Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars Demo Impressions (PS Vita)

I have been into JRPGs lately and have seem some crazy stuff but nothing compares to the wackiness of Conception 2. The very concept of the game is just crazy: making Star Children with 7 heroines (yeah thats right 7!). You then take those Star Children into battle and defeat monsters. The game is obviously very unique and wacky but is it any good?

The games story was not the least bit interesting to me. Even though this is a demo and its only an early portion of the game, I highly doubt the plot unfolds into something good.

You play as a Disciple of the Star God. You are not just any old Disciple though you are "a God's Gift" (whatever thats supposed to mean). This Star God guy randomly gives random people in their late teens special powers to fight monsters and make Star Children. They only have these powers for a few years. Disciples live on a special and island and have their own school. When they aren't attending classes and stuff they fight monsters in labyrinths. There are an unusually large number of monsters appearing lately and some other stuff going on. Nothing too interesting really.

The characters are not very good at all and thats a problem as this game has a heavy emphasis on dating sim elements. The dialogue in this game is also poorly written. The characters are all anime stereotypes and not the least bit interesting. There are a couple of guys but the focus is on the 7 heroines who you will be making Star Children with. They are all so stereotypical and very unintersting. The poor dialogue when interacting with these characters doesn't help much either.

Pshhh like I care

You will be interacting with the girls a lot. You have to keep them happy to get BP (Bond Points) and use said BP to make Star Children. The dialogue is very stale. The characters stories seem pretty boring and I could care less to play through their whole stories. I ended up just skipping through a lot of it.

Making Star Children is done by Classmating (haha get it Classmating?). Classmating is done in a church (really in a church?!). Well actually this isn't surprising as the Priest is a bit of a dirty old man... Based on the dialogue before and after the Classmating scenes and the music that plays during the Classmating scenes, you would think they were up to something naughty, however Classmating is relatively harmless. Basically they hold hands and use magic powers to turn a doll into a Star Child.

Its not what you think...

When you aren't bonding with the girls or making babies you will be dungeon crawling and battling monsters. The dungeon crawling is kind of like Persona 4 only not nearly as fun. The dungeons are uninteresting looking. The monsters you fight are kind of boring. They are very generic looking enemies. At least the battle system is solid though.

Booooooring

The battle system has you, one of the girls and some Star Children attacking monsters from different directions. The battle system has a big emphasis on positioning. You can attack an enemy from 4 different directions. Every enemy has a weak spot. Hit it and you deal a good bit of extra damage. Or you can try to build up your Chain Drive. By attacking enemies in certain directions (usually somewhere that leaves you vulnerable) you slow down the enemies speed and your turn continues a bit longer. Its a risk-reward because you could end up taking a lot of damage but also could get more attacks and deal massive damage. The battle system although solid is not good enough to save the game.

Overall Conception 2 seems like a mediocre JRPG to me. There are plenty of superior options on both PS Vita 3DS.