Community College Hero 2: Knowledge is Power (Would a Game Guide for CCH1 & 2 be helpful? post 1941)

Hello, I know I said I would like to give my opinion about the game a few days ago, but then, I didn’t. Partly, because I have been busy, but also because Eric Moser hadn’t returned yet. I know I’m kinda late to the party, but there might be a chance that he’ll appreciate some of my commentaries if this can help him for part 3.

I gave some feedback in the first round of beta testing, and at the time I said that CCH2 was slightly better than its predecessor. However, Now that I’ve played the final product, I must say that I have some mixed feelings about it. There are things that are a lot better, but this game has also made me realize some things that I miss about part 1.

I know that a lot of people don’t have the same issues I have. Please, be aware that although I’ll try to be fair, some of what I’m about to say might have to do more with personal opinion rather than with objective criticism. I mean, I guess that can always be expected.

Okay, some of the issues I had during beta testing are still there. I don’t want to dwell too much on that, but to give some general points:

Some of my original thoughts

Motivations: My original complaint was that motivations weren’t very well incorporated into the story, due to the fact that most choices regarding them lacked of actual consequences.

I used the original scene with the Wyvern as a better example of a motivation choice, seeing how depending on how you choose, it would also affect your popularity or your damage, actual consequences. This kind of scenes is the exception, rather than the rule.

This is understandable, of course, but I still think it might be a missed opportunity. See, the problem arises when it’s really easy to have an altruistic hero, yet avoiding doing anything actually altruistic.

The three paths: This is about the Tactician, Zenith and Dr. Stench paths in general. I’ve come to realize that my expectations regarding this were a little bit unrealistic. I know you couldn’t spend as much time in these routes as I wished you had. I’ll just hope that in the future we’ll get more time exploring them.

Pacing and structure: As I was fearing, issues 7 & 8 might feel a little bit too “crowded” compared to issues 5 & 6. However, they flowed rather nicely, better than what I was expecting. So, that’s good.

The tone: I know I complained about this before. I stand by what I said. Overall, it seems more consistent than part 1, with some notable exceptions, some scenes that might be too graphic or dark compared to the lighthearted nature of the main concept, a little bit more tolerable seeing how this installment tried to go for a darker tone.

Okay, I guess that sums it all pretty well. Now let’s move on about what I think about:

The Gameplay

It’s good, not revolutionary but overall an enjoyable experience.

Details, details…

I mentioned my original complaint with motivations, but most choices make sense and can have interesting consequences. Death scenes in particular are a good example, I like that they are avoidable, and they give me hope of what could come in the next installment.

I know that since this needs to tie up in Part 3, we can’t expect the choices to present very different outcomes, but this seems to indicate that we could expect more impactful consequences and different outcomes in the future, seeing how they won’t have to tie up into a new installment.

Most battle scenes are quite good. There’s an exception though, I’ll talk about it later when I address the characters.

There’s a very good scene, when the MC gets captured by the Wyvern along with Quickie. And we have to get out of the situation solving a puzzle. I wish there were more scenes like that.

There are some interesting ideas, like fighting to maintain our position as a leader, or the mechanics with the new subjects, I really liked Media Relations and the Breaking People and Things test.

It was a little harder to maintain good relationships with some students, I have to say that I found this more stressful than challenging though.

The Story

I like it, until I don’t

OK, this is the part when I want you to remember that this is a personal opinion and you don’t have to agree with me

Ok, let’s talk about the things I like first: most of issues 5 & 6, and the beginning of issue 7. Those are my favorite parts. We get to spend more time with the characters we know and love, the speck community, catch up with what has been going on, the classes are interesting, it also helps that it made me feel nostalgic about part 1. The students are fun, the activities are fun, the game it’s at its best when it tries to deal with this small stuff.

Then, the story gets complicated.

Ok, I don’t like anything regarding the new schools. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but this makes me feel a little worried about the future. So, ok this seems to be foreshadowing some kind of Zenith Civil War… Really?
I mean, there seems to be plenty stuff going on with the diabolical dozen hanging around. I don’t know if the story is going to too many places at once. It also doesn’t help that we didn’t know anything about this schools before, and it seems to be a very big conflict regarding national safety, and conspiracy theories, we already have to choose sides… and I really don’t care about any of this stuff, I just want to go back to fight villains.

