8-Bit Adventures 2 Review – Review

Turn-based RPG players may be among the most nostalgic individuals in all of video games. The developments in storytelling, music, and gameplay often contain major influences from the classics that came before, like the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. It’s not uncommon for smaller development teams to try and capitalize on that nostalgia with throwback titles that utilize a retro art style and other trappings from once upon a time. 8-Bit Adventures 2 is one such game that panders to that thirst for the distinct flavor of ‘80s and ‘90s RPGs, but its insistence on handholding and a painfully slow opening hold it back from soaring in the way some of its predecessors did.

The story revolves around an antagonist known as the Glitch and a growing party of heroes who come together to stop the Glitch’s plot to transform the world they all live in. The young and plucky Charlie is one of the main protagonists who recruits powerful allies to take on this quest, including the three main characters from the game’s direct predecessor, 8-Bit Adventures. Fortunately, the sequel doesn’t require knowledge of the first game. Spending more hours with the cast does reveal enjoyable character moments and a greater level of depth and charm, but it does take some time and patience to reach that point.

The turn-based combat perspective is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, but fortunately it’s much more involved in actual mechanics and fairly transparent. A bar on the right keeps track of turn order, and enemies have a health gauge above their heads that depletes as you strike them. You take up to three characters into battle but can swap them for other party members as your crew grows. The cast each bring their own abilities and skills to the battlefield, leading to some fairly engaging fights as the game progresses, especially with the satisfying Omega Burst finishing moves thrown in. In the early game, though, the number of encounters and boss battles is quite low, which means that one of the highlights of 8-Bit Adventures 2 takes a bit of a backseat until later on.

The game runs into trouble in terms of pacing, with the first 5 to 10 hours being particularly dialogue heavy and light on action and memorable events. It’s completely fair for an RPG to take time to really get going, but it somewhat sours the overall experience when an homage to something like Final Fantasy on NES frontloads so much story and character interaction without interspersing fun combat sequences or puzzles. For comparison, the opening two hours of that NES classic featured the fight with Garland, the bridge crossing scene, and even earning your own sailing ship. On the other hand, there’s a lot of Point A to Point B before 8-Bit Adventures opens up in the second half. Fortunately, there are some interesting places that you eventually get to visit after you get an airship, and it’s fairly satisfying when the game finally does find its footing.

Neat features like strategic airship battles and the ability to swap party members in combat buoy an experience that can at times feel overly jokey and contrived. The graphics and art style do a great job of transporting you back a few decades, but some of the music can be a bit repetitive and droning. On the plus side, the choice to replace random encounters with enemies on the map is a welcome change from the RPGs that inspired 8-Bit Adventures 2. The vibrant use of color and variety of settings help make adventure maintain momentum once it gets going, but it’s hard not to see the finished product as needing a good trim. If you need to explain what a save point does in a game tailormade for RPG fans, then you aren’t really respecting the time of your target audience. There’s a really enjoyable 20-30 hours here if you cut out a portion of the early game and the over-tutorializing, but in a year of incredible additions to the RPG genre, 8-Bit Adventures 2 is a tougher sell.