plot, very little real drama among characters...it's all pretty standard fare. The most exciting things in Summoner 2 were the hints dropped about Rosalind and Flece (characters from the original Summoner), and the appearance of a mysterious, chilling woman who was once a mysterious, chilling little girl (anyone who thoroughly played the first game knows who I'm talking about).
Maia's story just doesn't thrill me that much.
Maybe it's just that the game has so much in it and I don't have the patience to do it all properly. The business of sitting on the throne and running a kingdom is great, and good decisions result in character-boosting events, but you can only run the kingdom X amount each time you go there. Generally, you have to finish the next big plot point before the home scenario will continue.
I love the large number of quests, but they frequently got in the way of the story--if not for the Quest sub-menu, I don't think I'd have known which assignments were main story quests and which were sub-quests...some of the sub-quests really skate the line in terms of their apparent importance.
In the end, I felt as though I was meandering through the whole thing, not entirely sure of what I was doing, often having to go on solo missions without any support from the other player characters, which is probably my biggest complaint about the game.
I love having to think my way through battles rather than just hacking and slashing, but a lot of the solo missions put you in the middle of large groups of enemies with little to get you through but your sword and your store of health potions (I always keep at least 50 on hand). The combat system felt innovative at first, but quickly deteriorated into an exercise in button-mashing: the game includes many, many special maneuvers for the characters, but a well-timed hit from an enemy can interrupt the maneuver prior to completion. I found that so frustrating that I never bothered with anything but the most basic attacks, meaning I rarely pressed anything but the square button. Hack, hack, heal...hack, hack, heal.
After my wonderful experience with the first Summoner, I'm finding myself wishing I had enjoyed this one more. In fact, take the first game and upgrade the graphics to Summoner 2's level, tweak out a battle system that combines the best from each game, and you'd have one of the greatest RPGs ever released.
It's prettier than the first one, the battle system has a lot more variety, the characters are well-drawn and capable, and enough of the original approach was preserved that it still feels like a "Summoner" game. But I never got excited about this one. The first one didn't really grab me until a plot twist about a third of the way into the game, but that twist really ramped up my desire to play the game, to finish it, to explore every corner available to me. Summoner 2 has nothing like that--there is no truly compelling plot, very little real drama among characters... it's all pretty standard fare. The most exciting things in Summoner 2 were the hints dropped about Rosalind and Flece (characters from the original Summoner), and the appearance of a mysterious, chilling woman who was once a mysterious, chilling little girl (anyone who thoroughly played the first game knows who I'm talking about). Maia's story just doesn't thrill me that much. Maybe it's just that the game has so much in it and I don't have the patience to do it all properly. The business of sitting on the throne and running a kingdom is great, and good decisions result in character-boosting events, but you can only run the kingdom X amount each time you go there. Generally, you have to finish the next big plot point before the home scenario will continue. I love the large number of quests, but they frequently got in the way of the story--if not for the Quest sub-menu, I don't think I'd have known which assignments were main story quests and which were sub-quests... some of the sub-quests really skate the line in terms of their apparent importance. In the end, I felt as though I was meandering through the whole thing, not entirely sure of what I was doing, often having to go on solo missions without any support from the other player characters, which is probably my biggest complaint about the game. I love having to think my way through battles rather than just hacking and slashing, but a lot of the solo missions put you in the middle of large groups of enemies with little to get you through but your sword and your store of health potions (I always keep at least 50 on hand). The combat system felt innovative at first, but quickly deteriorated into an exercise in button-mashing: the game includes many, many special maneuvers for the characters, but a well-timed hit from an enemy can interrupt the maneuver prior to completion. I found that so frustrating that I never bothered with anything but the most basic attacks, meaning I rarely pressed anything but the square button. Hack, hack, heal... hack, hack, heal. After my wonderful experience with the first Summoner, I'm finding myself wishing I had enjoyed this one more. In fact, take the first game and upgrade the graphics to Summoner 2's level, tweak out a battle system that combines the best from each game, and you'd have one of the greatest RPGs ever released.