Beat without knowing it was a direct sequel to the previous game, which I have not played yet. I was not expecting the combat to be so similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. I breezed through the early game doing every side quest I found until it was just Elc and Shu in the junk town. Here the difficulty ramped up significantly due to the lack of any healer and I struggled to get by with just items. It was also around this time that 2 of the game's flaws became apparent. The side quest here was a brutal slog fighting the exact same enemy group about a dozen times in a row. Battles in this game only contained 1 or 2 different types of enemies, and they repeated many times with only slight variation in position and relative numbers. It made the experience far more monotonous and tedious than it would have been with more varied battles. Also, most enemies felt pretty much the same because they very rarely used any special abilities. Even spell casters more often used basic melee attacks instead of their more powerful magic. This was dumb. Enemy AI was also painfully predictable; they always always always attacked the closest character like brain dead zombies, so it was easy to control the flow of battles. The other major flaw that seriously got on my nerves was the limited inventory space. That kind of shit always demoralizes me as I am forced to make imperfect judgement calls on what to sell or throw away. Enemies dropped a lot of consumable items, almost all of which I got rid of so those items were pointless. When the game fully opened up there was a stash of 12+ items from the 1st game, and an optional 50 floor dungeon packed with loot. There was incentive to keep a variety of equipment with different protections, status effects and elements, especially since equipment could freely be changed during battle. I had a wind sword with +1 movement range, and an amulet with +2. If I needed the extra movement on a character I could equip those, move, then switch back to battle gear before attacking. It was silly to think about the characters hot potatoing equipment around to each other mid fight but I loved the tactical freedom. Unlike FFT there was no option to change character facing after performing an action so there was an element of tactical planning needed. The enemies loved exploiting the flanks. Counter attacks were guaranteed when attacking from the front, on top of the higher defense. The combat was overall not as good as FFT, mainly because of the limitations on ranged weapons and magic, and also every action was instant. All ranged weapons from spears, short blades (throwing) and guns only had a range of 2. The only variation was that staves could hit diagonal (but only 1 space ahead) and machine guns hit 6 or 7 spaces in a cone. I liked how each character had different weapon options to allow for higher damage melee or safer ranged, but I did not like the lack of variation. Like why not have a weapon type with 2 range that can't hit in melee range, or another that can't hit more than 1 target, or longer than 2 range, different shot patterns etc. Magic had 3 range and hit in a + shape, but unlike FFT there was no friendly fire or targeting the ground. I hated the latter because in order to hit 2 targets that were in the + but not adjacent, there had to be an ally of them in between. This was not a big deal to set up for healing and buffs, but it made hitting more than 1 enemy with level 1 offensive magic incredibly unlikely. Spells could be upcast to level 2 or 3 to increase range and area of effect for additional mana cost, which was cool.

Later when the game opened up, the cast of the 1st game joined and were at higher levels than all the other characters. I had to backbench most of them and focus on keeping an elite core team as leveled up as possible because I did not want to mindlessly grind. I did some things in the wrong order, like that 50 floor dungeon which I significantly out leveled. The next big challenge came at the mountain dungeon Brakia, where the enemies were so higher leveled than me that I had to buff up, use crowd control, spam healing, use area nukes, and even use Elc's invincibility to off tank. Due to side quests I had to do that stupid mountain with the exact same fights 6 or 7 times. The rest of the game stayed challenging as the enemies increased in levels faster than I did, being 20 to 30 levels higher than my guys by the end. There were also times where I had to split into 2 teams. These were cool but I had to mix my elite high levels with the scrubs in order to have a chance. Probably the most difficult fight I had was protecting Kukuru from that group of light element monsters that could heal. It was only Elc from the A team with the rest from the B team, so it was a huge struggle to do enough damage to prevent them from healing, especially since they were programmed to attack Kukuru so I had to block all 3 spaces around her or they would kill her and I lost instantly. Good thing the game auto saved at the start of each battle. I beat that thanks to Iga and his amidar fist move that put a high damage over time effect for multiple turns. Speaking of the teams:

My A team;

Elc: lvl 97, max spear, 5 sword. Using boar spear (38 attack), bravery wings +0, fire robe (23 def). Bonus skills: protection and extract.

Since he was the main character and mandatory for the early game and all split team missions, he got a lot of use. I focused on spears early on since Shu was the tank, and by the time the 1st game characters joined his spear skill was way higher than anyone else's combat skill. He mostly did basic attacks. Sometimes I used invincible for him to off tank or run head long into the enemy since his high agility made him always go 1st. He had useful buffs for self damage, movement range, and magic, and I occasionally let him use his fire nukes when I could not reach with the weapon. Never tried extract.

