Impression: Conception 2 and many, many star children

I said that this blog was going to go by my whims. After I've dumped all of the thoughts that I have been keeping, I will set certain themes to certain days.  Until then, expect no theme!  Just have fun!

I've been playing Conception 2 since January of this year.  I got a PS Vita for Tales of Hearts (tons of fun), played Persona 4 Golden (tons of fun), and then I got to Conception 2.  You might be wondering, how did Conception 2 get in there (well, you may not have, but I was wondering)?  Despite the fact that you have to have a lot of babies to get places in the game, I've had a blast!  It's like Etrian Odyssey with stronger story elements revolving around relationships with a group of interesting women.  Yes, it is a dating sim/dungeon crawler.  And it tickles my 11 year old boy inside.

 As you can see, you start off in a picturesque, remote island in the middle of all of the excitement.  You get to fight monsters, conquer labyrinths conveniently named after the seven deadly sins, and uncover the mysteries of this world.  You have to raise a miniature army of start children (aka, mini-warriors) with the help of seven very different women.  Don't worry, they all help you in battle.

 

In addition, they are all interesting.  I enjoyed seeing how each and every one of their stories ended.  However, this wasn't the only interesting story.  The overarching story has been an exciting treat, where I haven't been able to predict all of the snafu's and stuff.  You have big powers vying to cause the end of the war to be beneficial to them own selves, rather than for the entire world with no strings attached.  But that is cool, it makes you wonder how the next set of events will turn out!

Voice acting is done at key events and for almost all non-repeatable cut scenes.  The dubbing is great with very few issues.  I can't say I disliked any of the voice actor choices.  Not all of them impressed me, which was different from my experience with Persona 4 Golden (amazing dubbing!), but that was fine with me.  I am happy with the dubbing because dubbing makes the battles easier to manage.  Being able to hear the characters' current conditions helps me pay attention to the flow of the fighting instead of watching everyone's health each turn.

The meat of the game is dungeon crawling, party building, and quest completions.  You go into dungeons in order to finish them.  You have to balance elemental weaknesses within your four parties (main hero and heroine with three teams of the star children) in order to not be roasted by enemies.  And you have to deal with luck, whether it be good, bad, or full of experience points.  And you should be happy when your treasure chests have enemies because that means LOTS of experience points.

I have had to do much grinding because... I had too many star children.  I was enjoying all of the different party combinations, trying out new things, and ended up with almost the limit on star children.  I guess the higher ups thought eight parents couldn't handle more than 70 star children at one time.  I could release them even if they didn't make it to their level caps, but I didn't feel right about that.  I brought them here, I might as well take responsibility and level them.  That thought process has helped me greatly since some of the side functions of the game benefit from having a diverse set of maxed out star children to choose from.

After I got them down to around 30 star children, it has been much easier going through dungeons.  Each heroine is suited for different areas, which adds to the strategy.  Children combinations give different benefits and skills, which helps with dungeon progression.  Once you couple that with items/skills that allow you to see each floor and what's in each enemy party, you can pick your battles, maximize experience per battle, and minimize dungeon time.  All of which are very fun for me.  I'll be sad to see this game go, but I have Atelier Ayesha next~

For those who were wondering, no, this game is not perfect.  If I was to rate this game, I would give it a B+.  I found it enjoyable, and I would love to see more games like it.

As a note, I am using the new slim PS Vita.   I decided to chose this version over the original because of the ergonomics, reduced weight, improved battery life, and non-proprietary charging cord.  The last thing I need is more cords in my life.  On the plus side, the charger doubles as an awesome phone charger!