The gameplay remains virtually unchanged for this sequel. Songs are still split up between Battle Music Stages (BMS), Field Music Stages (FMS), and Event Music Stages (EMS). This game still has you tapping, slashing, and swiping on the touch screen to the beat of the music. However, this game also gives you the option to use the buttons and the circle pad in place of the stylus. You can even use both play styles simultaneously, allowing you to play the game in a way that feels most comfortable to you. No matter how you choose to play, I found each style to be very responsive and fun to play!
The first mode available to you is the music stages mode, where you simply pick the game and song you'd like to play. One difference from the first game is that you now start out with every difficulty available to you. This is very nice as the easiest difficulty was always way too easy and boring for me, and it was a pain to unlock harder difficulties.
One big change in this game is the inclusion of multiplayer. Versus Mode has you competing with other players to see who can get the highest score on BMS songs. Players have the option of competing online or locally, or you can even try your hand against A.I. opponents of varying difficulty. This mode adds a new element into the gameplay: Sabotages. Essentially, as you chain notes together, you will randomly hit your opponent with some new difficulty to sabotage their own gameplay. These include such things as speeding up the display, having elongated triggers stretch and shrink, swapping HP with your opponent, and other such difficulties. It would be nice if you could choose to turn off sabotages should you wish. I also wish that instead of having you kill the same random monsters in these BMS songs that it instead showed your party actually fighting the other player's party. Despite all that, this mode is a welcome and very fun addition to the game.
Another big change is that the original's Chaos Shrine has been replaced with Quest Medley Mode. For those who never played the first game, Chaos Shrine was simply a mode in which you would play and unlock randomized playlists called Dark Notes, each containing of 1 FMS song and 1 BMS song. Some songs, characters, and items were unlocked through playing these, and you had the chance to encounter different bosses depending on how well you did. That's all there was to it, though.
Quest Medley Mode is more engaging and provided more options though. In this mode, players choose between Short, Medium, and Long quests. Each quest provides you with a randomized playlist of songs set along a map with branching paths. As you can guess, the length of the quest determines the number of songs available. On the map, you just pick which paths you want to take, the only knowledge about the song you'll get next being the game it is from and what type of song it is. As you move along the map, you'll find spots which provide shortcuts, minibosses, the chance for rarer items, and a boss at the end. All in all, this mode is a vast improvement over Chaos Shrine, but it is not without its issues. Like with Chaos Shrine, the maps start out really easy at first and get progressively harder as you unlock more rather than allow you to control the difficulty. The randomized songs chosen can also become repetitive over time. Also, while Quest Medley is a good place to level your characters and acquire more items, the game doesn't do much to really make you feel those things really matter.
This brings me to the progression system of the game. As you complete songs in this game, you'll receive Rhythmia points based on your performance. As in the first game, these points build up to unlock new things in the game, such as characters and songs. In a strange move by the developers, you begin the game being virtually locked out from everything, including settings. You'll have to play the game a little before you can access all of the settings, Versus Mode, and Quest Medley Mode. After that point, though, more things are unlocked at a fairly rapid and exciting pace.
And now for the thing you all really care about with this game: the songs. This game is an impressive upgrade from the original, giving the player over 220 songs to play from. The song list includes the entirety of the original's and its DLC (aside from Somnus). It also has a number of songs from various spin offs and sequels ranging from Crystal Chronicles to Type-0. For the most part, I enjoyed all of the selections available, but there are some strange omissions. In particular, the FFVIII list is missing such important songs as Liberi Fatali and Eyes on Me. All of the EMS songs from the original game have also been relegated to FMS or BMS songs as well; the only EMS songs being for the songs from new games included in this sequel. Otherwise, the song list is excellent and well worth the purchase alone.
I also have to say that the presentation in this game does feel a bit better than the original. We get a lot more variation with the locations seen in the background of both FMS and BMS songs, we have a lot more enemies we can fight, and we have a lot more characters to choose from for our parties.
If you are a fan of Final Fantasy, you owe it to yourself buy this game. No matter how you feel about the direction the games have taken, the one thing that has remained consistent throughout the past 27 years is the quality of music. If you already own the original, I'd definitely say there is enough new content to warrant a purchase as well. For everyone else, it is worth a try. As I've said, the music from Final Fantasy has always been excellent. Download the demo to see if the gameplay is something you'd enjoy!
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