Tosh: lvl 110, max sword. Using light saber (36 attack with 5 heal on hit) or wind edge (42 attack), dragon mail (30 def), power wrist (16 def). Bonus skills: expand range and explosion.

Tosh only used swords but he was an awesome badass from the moment he joined. He just did so much damage with his basic attack, which was why he got the most kills and far out leveled everyone else. I made sure to give him the best defensive gear because he always took hits and needed regular healing. I did not find his abilities useful compared his normal attack, and they were all in Japanese which is gibberish to me. I gave him movement range and a nuke so he had at least something to do when he could not reach an enemy. Monji slash was occasionally useful because it weakened an enemy by lowering all stats. Kish seemed to store damage taken to be released later with Ryu but I did not bother. I tried out his other damage moves during the final boss when he was too low hp to risk getting counter attacked. They at least had higher chance to hit but did less damage than a good normal attack. Juba did paralysis and was useful for crowd control early on.

Shu: lvl 90, 14 smg, 10 kick, 7 shotgun. Using bitch machine gun+0 (26 attack), black suit+0 (36 def), power wrist (9 def). Bonus skills: charge, power loss.

Shu was an evasion tank. Early on when he could only use shoes he was the party tank. Once guns became available I switched. The basic shotgun was higher damage than the basic smg, but the smg hit more spaces and was useful for hitting from off center angles. He was very good until the late game where his damage dropped off, and he probably contributed the least in late game battles. I had him charge up when he could not reach enemies. Plasma shock and power loss were good debuffs but I almost never used them. Random attack was good to hit multiple enemies around him and avoid counter attacks. I used time bomb a few times early on and steal seemed pointless with my inventory always full. His nuke did terrible damage.

Poco: lvl 89, 12 cymbals. Using micro bomber (52 attack), ranger suit (23 def, 1 agility), magic sprig+0. Bonus skills: diamond dust and ice shield.

Despite ending up with the most powerful weapon, this guy was the main healer and a bard or red mage. Using cymbals as a weapon was dumb, as well as the whole orchestra theme for his spells. When he joined he was way higher level than Elc and Lieza so he took over as main healer. He lacked status curing and resurrect but made up for it with attack up buff and strong non elemental nukes. With the passive mp regen from that sprig he never had mana issues. With 2 sprigs equipped he gained the same mp per turn as his basic heal, so infinite healing. I let him melee fairly often but his lack of defense meant the counters hit hard. I tried the survival challenge at Amidar temple when it was 1st available and got to 100 kills before letting everyone die, all thanks to his infinite healing. I wish I could have sorted spell lists to put healing at the top!

Sania: lvl 96, 7 cards, 7 spear. Using magic card (8 attack, 4 magic), fabulous ring (11 def), magic ring (11 def). Also had death illusion with 34/42 attack. Bonus skills: divide and paralysis wind.

The dark mage, she filled the role of nuke and support. She joined at level 50 and was higher level than everyone else, so she got a spot on the team over Gogen. She only had dark element nuke with many enemies being dark but she still wrecked with high area damage, and did not have Gogen's movement penalty. She had an instant death melee range spell that I used occasionally, since it did not always work. Random dice seemed pointless. X cryte put a voodoo debuff on an enemy that caused it to take the damage that she took, so combining it with divide (hp drain) could allow for high risk high reward tanking. Paralysis wind did less damage than her basic nuke but I abused it for crowd control during the end game. Transfer enemy could also be crowd control but I only used it during that archaeology side job to delay enemies from reaching the guy. When she was not nuking I had her steal mp, attack with spear, or use transfer to give her turn to another character. Transfer was extremely useful and cost 0 mp for the basic range. I had her equipped for glass cannon nuking.

The B team;

Arc: lvl 59, 8 sword, 2 stick, 3 short sword. Bonus skills: might mind (magic buff) and retaliation.

He was on the main team for a while until I swapped him with Sania. He was mandatory for split party fights, in particular the boss fight vs Andel and I really felt his lack of level. He was a great character but was redundant with my core team, so he just barely got left out. On the plus side he had weak enemy spell, a powerful heal (self only?), slow, a unique mp regen accessory, nukes (including light element), and good weapon selection. On the negative, his damage was low (especially magic), he had to share swords with Tosh, and I didn't have good short blades. I think it was a good call because he would not have contributed much to the final boss fight.

Iga: lvl 52 with 6 punch, 4 stick, 4 kick. Bonus skills: power loss and ground shield.

