Yesterday at Bandai Namco’s HQ here in Tokyo, I got some serious hands-on time with Project X Zone 2. It’s all the over-the-top cross-over craziness I remember — and then some.
Project X Zone is a 2012 tactical RPG that crosses over many of Bandai-Namco, Sega, and Capcom’s most popular characters. Project X Zone 2 is pretty much the exact same thing — only with a new plot and more characters.
The demo I played was of a single level and included nothing plot related. Instead, it was all battle. The long and the short of it? Project X Zone 2 plays almost identically to its predecessor.
You control several groups of characters on a grid-based map. Characters are then split into either battle ready pairs or support characters that act as summonable characters for the pair you equip them to. Then you move your characters into range of an enemy and attack.
Each battle pair has several attacks and using them at the correct moments can allow you to juggle your defenseless opponent. You can also summon your equipped support character as well as another battle pair of characters if they are close enough on the map. Following a limited number of attacks, the battle ends and you move onto moving your next group of characters. After you do this for all of your characters, the enemies get their own chance to attack and you may choose to counterattack, defend, or simply take the damage.
A few cycles later, (if all goes well) you will have defeated all the enemies and so the battle ends.
As with the first game, while the battle system is solid, it is the characters and their overly elaborate attack animations that steal the show in this demo. There already are several famous characters that have joined the Project X Zone 2 roster (like Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney or Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil) and more are on the way. Moreover, many of the returning characters find themselves in different battle pairs than in the first game — meaning they play differently.
When it comes down to it, based on what I played, if you are the person who just needs more Project X Zone craziness in your life, Project X Zone 2 is tailor-made for you.
Project X Zone 2 will be released in the US for the Nintendo 3DS on February 16, 2016.
Comments
5 responses to “Project X Zone 2 is As Bonkers As The Original”
Sweet! I loved the first, even if it took me three years to finish.
Haha, yep, I’m about a a third the way through the first one, and have been playing it for well over a year and a half. It’s nice to know that it’s always there for me should I need it 😛
It’s super fun, and has some of the best sound and visuals on the 3DS too 🙂
is it as boring and repetitive as the first one?
i picked it up with the high hopes of it being an awesome mash up or characters, which it was for the first few hours, but then its just eh same thing, over and over and over again. i found my self just skim reading the dialogue after a while coz it didnt interest me in the slightest.
That’s disappointing news. The idea of the first one was great and the timed combo system of combat was fun but other than that it was an over simplified TRPG that goes for twice as long as it should. I was hoping they would have listened to the complaints everyone was making and changed the gameplay to be a little more concise and focused but it sounds like I’ll be skipping this one. Especially since I burned out on the first one at the half way point.
I have a 3ds but haven’t got around to buying the first game yet, it has so many series i am familiar with and number 2 apparently features SEGATA SANSHIRO! So hyped =)