8-Bit Adventures 2 Review (Jebwihm)
"8-Bit Adventures 2" is the full-nostalgia-package in terms of faithfully recreating an JRPG-experience of old: Retro, but accessible.
Being the sequel to the blocky but earnest first title, it surpasses it by leagues in terms of content, gameplay and presentation (maybe not necessarily in terms of narrative but more on that later). I still recommend to play the first one or at least get a synopsis though, for there are many references to the first title throughout the game.
The whole ordeal is quite good to look at, the spritework is charming and colorful, the musicc is catchy, the combat - while not "new" - is executed quite well: Status-Effect-Use is rewarding, partymember-switching is nice. It can get a little repetitive at the endgame when you got your best comp and just roll with it, but luckily the game is not grindy per se and the enemy-encounters are NOT RANDOM (which is a plus in every RPG in my opinion). It is not really hard by any means, but there is quite the difficulty-spike near the end (and I cannot speak for the post-game content, which was added by the free DLC).
The campaign is quite long (around 30h) and it can drag a little, for the dialog is long and cheesy at times (but thus even more faithful to the genre that it wants to be part of – I never liked the righteous-good-campaign-narrative about "companionship can overcome everything-trope" that a lot of JRPGs have, but I didn't mind it here).
Storywise it somewhat breaks the conventional fantasy trope, by taking place in a literal game world, but the rest of the storyscaling is your typical ordeal of epicness. The first entry did manage to pull the meta-narrative better, but this is just my personal opinion. Writing is decent nonetheless!
In short: This is a big and wholehearted package of JRPG-goodness! It definetly deserves a broader audience from fans of the genre and is well worth the price!