This monk had a lot in common with Tosh, including nonsense ability names. He joined at decent level but never seen much use. 2 of his abilities were ranged at least. One insta killed lower level enemies but he was the low level. Amidar fist I already mentioned as awesome for being effective against much higher level enemies. Having both punch and kick was redundant but fit with his class.

Gogen: lvl 54 with 5 cane. Bonus skill: might mind and destruction.

The wizard with big damage nukes. Compared to Sania he had every element except light and dark, so he could more effectively exploit elemental weaknesses. His movement was low and he had no support though, just his teleport which was needed to get some secret treasures. I probably would have kept him in the main team if Sania did not start off so high leveled.

Lieza: lvl 43 with 9 short blade, 2 whip.

As the 2nd character who joined the team she was invaluable for the early parts, serving as the healer. I had her focus on defense gear and ranged short blade attacks when healing was not needed. She had useful debuffs and earth element nukes too, but no status cure or resurrect. She unfortunately lagged behind in levels and was no match for Poco. She was also the only character that could recruit monsters, which was a cool system but not something I wanted to mess around with when there were already way too many characters. I recruited a total of 4 monsters during the game.

Gruga: lvl 53 with 7 axe. Bonus skills: power loss and expand range.

Black Conan the barbarian, he was a brute with excellent physical stats that did decently even while severely under leveled. Axes did great damage while stick would give him that diagonal range. He could have replaced Tosh or Shu on the main team. He was slow learning abilities, pretty much only having that self charge until lvl 50, when he got a bit of range and confusion crowd control. He had natural light element which allowed him to naturally bypass the extra hit required for undead, and he probably would have wrecked the final boss, but also may have been one shotted by its dark nukes. I found it very weird that he was light while Arc was the only character with no element. The reverse would make more sense.

The rest of the party:

Shante: lvl 32. She was the healer with status cure and resurrect, but she could not even catch up to Lieza. I had her use sticks but her damage was terrible. Later she had shoes with regen mana. She would be a good support character but would require serious power leveling to be useful.

Diekbeck: the robot who was independent of the entire rpg system. It did not gain xp and was permanently stuck at level 1, rather its power was entirely dependent on acquiring power cores from side dungeons. Seemed like its weapon skills did not go up either, so it was more of a tank mage/cleric. With the 2 best cores it had healing, resurrect, hp drain, mp drain, invincible, 1 spell that buffed every stat, and 2 light element nukes. So probably the best ability line up in the game and a character that could fill any role while also ignoring being severely under leveled. Probably should have used it in the B team or maybe even the A. It was very powerful during early game but later fell off as I had not done the side dungeons. It was very interesting that any xp it gained could be given to other characters, so it was a great power leveling tool. I hated how there was equipment that gave additional hp and attack upon level up because the very concept encouraged abusing this robot system instead of just naturally playing the game.

Kelack: lvl 32. Unique 3 little guys monster that was a healer. Had to use when Lieza was on her own and never had any use after.

Mofly: lvl 34. Same as above except offensive unit.

Hemo ji: lvl 31 never used.

Fu jin: lvl 34 never used.

Rai jin: lvl 34 never used.

Odon: lvl 32 never used.

All of these unique monster characters did not count as monsters for the mother Clare cave so I had to recruit proper monsters. I am really not sure why these characters even exist with the human party already too big for 2 teams.

Choko: lvl 50 never used. One of those silly characters that should not have a place in an adventuring party or participate in anything remotely dangerous. Just a silly little girl mage. She at least started off at high level but by the time I "got" her the core team was way past. I found her in the optional dungeon but did not go to her town to recruit her until near the end of the game. Before then she suddenly appeared in the roster during the final split party sequence and I kinda think that was not intended by the developers.

Paundit: lvl 36. Joined with Lieza so seen a lot of use during the early game, but quickly fell off as more people joined the team.

Hobgoblin: lvl 31. I recruited this during a very early boss fight just to make the fight easier. He turned out to be a decent warrior that seen some use with Paundit.

Grim stalker lvl 48 and berserker lvl 48. I neglected mother Claire's cave until the very end. Paundit and hob could not handle it also so I recruited these 2 from the nearby random battle. They carried the way and were not used afterwards.