Again, I know a lot of people are very excited about this. So, what do I know? Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised in the future, and this might flow well with the story. This game tries to be like comic books, and they also have a tendency to go to really unexpected places. I’ll have to wait and see, but I do not like it at the moment.

Another thing that I found unnecessarily complicated is the Zone. Again, you might have had this planned for the very beginning, for what I do know. But this honestly, this feels like some late invention to give some excuse to the possibility that Origami might come back in the future. (Oh, that was kind of mean, I’m so sorry!) Probably it was not what you intended, but it’s the feeling it gave me. Anyway, I hope Origami stays dead, I still don’t know if I liked her death in part 1, but I respect it, it served a purpose, I don’t want to invalidate all of that. The zone it’s giving me a bad feeling.

This is what I meant when I said I kind of miss some elements of Part 1. As much as the story could get kooky or silly, it’s endearing. There’s a charm in its simplicity and I feel that it is getting lost with all the new stuff.

However, I know that I must judge a game for what it is rather than what I would like it to be, and seeing how a lot of people like where this is going, I can’t say that it’s doing a bad job.

Characters

Ok, I guess it would be better if I go one by one.

Tress

There’s a conflict with Tress in this game centered on the fight for the leadership position. I liked it, this was a good part of the game. However, I hope this is already resolved, and that we won’t continue with this dynamic in part 3. It would just feel repetitive, and Tress is a character with so much potential for character development that needs to be explored in the future.

Dirty Girl

She was the best: some character development but maintaining her personality and fun spirit. I really like her scenes, and her powers, no wonder why she’s a fan favorite.

And, her party was more pleasant than what I experienced in the beta testing. I had a lot more fun this time.

Synergy

I really like Synergy. He feels more confident in this game, which is nice. I’ve gotten used to his new name, and I like some of the comments that other characters have made about it. As someone pointed out, it reminds me to Jem and the holograms.

The pacifist ideology he’s taking seems consistent with his personality. I hope he’ll take a more dynamic position in the team however, trying to figure out a way in which he could provide more help while maintaining his personal ideas, new creative ways of fighting evil.

Crook

Fine, not so much I can say about him. I liked when you talked about prison. Is this indicating you might want to explore some of the theories that have been circulating in the forums? That’s quite exciting.

However, I feel that the part about his secret need to be addressed a little bit more. Just a few lines, his plans for the future, talk about his kid, some reassuring that we are not a home wrecker because this is more his fault than ours. Maybe save that for an epilogue.

Stoic

This is really nice. The last scene is very cute. I’d like to see where this is going.

Stunner

I miss him a lot. I’ll hope we get the chance to see him in the future.

Combat Wombat

Ok, finally some things that I don’t like.
I like CW, and I like his death scene as I’ve pointed out before. I knew that because of it, this would mean that his role in the future would have to be reduced somehow even if he survived. I was hoping however, that this wouldn’t get addressed this way. I don’t like that he’s leaving at least not yet.

I think it would have been better to wait to the beginning of part 3 to talk about it. This way, it leaves a bad feeling at the end of part 2, it’s quite a downer. I also think that he was a character with some interesting potential, and now I feel that it’s never going to be explored.

Hopefully, we’ll get at least a cameo with him.

The other students

I made no secret that I found them annoying, I still do, but it wasn’t as bad as what I was expecting.

Friendzone in particular was the most annoying, but she has been tone down a bit, and I only find her irritating in the Media Relations scene, the rest of the game she doesn’t bother me too much. Also, I must say that I really love the scene where her powers are affecting our team, and they start to get really friendly and corny… it was probably the funniest scene in the whole game. Damn it, Moser! How are you making me compliment something that I really hate?

I don’t like Quickie, but I like the scenes in which he’s involved, so he wasn’t too bad.

Other students like Dr. Hoover or Hi-Jinx are fine I guess, they don’t appear as often, so they don’t bother me too much.

Teachers

Surprisingly good. There is not much too say about McCormick or Cap California, she is fine and he is and asshole, just as I was expecting. Tammy Tolliver is fine also. I found Dean Tolly a little bit dumb in part one, so this has been really nice, we get to see take a more active role and some initiative, she feels more grounded and interesting.

Good call with the Hedonist. I’m glad we didn’t go to more creepy territory with him and all those unfortunate implications. Surprisingly, I don’t mind if he is still alive at the end.

I thought that I would find the teachers from the other schools (including Downfall) just a little bit underwhelming and uninteresting, but they turned out to be fucking horrible people. Time will tell if this was a good or a bad decision.

