Game Boy
Sword of Hope II, The
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
8.00 6.80 5.40 7.00 |
| Votes: | 5 |
| Reviews: | 1 |
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| Reviewer: Tachytaenius | Date: Dec 30, 2018 |
| This is a beautiful sequel to the-- if memory serves-- rather iffy Sword of Hope. I got it on the 3DS eShop and have *not* regretted it one bit!
Graphics: 10 Oh, my! The graphics are so beautiful! It's a wonderfully sophisticated game and I salute the artists. Travelling on Yota's boat is lovely and immersive, as is wandering around in the gorgeous and scenic Rod's Woods. This is all complemented by the fascinating descriptions you get when you look around. The specular floor of the Tower of Mystery is a really nicely drawn touch, too. I think that having been able to see character's faces in the power menu would have been nice! I just wish that they wouldn't only remove sprites from the screen when transitioning between areas *after* the viewport goes black, as it looks weird for them to go away last. I also don't like the sleeping-at-an-Inn "animation." They could fade the screen out as is seen when fleeing from battles but it's just a split-second flash of black. Boring! In battles, I wish they'd've swapped the words "clash" and "fight" (spells are a form of fighting, attacking with your weapon physically is a form of clashing, not the other way round) and the spells "frost" and "ice", because frost is a weaker-sounding word than ice, not vice versa. I wish that the abbreviations of item names weren't so cryptic, too. Maybe if they scrolled along the visible space when you had your cursor on them and defaulted to the abbreviated versions when you didn't. But yeah, *beautiful* art. Truly. Sound: 8 Some of the tracks are quite annoying and the ice-type spell sound is *too* sharp, but a lot of the songs are very beautiful too! The Tower of Mystery has an incredible score, as do the forests. The intro is short but sweet. The battle music gets a bit repetitive but generally it's a glorious-sounding game. Gameplay: 7 I wish there were more options for looking, opening and hitting at each location. It would boost immersion a *lot.* I also find the frequency and length of battles-- even when it's 20 rather annoying, especially when I just want to go for a walk in Rod's Woods. A large enemy-free zone for strolls would have been epic (hmm... disassembly modding time!!) It *might* have been a nice touch if battles had reflex-based skill involved as *well* as luck and strategy. Nina and Bogi are a bit... depressing, too. They're great cannon fodder while they're alive, though. I don't remember how bad Layl is, but at least you don't have to worry about them running off with your equipment. I wish they'd had some spells, that'd've been better. Dynamic conversations would have been nice and having a "speak" function rather than just using "look" would have been nice. Overall: 8 Finely-crafted and beautiful. I haven't encountered a bug before, though some of the characters' dialogues don't update with the current scenario. Plus shouldn't "Nortirus" be "Nautilus"? I recommend it!! It is *superb.* |
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