The introduction of an RPG style leveling system plays completely counterintuitively when paired with the prior game's style of stealth gameplay, the game world in general feels noticeably smaller, and the increase in focus on narrative and characters only serves to thicken the series' already shallow story to more of a slog. I've heard it said that the game's solar sensor feature was the reason the series never took off, but playing this I'm starting to think we never got Boktai 3 because Boktai 2 was such a downgrade from the first game. Despite the misguided design decisions it still has enough of the first game's DNA to be a pretty enjoyable game.
Reviewed on Feb 20, 2022