T-rat

The story is an afterthought in AeternoBlade II as players go through the motions of meeting new characters and switching characters as soon as they get the hang of a set of abilities. It gets frustrating because they each have different weapon types, so you need to adjust playstyles on the fly, but things do end up become more straightforward after the first opening act and a few boss battles. However, whether a player sticks around to see this side of the game is another story. What saves the game is its decent combat that is as repetitive and mindless as you might assume it is, but it responsive where it counts. Sure the enemies are pretty much the same ones faced in AeternoBlade, but they are fun to take out. The game’s combat takes some getting used to, though, because some enemies aren’t staggered by your attacks and will swing their swords no matter how much damage you’re unleashing on them. It creates some frustrating situations, but it still manages to be satisfying. That said, using the time-warping abilities was never my go-to strategy for taking random grunts out. However, I did make it a point to use them during boss battles, which are the highlight of the entire game, well the ones that can’t be cheesed through at least. If you die multiple times during a boss encounter, the game will offer a lower difficulty for that area, which is an excellent option to have. There are also enemies who can only be defeated using the time abilities, but they were extremely annoying. Gameplay has multiple modes as it switches between 2D action to third-person action to puzzle platformer. It makes you wish the developer spent time perfecting one of these genres because you’ll switch randomly during gameplay and it never feels right. There were times when I just got out of a challenging fight, and then the next room contained a save point with a puzzle that slowed things down. Some puzzles are optional, but they contain powerups that are useful, so you pretty much have to do them. Puzzles in the game sometime require you to use the powers of the respective character. These get pretty challenging and ended up being what I would have preferred the entire game be. The third-person mode is just strange and shouldn’t be in the game. It’s unusual for some encounters, but the camera and lock-on never seem to work correctly during bosses, and it does nothing to the enjoyment of the game. I’ll also add that there are quick-time events in the game where if you miss a button press, its an automatic death, but you get to retry without any real consequence.

The story is an afterthought in AeternoBlade II as players go through the motions of meeting new characters and switching characters as soon as they get the hang of a set of abilities. It gets frustrating because they each have different weapon types, so you need to adjust playstyles on the fly, but things do end up become more straightforward after the first opening act and a few boss battles. However, whether a player sticks around to see this side of the game is another story. What saves the game is its decent combat that is as repetitive and mindless as you might assume it is, but it responsive where it counts. Sure the enemies are pretty much the same ones faced in AeternoBlade, but they are fun to take out. The game’s combat takes some getting used to, though, because some enemies aren’t staggered by your attacks and will swing their swords no matter how much damage you’re unleashing on them. It creates some frustrating situations, but it still manages to be satisfying. That said, using the time-warping abilities was never my go-to strategy for taking random grunts out. However, I did make it a point to use them during boss battles, which are the highlight of the entire game, well the ones that can’t be cheesed through at least. If you die multiple times during a boss encounter, the game will offer a lower difficulty for that area, which is an excellent option to have. There are also enemies who can only be defeated using the time abilities, but they were extremely annoying. Gameplay has multiple modes as it switches between 2D action to third-person action to puzzle platformer. It makes you wish the developer spent time perfecting one of these genres because you’ll switch randomly during gameplay and it never feels right. There were times when I just got out of a challenging fight, and then the next room contained a save point with a puzzle that slowed things down. Some puzzles are optional, but they contain powerups that are useful, so you pretty much have to do them. Puzzles in the game sometime require you to use the powers of the respective character. These get pretty challenging and ended up being what I would have preferred the entire game be. The third-person mode is just strange and shouldn’t be in the game. It’s unusual for some encounters, but the camera and lock-on never seem to work correctly during bosses, and it does nothing to the enjoyment of the game. I’ll also add that there are quick-time events in the game where if you miss a button press, its an automatic death, but you get to retry without any real consequence.

The story is an afterthought in AeternoBlade II as players go through the motions of meeting new characters and switching characters as soon as they get the hang of a set of abilities. It gets frustrating because they each have different weapon types, so you need to adjust playstyles on the fly, but things do end up become more straightforward after the first opening act and a few boss battles. However, whether a player sticks around to see this side of the game is another story. What saves the game is its decent combat that is as repetitive and mindless as you might assume it is, but it responsive where it counts. Sure the enemies are pretty much the same ones faced in AeternoBlade, but they are fun to take out. The game’s combat takes some getting used to, though, because some enemies aren’t staggered by your attacks and will swing their swords no matter how much damage you’re unleashing on them. It creates some frustrating situations, but it still manages to be satisfying. That said, using the time-warping abilities was never my go-to strategy for taking random grunts out. However, I did make it a point to use them during boss battles, which are the highlight of the entire game, well the ones that can’t be cheesed through at least. If you die multiple times during a boss encounter, the game will offer a lower difficulty for that area, which is an excellent option to have. There are also enemies who can only be defeated using the time abilities, but they were extremely annoying. Gameplay has multiple modes as it switches between 2D action to third-person action to puzzle platformer. It makes you wish the developer spent time perfecting one of these genres because you’ll switch randomly during gameplay and it never feels right. There were times when I just got out of a challenging fight, and then the next room contained a save point with a puzzle that slowed things down. Some puzzles are optional, but they contain powerups that are useful, so you pretty much have to do them. Puzzles in the game sometime require you to use the powers of the respective character. These get pretty challenging and ended up being what I would have preferred the entire game be. The third-person mode is just strange and shouldn’t be in the game. It’s unusual for some encounters, but the camera and lock-on never seem to work correctly during bosses, and it does nothing to the enjoyment of the game. I’ll also add that there are quick-time events in the game where if you miss a button press, its an automatic death, but you get to retry without any real consequence.