The Wyvern

I don’t want to be mean, but I find him really disappointing. I’m sorry Moser, I know you spent a lot of time writing his scenes and trying to make him interesting, and at first it was working, and some of his scenes are my favorite; the first battle, the scape with Quickie… but then the final battle, it was not good.

Uff, I liked how the plan was developing but, winning that battle was just so easy, I know that this depends on some of the choices you made previously to this point. But that’s kind of the problem, the battle itself wasn’t really good, it felt rushed and underwhelming.

Also the reveal at the end, not very interesting, neither the choice to kill him, we don’t really have a good reason to do it unless you want to make your MC look dark and ruthless. We know that the he’s going to get captured anyway, and he hasn’t done anything that could justify killing him, the only character who could work with a choice like that was the Manipulator, seeing how she actually killed Origami, and therefore our feelings towards her are a lot more personal (but that couldn’t happen because we need her for Part 3). So yeah, disappointing, I’m sorry.

Manipulator, and other villains, I guess

The ending feels a little bit chaotic and difficult to follow, but I know this is kind of inevitable if we really want to get involved with the final battle. It was a good scene. Lady Ash and X where kind of unexpected, and I don’t really like that part, but it still works in its own way, so I can’t really complain.

I like how things end with the Manipulator. It looks promising; it looks like that we could finally have a chance to defeat the Dozen. I was actually quite worried about how you’d handle that in CCH3.

It seems that she could be the person we are talking about at the prologue of CCH1, “we trusted the wrong person”. I feel it’s a little bit too obvious, this might make you want to not make this decision and make the traitor another character, but I would not recommend it, as predictable as it seems, it also feels logical, and there might be other chances too surprising us with some twists if you want. However, if you don’t do it, you might still surprise me, anything is possible at this point.

In Conclusion

I said this before and it’s still true: CCH is a game whose concept always was more appealing to me than its actual execution. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be enjoyable, but sometimes it fails to meet my expectations despite my love for some of the ideas and characters.

Despite what it might seem, I like this installment. Overall, it was a fun experience and I think that’s what it is important at the end.

There’s a certain charm that will always get lost when a story tries to get bigger, and that is quite inevitable. I know that this story needs to evolve in order to still be interesting. So as much as it’s leaving me with mixed feelings, I know this is a necessary step, I just feel that it wasn’t executed in the best or most smoothly way.

There are little nitpicks, little improvements. At the end, the things I like are really wonderful, interesting and memorable, and the things I don’t like, are really annoying and stressful. This game doesn’t leave me feeling indifferent, it’s both and strength and a weakness.

I’ll say that there are a lot of possibilities for part 3, anything could happen. And I hope that, we forum members can help you along the way and have a pleasant experience.

Take Care Moser, I hope you’ll appreciate this review.

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It was very attractive. I try to vary my playthroughs of this game, but Synergy keeps stealing me away - he was my favorite RO in the first game, and, after almost finishing my first playthrough dating him in Knowledge Is Power, I can confidently say that he has maintained that status. We love a boy with brains and a strong moral compass (and by we I mean me and a solid 60% of my PCs).

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Noooo but I should. Most recent CCH PC’s going in there as “Nice Jewish Student Council President and twelve-time winner of the ‘Best to Take Home to Your Parents’ superlative.”

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Lol.

@AgentVerona
I don’t think you’re the only one with a text document to keep track of your different playthroughs.
Though personally, I just dump all the characteristics into the saved title, so it ends up looking something like:
Community College Hero 2_Stunner_Traditionalist_Detective_Zenith Powers_Leader_Prestige_Wyvern Dead_Hedonist Alive_Combat Wombat Alive

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@michellexylee

Lol, my save titles are fairly basic:

Verona/Crook - Detective/Not Leader/Armor Path

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That sounds sufficient. So why the need for a separate Word document to keep track? If you don’t mind me asking, how many CCH playthroughs have you got?

I can’t speak for @AgentVerona, but my main reason for making a separate word document would/will be to keep track of those little character quirks I’ve decided on for myself that don’t have a basis in game mechanics - my most recent PC’s observance of her religion, for example, or details of my next planned PC’s (I’m early in my summer break, don’t judge) mixed feelings about her mother.

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@michellexylee

Let’s see…I’ve got 6 saved right now in the first game. I haven’t saved any of my playthroughs yet for the second. I’m letting some time go in case of updates, or I find a way to do things I like better.

