REVIEW: Tears to Tiara II

After every battle in Tears to Tiara II, your performance is ranked, based on how many turns it took, whether any party members were defeated, items used and possibly some bonus objectives laid out at the beginning, such as defeating all enemies or opening all chests. These ranks only affect the gold and items that you receive afterward, though, and the extra rewards can be obtained in other ways, making this feel a bit less than important at times, even if it is a nice standard to live up to. It also isn’t affected at all by the difficulty level, which you can change even in the middle of a battle, so it’s very tempting to blaze through everything on Easy Mode.

Which is not to say that doing so will allow you to finish the game quickly. On the contrary, the strategy battles, though more frequent as the game goes on, never really become the majority of the game. About two thirds of Tears to Tiara II is dedicated solely to the scenes of the visual novel. This means that, although it is very important to get into the strategy component–as it is rather unique and challenging — far more weight needs to go into engaging with the major characters, in all of their joy, sorrow and struggles. Luckily, it becomes more and more compelling as it goes on, dealing with political challenges, war, and religion in new and interesting ways. While these concepts may at first appear to be treated in conventional JRPG terms, the story reveals deeper layers of them later on.

Whatever you do, Tears to Tiara II is an extremely long game. All told, it took me over 110 hours to finally see the ending credits. Much of this has to do with the absolutely linear storytelling, which requires you to experience absolutely everything that was created for the game. Unlike most visual novels, this one will not offer you any dialogue or story choices, although it would probably suffer for it anyway. Even the bonus objectives in battle, many of which would certainly affect the story (killing an optional boss instead of rushing to the exit, for example) don’t make even the slightest difference in dialogue. Furthermore, none of the side scenes, ones that exist only for comic relief or to give backstory to somewhat less important characters, can be avoided. While your base menu allows you to either embark on a journey or go to a council of war, these two things are virtually the same, other than the fact that, while embarking, you can also revisit old maps. An icon tells you which of these will progress the story, and you must go to each scene in order to continue.

There’s really not a familiar cycle you can get into. Some cutscenes lead into battles; others have you go back to the base before proceeding. At various times in the process, the shops and crafting menu get new items. While five equipment slots per character isn’t a lot, it gets to be a lot to keep up with when you get to have around 20 party members later on. In addition, if you want your side characters that don’t participate as much to level up evenly with the others, it can take a lot of extra battling in previous areas to catch them up. Of course, these battles will also net you materials for crafting and so forth, so it’s worth it if you are trying to do the best possible, but just know that this route will add some tedious hours to the game — as if it needed to be any longer. But even though the rhythm of the story and battles isn’t predictable, it is paced in just such a way that one side can feel almost like a well-timed break from the other.

After finally finishing the story — if you ever do — your cleared file has three options. You can replay the final stage, start a New Game+ with your items and money carried over, or try out the Extra Scenario. The latter features successive battles locked on the hard difficulty and with no rewind ability, and very few opportunities to escape and retry. It actually warns you not to save over your previous file during it, lest you be stuck in it and unable to win. This presents an ultimate challenge to those who still can’t seem to get enough.

How can there be this much content in a PlayStation 3 game that’s only $40 USD? One place where the budget may be a little lower is the graphics department. While each character is represented by a gorgeous hand-drawn picture during dialogue, their corresponding 3D figures that are playing out the actions seem like shorter, almost chibi versions in comparison. This is not to say they don’t look great themselves, but their smaller size is pretty noticeable at the beginning, and their shadows, frankly, look awful compared to everything else. Due to these having relatively few animations, many of their actions during cut scenes either get passed over or are represented by one of the game’s many illustrations. While none of these 2D drawings, aside from the opening sequence, are animated, they cover a lot of the important situations in the game in detail.

Another consideration is the lack of English voices. I love the Japanese cast of this game and would hesitate to ruin their performance with an English one, but the lack of any option at all is a tiny bit perplexing. It’s fine to have it this way during dialogue, but there are tons of minor lines that the characters speak during battle and at the base that remain mysterious to non-Japanese speakers. Whatever your opinion on dubbing, this means we have lost a little bit of the meaning and character personality. There is one part of the sound that’s completely in English, though–one of the game’s several vocal tracks. These, combined with dozens of more traditional RPG styled tunes, create an impressive pool of music for both of Tears to Tiara II’s halves.

Whether you’re looking for an amazing story or a really engaging strategy experience, Tears to Tiara II has quite a lot to offer. However, you’ll never be able to fully experience one without the other, so it’s very important for the player to be committed to both. While there are some definite shortcomings, most of them are easy to ignore because of the grand and compelling aspects that you’ll fall in love with. It’s not for everyone, but, if you are ready to put in the hours for this game and enjoy it for what it is, it has the potential to be one of the best games coming out right now.