REVIEW: Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars

Combat is a turn-based affair, but there are a few twists here. Initiating a normal attack with any group will cause the entire group to attack with their equipped weapon. You will be able to make two teams of three Star Children. However, you will only be able to choose one heroine to go with you into the dungeon at a time. The girls all have different skills and stats, so you will want to choose accordingly. Don’t do what I did (while rushing for this review) and always take Serina just because she has a skill that hits all enemies at once. You will notice there are four spaces around each monster. These are called directional areas, and this is the side in which you will attack the monsters from. If you see a red arrow when you are in one of these areas, this means you are attacking the monster’s weak side and will score some extra damage. Only one team at a time can stand in each of these areas except the area the hero and heroine are in. A team of Star Children can stand in the same area with them.

Star Children in combat work a bit differently than in most RPGs. First off, their health will be displayed as an added total. Though they do not share health, it is just shown this way as a group. You can press Square during combat to display each individual child’s health and MP. You may notice as they take damage some of them will turn into Matryoshkas. This happens when an individual child has lost all of his or her HP. They can still attack in this state, though it will be a lot less than usual. If you use a healing item or spell on this group, they will turn back to their normal state. If the entire team is KO’d you will have to use a different item to revive the entire team.

The last couple of things I would like to talk about in regards to the combat system are Chaining and Ether Density. On the bottom-right of the screen you will see a Chain Drive gauge. When you chain enough attacks together, this gauge will increase. The amount of increase varies based on the area from which you attack. Attacking a monster from their weak side will give a much smaller increase than attacking it from the normal side. When an enemy is chained, it will move slower, giving you extra turns. You will also receive bonus XP and Glow at the end of combat depending on how good your chain was.

Ether Density can be found at the bottom-right of the screen (just under the chain gauge). This represents the amount of Ether around you during combat. Using Ether Density in combat is important for chaining, since it makes your party faster and allows for bigger chains. To increase your Ether Density, you can attack an enemy from an area where they are charging for a strong attack, defeat an enemy or use a skill that increases Ether Density.

What’s a good RPG without tons of skills? Well, you’re not going to be disappointed here. There are tons of skills your Star Children can learn. There are also team skills which you can use by placing certain classes of Star Children with certain skills in the same group. The Team Edit menu in the Dorm is really helpful in figuring out how to do this. Like any RPG, skills consume MP and have a variety of effects.

It is also worth noting there are tons of different types of weapons and armor found here. You can find them in dungeons or purchase them from the Shop in town. Another way to get some of the more rare items in the game is to do quests for the Guild. These are usually simple monster-hunting quests, and the rewards are usually well worth it. To help you keep track of where the monster you are hunting, you will see an exclamation point on the labyrinth screen. This will tell you which quests can be completed here.

For those of us lazy grinders out there, the game features some pre-set tactics that you can employ. To set this up, go to the Tactics menu and pick from the several different choices listed. You can go all out, and have them use no MP, etc. To implement this press the Triangle button. Pressing once will put the combat on fully automatic. Pressing it twice will put the Star Children on automatic, but allows the protagonist to have control through combat. You can also fast forward the combat animation by tapping the R trigger.

I found the combat deep and entertaining. With the wide variety of skills and tactics to play with, I never got bored with it. Most of the boss battles were simple enough, until you get up to around Chapter 6, where things get a bit intense. The game has a big difficulty spike that will require you to do quite a bit of grinding to survive. Pay close attention to which levels your Star Children are maxing out at, or you could grind through a dungeon and get little or nothing out of it.

At the end of the day, Conception II is probably one of the best RPG’s I’ve played all year. Though some may find the storyline a bit offensive, I found the heroines charming, and the depth of the combat overcame any sensitive material. For the price tag of $39.99, and the 40 hours or so you spend with the game, it’s well worth it. Plus, you will want to replay the game to see all of the events with each girl, to see each of the different endings. If you are a fan of great dungeon crawlers and/or great dating sims, I don’t see how you could go wrong with a purchase.