…I also have the same for Fallen Hero. But that one is more detailed with like, what armor upgrades did I take, what path am I going with my puppet, my status with the Rangers…

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Oh damn I have like five million (well, like, twenty). But I saved everything back in - was it 2015 when CCH1 came out? 2016?. Only three so far for CCH2, hoping to get to six or seven and then force myself to do something “productive,” like writing fanfiction or finally watching Brooklyn 99.

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Errrr… 10 so far… i really should have made notes too…

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I guess I must be really conservative because I only have 3 saves (and those playthrough already took a lot of time). So I have:

  • Community College Hero 2_Stunner_Traditionalist_Detective_Zenith Powers_Leader_Prestige_Wyvern Dead_Hedonist Alive_Combat Wombat Alive

  • Community College Hero 2_Crook_Traditionalist_Acrobat_Tactician_Leader_Savior_Wyvern Alive_Hedonist Dead_Combat Wombat Alive

  • Community College Hero 2_Mob_Traditionalist_Soldier_Doctor Stench_Tress Leader_Prestige_Wyvern Alive_Hedonist Alive_Combat Wombat Dead


I keep choosing the Traditionalist path, because it seems to be the least offensive or ridiculous one; teachers also seem to like you better as a Traditionalist.
I tried Charming though and it offended McCormick (e.g. wink at her). And the Jokester is just, well, a joke. And Brooder, ermm, I didn’t try Brooder but I think it would probably offend someone somehow by being so negative all the time.

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Hey,

I can’t respond to everything, but I will say this…

Yeah, I know the Wyvern final showdown isn’t super awesome. I had planned to weave in his motivations/identify more into the plot, but frankly he was taking over the story from the Dozen, and I had to wrap up his plotline, so I just went with “he wants some power enhancer” and left him a bit generic. I’m still happy with him, because he filled the roll I needed to fill. Should he have went down swinging more? Maybe. But what’s done is done.

And I am very aware of the whole “losing intimacy/charm as the story gets bigger and wider in scope” issue, trust me, I am. I’ve seen it crop up in many movies, books, etc. Heck, the Harry Potter series is a good example. Personally, I liked the story in the first few books better, when they were younger, with most of the plot still about classes, professors, etc., but as the story grew more “epic” and involved more and more non-Hogwarts people, yeah I wasn’t quite as interested (I still enjoyed them all and read/watched them all, though).

So yeah, obviously, things are heading to some sort of showdown between elements of Speck, Dozen, Prestige, Savior, etc, and yeah there will likely be at least one big “Avenger: Infinity War” style battle, but I’m sensitive to continuing character development and more intimate scenes, so it’s not a given that the climax will be some sprawling epic scene (of course it might depend on choices too).

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Huh, I think I found a tiny continuity error between the games (see, obsessive replaying has its benefits D= ) : In CCH1 the shields are said to have gone up in 1974, while in CCH2 it says 1977.
EDIT: Monstrosity X also doubles in height… and then I think (need to check again) shrinks back. (as in: 10 feet in cch1, 20 in the dossier at the start of cch2 and then 10 at the climax)

Though I assume these are mere typos that slipped by.

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Oh I’m always a charming SOB. I just don’t wink at McCormick. Strangely, I always end up like 70% charming and 40% Jokester. Whoops.

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HA that sounds like my me too, though my MC sometimes ends with >80%. Basically charming the pants off every NPC :sunglasses:

what is the name of that girl who can multiplicate herself?

@daniboy

Trendsetter.

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New conspiracy theory: Dr Shock is said to be able to control electronics, right? And Hag does possession…

Now what is Booksmart other than a machine? Maybe a machine controled from elsewhere. Would Streetsmart even notice his sister (and ultimately him) getting taken over if BlueMorpho f*cked with the causality and stuff?

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Awww man, you went real deep for this one!

In all seriousness (and I really can’t recall Dr. Shock’s power set at the moment), it would take some serious planning and precision, but it could happen, seeing as she’s most likely a fusion of man and machine, I guess. But I think someone would notice the difference eventually (wouldn’t they? I hope so, how alienated are these people)
. Otherwise, we need to worry about Mega Cat as well, Prestige was having secret little dates with the Dozen as well.

Booksmart probably has plans for that kind of thing. If that happens, I’ll be quite shocked.

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