Legends of Amberland II: The Song of Trees Reviews

[h1]A simple but very enjoyable RPG with a great world to explore[/h1] Much like the first [i]LoA[/i] game, [i]Legends of Amberland II[/i] is a traditional party-based RPG with turn-based combat, heavily inspired by [i]Might & Magic III[/i]. You must create a party of seven characters in order to explore the world and save it from doom. You'll explore a large open world, fight a lot of monsters, and become increasingly powerful along the way. [hr][/hr] Although [i]LoAII[/i] looks much like the first game at first glance, there have been a lot of changes made under the hood. There are new classes with interesting quirks to choose from, a simple but fun new skill system that rewards you with party-wide bonuses as you find new trainers, towns that are explorable maps rather than menus, and much more. More importantly, the game improves upon the only area I found truly disappointing in the first game. The dungeons were quite poor in the first game, being overly simple and forgettable. In contrast, the dungeons in [i]LoAII[/i] are much larger, more complex, and often have interesting gimmicks or quirks. Fortunately, the game also improves on what made the first game so fun and compelling -- the open world. It's simply a blast to explore, and there is far less "level gating" with tough monsters, so it never feels like you need to clear one area before trying to tackle another. The world is larger with a lot more sailing, making it feel like you're exploring an actual world. It's simply a joy to pick a direction and explore, because you're bound to find something interesting. It still uses the great automapping system from the first game. It's easy to mark squares to revisit later and keep track of your quest, making it easy to jump in and play even if it's been some time since you last played. [hr][/hr] Unfortunately, all is not perfect. The combat is still extremely easy, which is not necessarily a problem on its own... but combat is also pretty dull and extremely frequent. Fortunately, combat is also very quick, so it doesn't take much time to get through it all, even if you have to kill dozens of the same enemy over and over without any danger whatsoever, to get through some dungeon. Although the classes are balanced better than they were in the first game, the more specialized classes don't really seem to be worth the effort. The Bard in my party felt like a combination of a weak Healer and weak Archer, and by the end of the game I would have rather just had another Healer instead. I felt the same about the Troll Slayer, though to a somewhat lesser extent. [hr][/hr] Still, these are minor complaints. The game is fun to play, the world a joy to explore, and it ends around 16 hours in, just about when you've had enough.