At last, after a few years of wanting to try Tenshi no Uta 2, I have finally beaten it. Having completed the first one as well, I can now say that I have a pretty good idea of what the Tenshi no Uta games on the PCE are all about.
If you want to know the basics of Tenshi no Uta's system, take a look at the OP, because I don't think I need to go over it again. All I'll say here is that the sequel is built just like the first game. The view is a little zoomed in and there are more playable characters, but otherwise the game engine and the gameplay alike are unchanged.
To cut to the chase, my verdict on this one is that it's also very good, but I'm actually very torn about whether I should say it's better than the first. That's what I want to focus on here: comparing the two games.
What's amazing to me about Tenshi no Uta 2 is that nearly everything I bitched about in the first game is fixed. The item inventory is now shared instead of being character-specific, so you'll be spending way less time futzing about in the menu. The enemy encounter rate is lowered a little, to just the point that it never causes irritation or discourages exploration. The major freeze bugs are now fixed, thank god. Also, the cutscene art now looks much better, and the soundtrack doesn't feel quite as repetitive. Even the NPCs in towns are saying a bigger variety of things. There's also no longer any forced grinding toward the end, because the last enemies are easier and the last equipment is cheaper.
Heck, about the only problem left is that you can still kind of space out during ordinary battles, but that's not really such a bad thing. Being easy and fast paced is one of the main appeals of the series. Unlike the first one, there's really nothing in Tenshi no Uta 2 that's going to irk you while you play.
But for all the little flaws that the first game had, Tenshi no Uta 1 somehow managed to have a bit more charm. Part of this is context; I think Tenshi no Uta 1 was a cooler game in 1991 than Tenshi no Uta 2 was in 1993. But another part of this has to do with continuity and payoff in the two games.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
You see, in Tenshi no Uta 2, you look at a world map, you hop from place to place, you open everything up, you finally get an airship to travel anywhere like the awesome adventurer that you are...and then you leave it all behind. Two-thirds of the way through the game, you go to a new world, and you
never return to the first one. You literally just warp to an utterly different dimension and start a new map all over again, and not for a particularly great narrative reason, either. That's where the game ends, too. What happens, then, is a big disconnect: you kind of forget about the first world, and you never grow too attached to the second world. Tenshi no Uta 1 didn't do this. In that game, there is this sense of accomplishing a grand journey and being intimately familiar with this one big world as you come to the end of the game. However, that feeling is essentially gone in Tenshi no Uta 2.
Another issue is that they steered the focus slightly away from world and dungeon exploration and put a little more time toward character and story development. In concrete terms, there's simply a bunch more characters and dialogue. This isn't necessarily a bad idea, but aside from the speedbump I mentioned above, the characters themselves still don't develop much. I'm not a fan of drawn-out broody character backstories or anything, but when you're spending time on dialogue, it's nice to tell us more about a character than his job description, you know?
Here's the most obvious example of what I mean. Watch Tenshi no Uta 2's opening cutscene. What do you expect to see in this game? A love story, right? You expect to see some drama between the characters, with themes like developing trust, overcoming misunderstandings, revealing feelings, dealing with jealousy, and stuff like that, right? Well, sorry, but that's just not what happens. There are whiffs of this kind of drama here and there, but nothing worth mentioning really materializes. The main characters mostly just deal with bad guys and make chit-chat.
The first game was like this too, don't get me wrong. But the story in the first game also had a lean efficiency to it, like it was there to give you an excuse to explore the world. When they invested in more dialogue in the sequel, I don't they made a good trade.
One more personal gripe: see that heavenly floating island in the title screen? It's there in both games. In the first game, you visit that place toward the very end, for maybe only 15 minutes or so, and it's a very memorable moment. You really want to spend more time there. In fact, I bet you that anyone starting the second game is ready to be there for upwards of a few hours. Well, guess what? You never see it. It's not even in a cutscene. I have to say, that was a big let down.
At least the final boss music was pretty damn catchy. It's a remix of the main battle music, which is also quite good.
That's really about all I have to say. In conclusion, this game is way less annoying than the first one, but it also doesn't quite have the same impact. Honestly, if I were going to replay one of them, I'd probably go for the first one. The second one is far from bad, though, and anyone who liked the first one will enjoy it.
Topic: Thoughts on Tenshi no Uta (Read 1366 times)
