Rise Eterna 2

Solid indie strategy game. Don't expect a ton of tactical depth - it keeps its systems very simple - but it's a lot of fun. If you're looking for an uncomplicated, straighforward strategy game, you'll have a good time with this one. I do recommend buying it on sale; it only took me about 10 hours to beat.

Recommended on sale for fans of indie turn-based tactics and strategy RPGs. Story is fairly sparse and disjointed and the writing for characters is lacking, but the battles and characters designs are fun and the odd lack of any XP/level system is offset by the ability to use any characters you like without having to worry about any falling behind. I'd recommend more polished titles first such as Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, Fell Seal, Valkyria Chronicles, Symphony of War, or Lost Eidolons.

The best word I have to describe Rise Eterna 2 is unambitious. It doesn’t do anything special nor interesting to make it really stand out from others, and so the result doesn’t feel worth your money or your time. The story didn’t hook me, so I don’t have a good grasp on what’s happening. We’re definitely fighting a lot of bandits and rebels, and for the most part there is one guy telling our main characters where to go and what to do. As far as I can tell, I don’t think the characters actively use their own heads to make decisions. The characters are incredibly bland with no interesting personality about them. The male lead is a very serious person that doesn’t seem to have any interesting qualities about him. The female lead is a bland, spineless girl that follows the male lead wherever he goes. Early on you meet a character whose much more relaxed personality would seem to offer a fun dynamic the way she messes with the male lead, but their dialogue lacks quality banter to make such a good dynamic stand out. Honestly, all the dialogue is lackluster. Everyone reads so stiff and nothing seems like words a person would actually say. Some of your characters can have support conve…

The story is pretty bad, which I can forgive in an SRPG, just know that it's poorly written. I'm playing on the intended difficulty and it's just a no brainer for everything. Just move your units forward and attack. Also there is too much dead time in the game. There doesn't seem to be a way to skip watching the enemy's turn. So even units that are on the other side of the map you have to watch them walk back and forth. And the maps seem to have a few units, then a bunch of open space until the next cluster of units, so you just spend most of the map moving into enemy range and watching the enemy's turn. This sounds kind of nit picky but really there's just nothing this game seems to have going on for it. -Poorly written dialog -Overly simple gameplay / tactics -Too much dead time watching you and the enemy move in each map -The combat projection will show you your anticipated DMG but makes you do the math every time to determine how much the enemy will hit you for None of the issues are huge, but that's all there is to this game; just a bunch on small annoyance with nothing good to keep you playing.

"We have Fire Emblem at home TOO." For a buck, it was alright I guess. 5/10

pretty okay game for its price. a few things for future updates or sequel - tactics before game start (placing who on what tile) - expand more on character bonds - ability to see where to farm for crafting materials