Caligula Effect Overdose was a pretty legendary kusoge with a good story backed up by some of the worst gameplay systems on every level you can imagine. But, even in that game they managed to nail the vibes. When you first leave the classroom in Overdose and Peter Pan Syndrome starts playing, then get into battle and the vocals come in--its perfect.

They smartly leaned even more into that in Caligula 2 while softening all the edges that made that game so unplayable otherwise. In basically every way, this game is just "Caligula Overdose but better", down to the plot taking place in Redo, a literal redo of the first game's premise.

And I really do mean everything. Starting off, the dungeons are no longer awful, just bad. There's nothing like the fucking library or Aztec Temple of the first game, which alone is great. I hope by the third game they actually manage to make a good one.

The combat was always passable in Overdose, but the various aesthetic improvements here really nail the "contructing a music video" vibe of the game, especially the new "x-jack" feature which instantly swaps out the bgm with one sung by your friendly neighborhood good guy vocaloid and buffs your team--its honestly so sick when you're fighting a boss, x-jack and proceed to 100 hit combo all over them while your theme song plays, it just feels so triumphant and powerful. The mechanical improvements help too, of course, I can genuinely say I was Having Fun with the fights the entire way through, if I played through again I'd probably go to the highest difficulty just to see how crazy that is.

Narratively, while this game sacrifices playable musicians and doesn't dwell quite as much really fucked up protagonists--there's no absolute scumbags like Eiji in this game you're forced to play with--it makes up for it by just having a really entertaining party. Your initial two--trendy sneakerhead Gin and airheaded old soul Sarasa are immediately endearing and stayed some of my favorites through the entire game, the local fuckboy Kobato is easily the funniest womanizer I've ever seen in a jrpg--basically every line he says had me dying of laughter, the genki zoomer Nico is similarly hilarious and has one of the most interesting interior lives I've seen in a game, and who can forget our lovely class president Marie who's character basically manages to carry the entirety of act two on her predicament. Even the less-immediately interesting party members all have many moments and exploring their backstories is rewarding all the same. I genuinely love all these weirdos so much.

Even the ost is better, while I would never say Overdose's collection of vocaloid-inspired bangers anything remotely nearing bad, it was a bit too similar sounding--never really trending away from that sort of edgy emo-rock sound(with one or two notable exceptions like Oster Project's wonderful Tokimeki Reverie). Here, the tracks generally trend a bit more towards pop, but there's a significant amount of drift in sound, all for the better, with stuff like the wistful main theme SINGI, the funky spoken word infusion of Miss Conductor, or the immensely groovy Swap Out all being standouts for me. And of course, every time you get to a boss fight and the teddyloid EDM remix happens--its always amazing, even managing to take the more generic songs to incredible heights.

And when you get to the end, and you see what exactly the conflict of the final boss is--you can't help but laugh at it all. The narrative at play here is surprisingly stripped-back for what you're doing, but it works and for how little it actually says it sold itself to me.

If Caligula 2 suffers, its mostly just in the matter of budget--the side content continues to be lacking, if not as bad as the first game. Some of the climaxes fail to really connect just because they didn't really have the budget to sell the moment. The generic ost outside of the vocaloid tracks is penis music.

Altogether, just a really wonderful game--my hope is that this game's (relative) success gives them access to more resources so they can keep sanding off the sharp edges, because I genuinely believe they can produce one of those once-in-a-lifetime masterpieces with just a bit more.

i called this a AA game the first time i saw it but honestly the visuals are the only thing that are not AAA here. disgusting and wonderful amount of optional dialogue showing a radiant, infectious love for its cast, a soundtrack that lives up to its reputation of "an album that comes with a game", one of the most genuinely interesting and fun combat systems ive tinkered with in a long time (i played on the highest difficulty and i had a blast snapping this thing in half and riding the razors edge of knowing anything kills me in one hit. i cheered whenever i saw an enemy 20+ levels higher than me guarding a chest). it handles some topics i would trust pretty much no big studio to handle well with flying colors in ways that brought me to tears (gin's final few character episodes hit me really hard in particular). and god the seiyuu work in this! i cannot believe this is a cast of mostly unknowns because they all fucking nail it. such a good time. i think about it and already get so many warm memories

Ignorando el conflicto repetitivo, mediocre e hipocrita de "Prefiero vivir en la cruel realidad que vivir en un mundo ficticio, pero mucho mejor para todos nosotros" que por alguna razón a muchos JRPGs les gusta tocar, el resto es una obra bastante destacable y de lo mejorcito en los JRPGs contemporáneos.

Caligula 2 transcurre unos años después de los sucesos del primero, pero no te preocupes puesto que no es necesario haber jugado al primero para entender este debido a que es una historia independiente con nuevos personajes.

Algo que destacar, aparte del combate que me parece uno de los mejores combates mejor diseñados en un JRPG, no solo es combate por turnos que de por sí ya es un punto a favor, sino que si te obliga a analizar y a pensar cada movimiento, sino que me refiero al diseño elegido para la obra... Detesto los jrpg con ambiente medieval (con algunas excepciones como la saga trails), pero mi debilidad son los que están ambientados en un ambiente urbano contemporáneo y Caligula 2 ofrece una buena inmersión en este sentido, al igual que el diseño de los personajes son excelentes, cada uno con sus detalles unicos y diferenciatorios (joder, en que otro JRPG puedes tener en tu equipo a un fuckboy?)

En cuanto al OST supongo que es evidente, pero tanto Caligula 1 como el 2 destacan en este tema y no es para menos ya que su trama gira en torno a la musica, su significado e importancia. La saga Persona me parece la mejor obra que sabe darle importancia a su OST, pero ahora creo que Caligula 2 lo supera en ese tema, supieron implementar de una manera magistral la musica.

Ya que he tocado el tema de Persona, pues seh... Esta obra no solo la disfrute mas, sino que me parecio mejor que la mayoría de Persona. Algunas de las mecánicas que ofrece esta obra son inspiradas en la saga Persona, pero aquí realmente se sienten más cómodas como lo es el Social Link ya que está mucho mejor implementado que en la saga Persona. También algo que le aplaudo a Caligula es que a diferencia de Persona, Caligula no teme en tratar temas de verdad complicados relacionados con la vida personal de cada Personaje, cosas que Persona aunque los fans de esa saga se jactan de que toca temas maduros, seamos sinceros, jamás se atrevería a tocar...

Lo único negativo que podría mencionar sería su final, que sin ser "malo", si se siente apresurado e inconcluso y eso hace que no le ponga una calificación más alta, pero quitando eso, es una obra que me sorprendió gratamente y tiene su mérito viniendo de una precuela que para lo único que servía era como reproductor MP3. No suelo decir esto mucho, pero me gustaría ver una nueva entrega de la saga.