Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon, Analysis
When a year ago we received the original delivery of Nights of Azure , there were few lovers of the oriental action genre who identified here a brave proposal to mix the most current Japanese ARPG with large doses of action, a kind of musou with a very m
uch plot component more developed than we were used to, but that was left in the way important aspects to make that a recommended game for any self-respecting player. Now, with Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon , we see that feeling again , although the truth is that the title has been able to respond to the needs of the fans with ease.
Koei Tecmo has been responsible for distributing the title in our country, a development of Gust with the intention of demonstrating that not only Omega Force is capable of making a good musou. As we said, the effort to incorporate a solid narrative is perceived from the start, dedicating the first hours of departure to present the characters, explain the
conflict surrounding this world and dedicating the first battles to make us understand step by step how to handle the controls. It’s a pity that so
many minutes are devoted to this task when at the end of the day – unless we activate the third level of difficulty – everything will be limited to a constant pressing of buttons, since most combos are extremely easy to execute since they are infinite successions of X and Y.
Improving the first part, but with great playable weaknesses
But the parents of the Atelier saga are experts in making attractive titles in sight, and Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon does not fail
in that regard. The presentation of the game is remarkable, with some modeling for the characters that we have liked a lot, especially in this version of Nintendo Switch that we have been able to analyze where in portable mode it is possibly where it surprise
s most. The signs of identity are there, highlighting its careful soundtrack and the values of artistic production. A title by and for Japanese; fanservice in pure state .
That is why it has left us with a bittersweet taste that an audiovisual title so remarkable has such an enormous weakness in its gameplay, and is
that in the approximately 10 hours we have taken to finish the main story , what began as a system of battles more or less addictive, has ended up becoming somewhat tedious, only sustained by knowing how the conflict originally proposed would end.
Everything begins counting the war that surrounds the society where the protagonists live. A demon king achieved victory over the human race, and in his process caused some humans to become monsters, all of them appearing at night. That is where an agent
of the Curia named Aluche comes into the picture , who with her great physical and mental skills is entrusted with the mission of protecting Liliana , a priestess with whom she has had a relationship for a long time an
d who has a gifted genetics. Of course, at the beginning of the adventure everything falls apart, and for some reason Liliana is chosen as the next member to be sacrificed . You, Aluche, you are the bodyguard, the protector that must be sacrific
ed so that Liliana can leave alive. Without needing to enter more spoilers, we consider that the script’s approach is solid enough to ask us what will happen next and, above all, how we are going to achieve it by being so physically below those monsters that are to come.
And speaking of monsters, we take the opportunity to mention another aspect that has disappointed us about the title, and that is the design of the enemies. As in the original release, Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon has filler characters
that seem to be there with no other aspiration than to occupy space on stage. Inherited lack of the musou genre, we will see dozens and dozens of ene
mies that are exactly the same to each other, with little difference in their aesthetics or behavior , except that some are larger than others – and therefore more powerful or difficult of kill-.
The scenarios have been drawn with something more complex than in the first title of the franchise, a greater effort that is rewarded with better interconnection between these scenarios, more bifurcations and in the long run, more time invested i
n each mission without having to Support load times to enter the next place. With time we will get used to knowing when to use weak attacks and when the strongest ones; the same with the evasion, key especially in the end point o
f the adventure to the being evidently more complicated. Those dives are not as careful as in other hack ‘n’ slash like Bayonetta, but if we manage to get along with the camera we can get a lot out of it. And it is quite rewarding.
The problem of the camera in a three-dimensional action game
But the camera has played us very bad tricks. At first it adopts a height with enough visual coverage, but its automatic positioning is far from comfortable . Thanks to the second stick we can use a manual handle of the same one, but due to the spe
ed of the movement of the personage, we will constantly have to center the camera and we will receive da
mage because we will not see the position of some enemies; either because they are behind or because in those tenths of a second inverted to the placement of the camera is already too late to avoid a stake. On the other hand, being able to count on Servants (a
kind of servants) in combat allows us to command them to execute different types of attacks, some of themvery oriented to offensive movements and from a distance; although we can also choose to fight freely and focus on going down enemies little by little to reduce the number of targets to shoot down.
That dose of strategy is quite interesting, since it encourages in a certain sense the replayability of the title or to vary our game system depending on the type of rivals that we are. Mention also that the magic can be used outside the combat to solv
e some simple puzzles , how to eliminate from our step according to what elements of the scenario to move forward, nothing complicated in any case.
We can not forget to say that Nights of Azure 2 comes completely in English with voices in Japanese ; we do not have Spanish and possibly there is no patch on the way to the language of Cervantes. In spite of everything, the title gives a lot of yes, and we can extend the game perfectly above 20 or 25 hours if we want to raise the characters to the ma
ximumlevel or discover the rest of the secrets of a story that we insist is quite interesting. The last problem that we want to highlight in this
analysis is the rhythm of the game, constantly slowed down by the numerous cinematics. There are dozens of scenes made with the game engine itself; and although they are very successful and ge
nerally look dubbed into Japanese, it does not quite fit that the climax of the battle is broken by the introduction of half a minute of cinematics. The tempo does not end, and that weighs on the final product. Those who enjoy the anime will have a few hours o
f enjoyment here, although it is also necessary to mention that the design of the female characters is excessively sexualized , something that like it or not is a constant in this type of Japanese titles.
