After being sorely disappointed by the critically acclaimed Etrian Odyssey snoozefests, I was just about ready to write off the whole DRPG genre. But like a shining ray of hope, Labyrinth of Touhou 2 descended to completely restore my faith. From a gameplay standpoint, this is the greatest JRPG I have ever played. I'm serious. From start to finish, I was awestruck by it's sheer brilliance.
The game offers 46 different characters that are slowly unlocked over the course of the game. You can bring up to 12 characters with you while you explore the dungeon; 4 in the front, and 8 in the back. Sounds pretty generous, right? Wrong. LoT2 strikes a wonderful balance of random encounters (as a whole) being endurance tests that examine your team comps ability to efficiently take down enemies without depleting your resources too quickly (as evidenced by the fact that you gain more and more experience, money and drop rate bonuses the longer you fight without returning to base). Boss fights also demand a well-thought out strategy that takes into account a boss' strengths and behavior, while still being able to exploit their weaknesses. To this end, you're gonna need to use all twelve of those slots to their fullest in order to make the most out of your dungeon explorations, and to succeed in boss fights. You see, each character has their own unique niches, strengths, and benefits they can bring to the table, and often times they can successfully be built more than one way. There's all manner of attackers, tanks, healers, buffers, supports, status inflicters, and debuffers to mix and match in your team compositions. Add onto that subclasses and equipment that can augment a units inherent strengths, shore up weaknesses, or even expand their roles, and now your possibilities are essentially endless. It's so much fun, building the new character you just recruited, tweaking to find out which team composition works best for painlessly clearing a floor of random encounters, and figuring out how to take down that behemoth of a boss that's kicking your ass. Oh, and grinding is never the answer. Bosses have recommended levels that you should be near before fighting them to stand a chance, and you even get extra rewards for beating them at or below that level.
Speaking of which, this game has a lot of quality of life features that encourage the aforementioned experimentation. Mainly, character builds are not an irreversible commitment; you can reallocate stat points and reset skill points at any time (though the latter required an uncommon item). In addition, ALL characters (even ones that aren't in your party or aren't even recruited yet) gain experience from battles, so you don't ever have to worry about anyone being underleveled.
Oh, and the battle system itself is amazing too. To put it simply, it's a timebar-based system that is similar to FFX but way more involved. All actions incur a delay, which varies based on the specific action, and success in this game revolves around strategic utilization and careful consideration of your and your enemies' timebar and delays. It's a precarious game, manipulating your timebars and waiting for opportune enemy delays to get your squishy attackers and healers in and out while still being able to do their jobs, but it's so much fun.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the next time someone recommends that you play Etrian Odyssey, realize that they are an evil person with diabolical intentions and just play this instead. Fuck it, just disregard every other turn-based game ever made; LoT2 has invalidated the existence of the rest of the genre. Absolutely, completely, and unequivocally extraordinary masterpiece. You don't even need to like Touhou to enjoy this either.
The game offers 46 different characters that are slowly unlocked over the course of the game. You can bring up to 12 characters with you while you explore the dungeon; 4 in the front, and 8 in the back. Sounds pretty generous, right? Wrong. LoT2 strikes a wonderful balance of random encounters (as a whole) being endurance tests that examine your team comps ability to efficiently take down enemies without depleting your resources too quickly (as evidenced by the fact that you gain more and more experience, money and drop rate bonuses the longer you fight without returning to base). Boss fights also demand a well-thought out strategy that takes into account a boss' strengths and behavior, while still being able to exploit their weaknesses. To this end, you're gonna need to use all twelve of those slots to their fullest in order to make the most out of your dungeon explorations, and to succeed in boss fights. You see, each character has their own unique niches, strengths, and benefits they can bring to the table, and often times they can successfully be built more than one way. There's all manner of attackers, tanks, healers, buffers, supports, status inflicters, and debuffers to mix and match in your team compositions. Add onto that subclasses and equipment that can augment a units inherent strengths, shore up weaknesses, or even expand their roles, and now your possibilities are essentially endless. It's so much fun, building the new character you just recruited, tweaking to find out which team composition works best for painlessly clearing a floor of random encounters, and figuring out how to take down that behemoth of a boss that's kicking your ass. Oh, and grinding is never the answer. Bosses have recommended levels that you should be near before fighting them to stand a chance, and you even get extra rewards for beating them at or below that level.
Speaking of which, this game has a lot of quality of life features that encourage the aforementioned experimentation. Mainly, character builds are not an irreversible commitment; you can reallocate stat points and reset skill points at any time (though the latter required an uncommon item). In addition, ALL characters (even ones that aren't in your party or aren't even recruited yet) gain experience from battles, so you don't ever have to worry about anyone being underleveled.
Oh, and the battle system itself is amazing too. To put it simply, it's a timebar-based system that is similar to FFX but way more involved. All actions incur a delay, which varies based on the specific action, and success in this game revolves around strategic utilization and careful consideration of your and your enemies' timebar and delays. It's a precarious game, manipulating your timebars and waiting for opportune enemy delays to get your squishy attackers and healers in and out while still being able to do their jobs, but it's so much fun.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the next time someone recommends that you play Etrian Odyssey, realize that they are an evil person with diabolical intentions and just play this instead. Fuck it, just disregard every other turn-based game ever made; LoT2 has invalidated the existence of the rest of the genre. Absolutely, completely, and unequivocally extraordinary masterpiece. You don't even need to like Touhou to enjoy this either.
2 Comments
Yeah, at first I was a little confused about the lack of items or revives, but as I played more and more I realized that those were some pretty smart design choices too.
LobbyDob
2 years ago