There was a time travel event near the end where I sent Elc by himself. The enemies were way lower level though so it was overkill. Not sure how many years into the past it was but I was disappointed that nothing was changed about the towns. They had the same npcs that looked the same age and even had the same dialogue, other than a few related to the current tasks. Before starting the penultimate dungeon in Romalia I did some gear upgrading at the blacksmith. The game never explained this system well and I thought it was rather limited and pointless; just a faster way to level up gear and add effects to consumables, since none of my actual equipment could have any effects added. It was obnoxious that equipped items had to be taken off to even be seen in the smithing menu, on top of the already way too limited inventory. I was reading a walkthrough after each area to see if I missed anything (I did miss several secrets), and eventually got to reading about the smith system. It was a terrible system. You had to unlock better options by doing the lesser options so many times, which was mostly a waste of money. Unlocked options were raise max item level, raise max offense/defense, and personalize to make an item unique for 1 character. I only unlocked the latter 2 from the smith in Brakia; raise max level was apparently only in the other smith. I upgraded the end game gear the core team was using as much as I could without getting into the mind numbing min/maxing that was possible. The way the system worked was that raise max level only worked if the item was not already maxed, so you were punished for playing the game normally and using good weapons in combat. Then on top of that, using either raise max option had a random chance to permanently prevent the item from being improved further. So the optimal way of improving an item was to: 1; not use it to reach current max level, 2; raise max level 1 at a time save scumming to ensure the item does not lock, up to the 2nd last max level of 14, 3; do the same with raise max off/def save scumming each time to ensure the item does not lock, 4; when raise off/def no longer works but the last raise max level does then save scum as many attempts as you want to check if the item reached the actual max or just randomly locked the 1 option, 5; do the last raise max level and thank god you are finally done with 1 item. Jesus fuck who designed this ridiculous system? It should be straightforward exchange money for power up to a certain limit without any random bullshit wasting the player's time.

After Romania was the point of no return so I made a back up save. The final dungeon was not difficult despite the enemies being 20 to 30 levels higher. There was a point where the characters had a solo story sequence followed by a level scaled fight. I did them in the order the game put me in control of them, so it was Arc, Poco, Tosh, Iga, Gogen, Elc. I was disappointed that the event ended after 6 and I did not get to see everyone else's. Gogen nuked his opponent in 2 turns while Tosh and Iga almost died! The final boss took a very long time because of how often he defended against my attacks. So many hits did less than 20 damage. Meanwhile Poco had to heal almost every turn. Phase 1 seen me wipe out all the minions 1st only for them to respawn. So then I had Elc invincible tank half of them while Sania paralyzed the other half. Tosh did most damage to the boss with his light element sword. Phase 2 took much longer but quickly resolved into a formula. Poco was 1 hit killed twice and Shu died once while I tried letting him regen hp. Still had a couple revival dusts left when I mastered the fight. He only did 3 moves; a basic attack/counter that hit Tosh and Elc behind him, a very powerful nuke that hit in a 4 space T shape that almost killed everyone in 1 hit (except Poco who always died), and a slightly weaker nuke that hit everyone. The best formation was the + so only Tosh and Elc got hit by the big nuke and everyone got healed at once. At first I had them more spread out. Tosh did normal attacks and a special attack when his hp was too low to risk counter. He had to eat a couple mp items. Elc did normal spear attacks while casting protect, though I gave up casting that towards the end because it did not last long and was not necessary. Shu did normal smg attacks which were defended way more often than not. He might have actually done more damage with his nuke. Gogen might have been better here despite being 80 levels under the boss. Sania mostly used transfer to give Tosh or Elc another attack, sometimes to Poco for attack buff. Her dark nuke only did mediocre damage but at least it could not be defended. Divide did twice the damage but I only used it when she needed hp so not sure if it would work at full hp. Poco spammed healing and had infinite mp. With this set up I could have continued indefinitely. Eventually Tosh would eat all the mp items and maybe have to skip an occasional turn. Sania would eventually run out too but transfer cost 0 mp, or she could try stealing from the boss. The fight could have been more dynamic and less tedious.

I enjoyed this game despite its flaws. The story was excellent with a lot of epic and emotional scenes, surprising twists, and well done characters. The villains were hilariously over the top but I think that may have been part of their plan because they had to manipulate the human king to release the dark god, and it was the arrival of the party that pushed him to that brink. Would the dark god still have been released if the good guys died before the end? The overall story was very cliche, typical jrpg, but it was told very well. There could have been more character development though, especially about the relationships between the characters. Like there seemed to be 2 or 3 potential romances but the ending gave no hints whatsoever what might happen. The gameplay was fun overall and I could see playing through again at some point, even going for the best gear and filling out the roster with monsters. My playthrough was already too long though, so I can see it taking 100s of hrs to get every character and a bunch of monsters leveled up enough to be viable for the final boss. And this game was no FFT or Tactics Ogre to be worth playing that much. There is also more items and content from importing a save from the previous game, and the option to import back and forth from Arc Arena, but I didn't see that game for download. Not sure if I would even want to play it since it seems just a different way to grind.

7.8/10