Planet Stronghold 2 Reviews

What a thrilling experience. The writing was improved tremendously between the 1st and 2nd game. It introduces interesting politics between factions, while doing an amazing job of setting up that the situation is constantly tense and dire. This is a hidden gem and an amazing one at that.

Recommended on sale for fans of the original. Some clunky systems and a strong tether to the first game may make it less approachable for newcomers, but for those familiar it is worth rejoining the cast. However, there isn't enough new or added to be worth full price expectations in light of some stumbling blocks. I would recommend you also check out Sunrider, Our Adventurer Guild, Magical Diary Wolf Hall, Sakura Dungeon, Serment Contract with a Devil, or Cherry Tree High Girls Fight that all have better polish on their systems. +Art style +Class/skills customization +Exploration, events, quests +Impactful choices +Continues the story where it left off +Some good music tracks +Character alignment, relationships +Save anytime +Turn-based battles +Some battle voice/barks +Auto battle option +Variety of weapons, armor, items +Choices on level up -Barebones options -Can't customize appearance -Lacking tooltips -Mouse only -Some hidden controls (H to hide UI) -No rebinding -Buggy, some error screens, UI/stat issues -Tutorial text info dump -Some areas lack any music -No voiced dialogue -Some sound effects are piercing -Poor volume normalization -Low quality battle voice -Lacking backstory for new players -Unclear what party members approve until after decisions -Awkward formation, battle, and equip UI -Unclear direction at times -Many equipment sidegrades, comparison difficulties -No skill use on auto -Severe MP (PP) limits skill use -'Chance to hit' is very inaccurate -Lacking/absent animations -Hidden speed up function (battle menu options circle icon) -No new party characters, similar story from first game -Some balance issues

My early opinion is this a solid role playing, visual novel hybrid game. The game gives you agency to customize your experience, and while you are free to enjoy it as a visual novel you would be missing out on a solid role playing experience, including thoughtful turn based combat, multiple ways to accomplish tasks (including non combative options), area exploration and a detailed gearing system. The story is compelling and riddled with twisting branches of choices that have impact. It is all packaged together with a pleasant art presentation and a fitting soundtrack. If you are a fan of Winter Wolves' prior works than I can recommend this as game for you, if you never tried any of them, then this a great game to start with despite being a continuation, it can easily be enjoyed as a stand alone game.

Usually I don’t write a review without going through at least most of the game, but Planet Stronghold 2 has become an exception: interesting story, original world, nice graphics and good gameplay. In addition, this is the third game in the series and a direct successor to PS 1, allowing its story to continue. Of course, there is an official "patch") Highly recommend!

I played -and loved- Planet Stronghold 1 back in the day a [i]lot[/i]. So, needless to say, I was thrilled when I found out that PS 2 was finally out after years of development. Currently, I'm about half way through - at least I do hope so, since I don't want the game to come to an end just yet. And I love pretty much every minute of it. Everyone who played PS 1 will recognize the art, characters, gameplay (for most parts) and the humour - though, I have to say, with Milo on board the "humour" spiked quite a bit. His humour is not necessarily always appropriate but he does get reprimanded for it. Something else that spikes in a weird (but already known) way is the difficulty. Especially after main events and/or venturing into new areas, it's quite possible to get your ass kicked. Especially if you either didn't buy new equipments or upgrade the current one. After that it can become VERY easy during certain fights (playing in Normal) but the old source of frustration -that is, enemies healing their allies back to health even after they got K.O.ed or having a group of enemies who all use 'Protect' on each other- is still here. Boy, did I miss that. [strike]Well, maybe not but it does make it challenging at times while still being manageable in Normal mode.[/strike] The story so far is quite intriguing, having me wonder how things would have played out if I had chosen the other starting point. That alone is incentive enough for me to go back and replay it in full length. Even though I would probably feel bad to have sided with King Oscar. A very big "problem", however, is the fact that a certain former "gangster" has stolen my heart and will quite likely be the reason for me to break up with Tom. Especially because I was reminded soon enough why I had my fair shair of trouble with that handsome white hair in PS1. [strike]I should've just chosen Damien or no one as a transfer romance looooool[/strike] VN Mode for the rescue I guess. To put it in other terms: I really like how the characters get some more backstory and their share of fleshing out in the second installment. [i]In particular[/i] Damien since he had not much screen time in PS1 and neither was he a playable part of the team. I AM worried that Avae and Lakadema will suffer a similar fate but I'll see how that goes. Tl;Dr: Just go and buy it, you won't regret this [i]if[/i] you are either a fan of VNs and/or the certain battle gameplay. And the OST is great, too. Probs worth picking that up as well along the way. Tl,DR^2: Thanks for that wonderful game, Jack. It really made my whole week to learn that it finally came out. Stay healthy, keep up the good work and I'll look forward to play Loren 2, whenever that may be.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Ratings : 9/10 Planet Stronghold 2 is another excellent game that I enjoyed tremendously. Although it is a bit expensive, I felt that it is worth it, because it give me 100+ hours of fun and enjoyment. This game also have great replayability as I played it more than 10 times to get the 75 achievements. This game is a wonderful blend of both RPG and VN; both genre that I loved very much. As for RPG, you have the option of choosing 4 different starting classes (soldier, guardian, scout, psionics), and 2 different factions (empire, rebels). You can also choose either male or fema You even have the option to toggle nudity and erotic text too, without the need to download any special patches, as in most other games. Another strong point of this game is the 11 different endings, all of which are totally different, exciting and enjoyable to read. There is also the thrill of finding a different ending depending on the choices that you made throughout the game. Unfortunately, most of the time I get the same endings, so I feel a sense of triumph whenever a totally new ending occurs. You can play this game in 4 different difficulty settings. There is also a "Visual Novel" setting that allows you to skip all the fights if you are just seeking different endings or different romances. Planet Stronghold 2 is a game that I wholeheartedly recommend. This game is so good that after finishing it, I bought Planet Stronghold 1 and am playing it right now.

