Game:

Puyo Puyo 2 (1994)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 2:17:02

1,512 views

49

Were you hoping for something mildly spectacular during my brief hiatus? Nope, no such luck I'm afraid, just more random video games from my collection with little to no information... I was too lazy admittedly to put a description for this as it's been private for over three weeks. So what's the deal with this one? 1997's "Queens Road" is the last major game released by Bandai's long-standing subsidiary, Angel, before they were absorbed later in the year by B-AI and MegaHouse Corp (also subsidiaries of Bandai) and who published and / or developed games almost exclusively for the Famicom and Super Famicom. If one had to describe it generically, you could call it a bare-bones, isometric version of Dragon Force or Miragine War merged with a training sim like Princess Maker. While this should be a winning formula, the game is besieged by shallow gameplay, a lot of arbitrary metrics that don't really change how the game is played in any significant way, and balancing issues.

The goal of the game is simple: You are given the backstory of five young princesses of the Efroze Continent who each govern a different region who desire to enter the next "Queens Road" battle tournament in three years that will decide who has total control of the continent. This tournament is a wholesome battle that tests a princesses' ability to lead and command and is a great spectacle for the denizens of the land. Our heroines lack the ability to effectively lead or govern starting out though, so each one confers to a loyal aid or "partner" who handles their training and each month involves choosing a training regimen, scouring areas for optional events and partaking in mock battles with your own kingdom to improve your stats and battle proficiency. Doing well will get you some different (but only mildly important) interactions with your future queen of choice.

Let's do the usual compliment sandwich thing. The general concept of the game is an interesting idea and each heroine's route is different; a few of their locales are cosmetically different (even if they serve the same function), each heroine has their own theme (and Sylvia, Ishtal and Cecilia's slap a little bit), and they have a variety of events and characters unique to theme. Each Queen has a different specialization and while the game gives the illusion of choice when it comes to training, they generally benefit more from some routines than others. The limited amount of resources are serviceable -- the game has nice pixel quality, a few fairly long introductory movies (and where I suspect a lot of the budget went) and limited voice acting.

My main issue with this game is that it is neither a compelling battle simulator or training simulator... both aspects feel half-baked at best. The training aspect suffers from a lack of weight to almost everything; you can have consultations with your future queen (the only dialogues that are voiced beyond basic introductory segments and movies) and nothing really matters regardless of which choice you pick... I mean, some obviously make them happy or upset, but these conversations loop constantly and don't have a palpable outcome until very specific times (like the end of the game). The training options also don't matter much -- you can start with the default for everyone and see significant gains as your battle formation and characters you find have a much bigger outcome on stats and victory than anything else (each main has recruitable generals and some are way more OP than others). There are even special events that can change your otherwise unchangeable equipment, but they don't even tell you what they do (one can change your queen's special skill, but that's about it).

The battle portion is generally devoid of thinking -- you have different battle formations you can select (they level up slowly over time, so only focus on one or two) and you can swap out your different generals / units who specialize in different areas, but there aren't enough of them to make a big difference and recruitable units are so strong that they can help you skip levels and fast-train everyone else (the caveat is that they don't grow stronger, but most are reliable from start to finish). A lot of people have trouble winning battles in this game and you will lose more often than not starting out. You can issue basic commands to your team and utilize special skills by filling your assault gauge, but most victories come down to blitzing the leader ASAP (the best way starting out) or getting a guest who steamrolls everyone. Tiffany's team is particularly OP as they regenerate special quickly and get access to the nomad unit pretty early, one of the most powerful in the game. The princesses were not created equally but it at least makes their campaigns feel a little different (some will leave or rebel at certain intervals for example).

This is a video of the game in action showing various things from Ishtal and Tiffany's campaigns. Enjoy.

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