Initial 2 : New Stage

Initial 2: New Stage takes place in the same universe as the first game, but it’s not a direct sequel, since only two bad guys from The Initial appears - Kyuya and Ryuzaki - and their role in the storyline are different. This time, the game got English dub. The voices are nice but the repeated lines during the fights get annoying fast. The story mode is longer than The Initial. The first game took me around 2.5 hours to complete. This game is a good 5 hours. The English text is… often very funny and the text warping in the boxes is off most of the time. So, if you are looking for a “perfect English” game, with a deep plot and character development, Initial 2: New Stage won’t meet that expectation. It’s rather a nice and casual hack’n’slash with two cute heroines - Belvia and Sera - plus Veritas. I think Sera’s habit of talking in the third person all the time is kind-of annoying. Anyway, I recommend it with a 50% discount, since its short.

Unfortunately the game is not that good. The characters models look good - combat is a bit fluid (at least with the first sword) but the issues piling on made me refund the game back. The game starts in japanese ( I think) but you can kind of trial&error your way into the options menu and switch the language. However afterwards problems come in: - extremely jittery camera - joypad does not recognize the Trigger buttons (XBox ONE controller used) - Sound just goes berserk, randomly changing volume (up to a point where enemies and weapon clashes screech into your ears) The gameplay is surprisingly quite nice - although I could not handle the issues. To be fair - I would actually try out the next game if the developer makes another title in this genre.

The combat was decent, but the story was very boring. I will not be playing this game any further.

If you have played the first game, then this game is a massive upgrade. Everything from combat, story, level design to graphic is wayyyyyy better here. Combat feels satisfying, and the story in this one is well written too. Unlike the first game, where twintails girl just slashes everything that moves with her budget Judgement Cut, the story here is more complex, the emotional scenes are strong enough to pull some of my string. If the first protagonist is a budget Vergil, then think of this protagonist as a budget Dante. But hey, this is an indie game, so please don't come into the game expecting some Devil May Cry level of quality. That's just asking for disappointment.

It's more like an early access game. Unfinished, or at least unpolished. The animation, the moves of the protagonist, especially those execution kills are cool. And the fast paced combat could be fun if you like just smashing buttons and watch enemy dying. But that's probably the only good part of this game. Even though the animations are good, the VFX and sound effects are not properly timed, and some are missing. For certain skills you can hear a very loud hit sound without seeing any effect. And some of the attack effects just doesn't match their hit collision. I didn't check them one by one. But I guess about 30% are more or less wrong, both yours and enemies. And by the way sound is really a mess, it's like they just got some raw sound assets and throw them in and call it a day. The volumes are not balanced, some are extremely loud and annoying. Level design is as bland as possible. Just waves of enemies spawning, you kill a wave, spawns the next. You kill a few, go to next area. No branch, no gimmicks, nothing, just go through some areas and repeat the same thing. Enemy design, well, I don't really know how they work. You can kill them very fast and even if you don't wan…

Fun action hackn'slash that focuses on gameplay enough to make it smooth.