So I just finished 2nd playthrough of this game and I’m going to say that it’s kinda like Return of the Jedi; it’s good, but it is really inferior to it’s predecessor.
However, positivity is everyone’s jam so I will just start on the things I like about this game.
1.) The use of the Dorms. In the first Grand Academy, one of the things I didn’t like was the fact that your choice of dorm didn’t do much except for the name of your sponsor and openness to monsters, etc. I’m really glad that your choice of dorm actually made a difference.
2.) The Writing. The story, by itself, is pretty good. Although the management of the endings is rather… mixed (I’ll get more into that later on). The sentences are well written and still retain the charm of the first game,
I have to congratulate the Katherine for incorporating all the endings into the story instead of Thanos snapping some of them like Psy High 2 and actually kinds of make it work well. But to be honest, I think that this would have been better off had a complete setting overhaul like well… Psy High 2. But that’s my suggestion, Nehring could do whatever she wants with her stories and the genre war was a good thematic overhaul overall
3.) The New Characters. Mainly Dev, Sona, and AB (squab off Val) are pretty good. They’re not as good as the older characters from the previous games who didn’t get a chance to shine such as Kinistra and Cerebrist, but these characters are nice fillers for that Kinistra-Cerebrist sized hole.
Okay time for the downsides.
1.) The Romances. I think everyone probably covered this a lot already so in short: lack of RO-exclusive moments and Kinistra fans kinda got the short end of thr stick. This is probably the least of my concerns since I didn’t romance anyone and I only did so to see what differences they make.
2.) Kinistra and Cerebrist. These two didn’t get that much action in this whatsoever. Were they even in the game at all? Were they shown in other ways that were not a character mentioning them? Okay I’m sorry that sounded rude since I kind of understand why they’re not there. Their fates are so radicslly different that it’s probably going to be hell for Katherine to code them in. Quite a bummer not to see them, but I understand why they’re not there and the new characters were fairly nice for me.
3.) Villain downgrade. Val (in my opinion) is rather forgettable. In Grand Academy 1, I was fairly engaged in the plot between the hero infiltration and the Maedry vs. Cerebrist conflicts, whereas in Grand Academy 2, I was somewhat engaged by the genre war but man, the Val subplot was forgettable (again, in my opinion.) But at least I could take it seriously by some amount.