I did a run-through of the original before playing this game, to remind myself what happened, and it took me 16 hours. One (completionist) play-through of this game took me 40 hours. In both cases, there's a whole other narrative side of things warranting at least one more play-through. In summary: it was fun! There were issues, though: there was the typical rpg problem where you're struggling at the beginning, and roflstomping everything by the end (I was 2-shotting bosses by the endgame), there were a number of bugs - all minor, like I had text from one window not clearing on moving to another once, at another point 2 characters were superimposed on top of each other, small things like that. Nothing big. Another ... not quite 'issue', but 'strangeness' was that at one point there was this whole new mechanic involving splitting the party, with a whole new interface ... and it never comes up again. At least, it didn't in the route I took. Oh, and I could access a teammate's personal quest at a point where it referred to main plot events which hadn't quite happened yet. Not a major problem, but again, just another small thing to add to the pile. Your relationships with characters move a slider between 'friendship' and 'rivalry', and I never got the impression that anything mattered in the relationship other than that bar. Maybe it does, it's just hidden, but the only thing I *noticed* being checked was the slider. Encourages a rather 'gamey' mindset, and you have to have self-discipline to not just roll-back if you made a decision which makes the slider go a way you don't want. The combat mechanics are decent - nothing too complex, but there's enough there to avoid boredom, for at least one play-through. But really, you play it for the story and characters. And they're good, but not brilliant. The characters are entertaining enough to sustain interest, but they're not particularly deep or complex (edit: actually, there was one character who had a bit of development which pleasantly surprised me, as I did not see it coming, so it's not entirely shallow). There are factions you have to deal with, but a main antagonistic faction felt rather under-developed. Maybe their background is explored more in another route? (There is a sidequest I somehow missed, so it is possible). In summary: it's not going to change your life. But if you enjoyed the first one, you should definitely enjoy this one. If you haven't played the first one, I'd start there. As I said at the beginning, it's not a particularly long game, and you can probably grab it cheap. This one has entertaining enough characters, a good enough story, and - very important to me - a satisfying ending (at least the one I got, there's a load others). At the price we pay, there's a lot of content value here. Good enough to get a 'thumbs up' from me.

i hated for the bugs, then after complaining it to the dev they fixed it within 3 hour. would recomended the game. good dev. but i still hate forced to play other character than my own. i'm here to be a hero, not babysit hitler face guy with drinking problem.

