Man, the last boss was intense. Finally managed to win with only 2 waifus down, but the fight lasted an hour and a half.
So how does this compare to the first game?
The core battle system is pretty much unchanged, aside from some minor changes like status effects and actually working evasion. Which is good: if it ain't broken, don't fix it. The cast is also largely carried over, with some changes here and there.
There are several small improvements to the interface and gameplay. You can now see map events in advance so you can't accidentally bump into them. You are also shown more information in battle, like enemy health bars, and whether attacks hit a weakness or not. They make the game a little easier, but I think in a good way. It just feels more fair to know what's going on.
The skill system is a great addition, it lets you customize your characters more and makes leveling more interesting than just pumping up stats. There is also a subclass system but I haven't used it. I actually haven't used any special items at all.
I think respeccing is a good feature as well. I was a little sceptical when I first heard about it, but this game is all about experimentation and trial and error, so being able to try everything freely is a good thing. Especially in hard mode, which would probably be nearly unbeatable without it.
Speaking of hard mode, I like how it works in this game. In many jRPGs it means more grinding. Here it actually limits it. Technically you can still grind after hitting the cap, but the benefits are minimal. The difficulty is quite high but mostly manageable, the biggest bumps being on floors 12 and 20. Those who haven't played the first game should probably stick to the normal mode though. Even on normal, the challenge level of bosses is shown and you can freely level up/down to adjust the difficulty to your liking.
The dungeon exploration is pretty boring. Some floors contain simple switch/teleporter puzzles which are better than just endless generic corridors, but still quite bland. At least it's not as infuriating as some parts of the first game (like 18F which was pure sadism there). The random encounters still consist of spamming your biggest nukes to get it over with quickly. It's another part that feels lacking. TP management during exploration is forgiving enough to not really matter, just a minor inconvenience.
I liked the story a little better this time around. It's still nothing amazing though.
The music is hit and miss, the boss battle tracks are great, but some exploration songs are annoying.
Verdict:
, but the exploration could still use some improvement.
Also did some more testing.
Actually, another thing I'd be curious about is how in battle modifiers on stats stack. Like, say you have the Team9 buff for +48% stats, and then get +100% Def, are you at 248% or 296%? Pretty minor effect either way though, so mostly just a curiosity.
Then there's all those various +damage effects, including the boost status. Not sure if they work before or after defense is taken into account. I have a foggy idea that it's before based on a fight where I was using that Grand Incantation skill that gives you boost status when you charge, but I'm not sure.
Team buffs like Team ⑨ stack
multiplicatively with normal buffs, so it would be 296% in your example.
The boost from Grand Incantation multiplies the damage
after it's been reduced by defenses.
I also checked the effect of leveling offensive spells. Each level after the 1st seems to increase the damage by 5% (after defense reduction). So at level 5 it's increased by 20%.