I love this game, it's been an absolute joy to read from start to finish. So I'll do my best to leave a detailed review for those who want more information than "It's great just buy it already". (But for those of you who don't want detail, JUST BUY THE GAME IT'S GREAT!) Below I'll list some things I noticed as I played, both good and bad: I just recently finished my first run of the game as Joshua romancing Milo and I honestly just loved it. There were a couple moments that made me go "oh woah, okay, oh my god!" but that was mostly due to me downloading the optional DLC that makes things more risque, so I asked for it, and how could I possibly complain! (It was great) The PROS: - The romances are not rushed, they take time to develop and feel more natural that way. - I didn't expect to enjoy the grid based world exploration or even the combat system, I bought the game primarily to read the story, but as I progressed I found myself actually LOVING the combat. And the grid based exploration is a good way of displaying a larger world in a very simple way. - I played on normal difficulty, and I found myself actively seeking new combat encounters simply because I thought they were really fun. I grouped up my MC (a Psionic) with Damien, Tom, and Milo and it was an incredibly fun combat experience the whole way through. - The Romance is very fun, but the combat and world building of the storytelling are just as great if not better. - Less of a pro/con but more of a recommendation: Character levels and especially GEAR levels makes a HUGE difference in this game even on normal difficulty. If you want to go through this without insane difficulty in combat you need to upgrade your gear, and make sure to engage every enemy you can to gain experience. Unless of course you're playing on easy mode, but I highly recommend normal as the bare minimum for your first play through. - I can't attest to the other romance "lock-in" scenes yet (no spoilers) but Milos was hilarious and adorable. He says a bunch of meta stuff while playing a "dating holodisc game" by Galactic Wolf or something like that, and references things that the Winter Wolves Dev has experienced or gone through. I thought it was really silly and enjoyed it a lot. CONS (mostly just critiques that you can take or leave): - I'm not sure if this is a bug or something on my end but through a vast majority of the game I couldn't scroll up to review the chat log of the conversation I was in. There were times that I was able to so I know it's implemented, but more times than not I was unable to and it became frustrating. Sometimes I read super fast and click without really thinking and then realize during the next panel of dialog that I don't remember what they said to me 10 seconds ago, and I'd appreciate being able to scroll up to see it at any given time. - There are times that in order to gain approval with one of your companions you HAVE to flirt with them. The other dialog option makes you sound rude, and you lose approval with them. I'm primarily reminded of dialog with both Rumi and Rebecca where if I wanted to increase their approval of me I HAD to be flirty. Now not a big deal obviously if you play a Joshua that's into women, but the plan for my Joshua was for him to be into men, so him flirting with Rumi/Rebecca just felt really weird. But I wanted high approval with every one of my teammates so it felt necessary. I'd really have liked a neutral option like... Heeey, yeah you're beautiful and everything but uh, I like dudes. - Playing as female Nelson (Lisa) after my first playthrough as male Nelson (Joshua), I couldn't help but wonder why she has NO muscle definition at all... Joshua is freaking RIPPED! Yet Lisa, who has the same level of training, looks soft and squishy. I get it, that's the normal female body that people find attractive, but it just felt really unrealistic. A military commander should be VERY STRONG no matter their gender. I'd have loved a more defined muscle tone on Lisa and even Rebecca seeing as her shtick is that she is constantly working out. -There's no way to "lock" items in your inventory so you don't accidentally sell them/salvage them. Not a big deal, but I'd have liked it at later points in the game especially. - There are some minor grammar issues, they occasionally took me out of the moment a little especially in dialog between me and Milo (the one I was romancing on my first playthrough) but nothing game breaking. - I found most of the female voices to be very annoying as they are all kind of high pitched and overly stereotypical "girly" sounding. That being said, I am a woman and perhaps I just don't like the overly girly sounding voices, and you don't hear characters voices all THAT often so take this with a grain of salt. But every single woman in this game has a high pitched girly-girl voice except for Shiler, so it got a little old. SO there you have it, if you read this all than I hope it helped, but in all honesty you shouldn't even debate about getting the game or not. It's so great, just get it and enjoy it. My expectations were blown out of the water. Thank you Dev for creating such great stories, your visual novels are by far my favorite of any I've seen.

I've played quite a lot of Winterwolves games and can say that a lot of effort went into this one! Great job! Compared to other games from this developer PS2 feels more mature, robust, more detailed. If you played the first part, you'll clearly see the evolution. The plot is more serious, humor is more strategically placed, characters feel more flashed out. Especially the old cast! Gotta say, I didn't expect to like Rebecca so much with her hot chick stereotype. I'm still angry at her though - she got all the hot guys before me! Avae being the exception and that's only because he lived in a cave all his life... lol I've played all the male romances and several endings and I mostly liked them all. Damien still being my favourite (even Tom looked nice. I'm against smoking in real life, but his "camp talk" picture looked sexy with the cigarette). I guess the old romances finally blossomed in part 2 so they feel more complete compared to new ones. But Milo and Avae just look so cute... On the side note, I was pleasantly surprised by the soundtrack! The level up screen totally rocked xD The CG art was gorgeous! Both explicit and "modest" in my opinion. I like the anime\cartoon blend artstyle here. Hope you're reading this, Jack! Thumbs up!