Seven Things to Know About Conception II
Let’s talk Conception II. In short, this is an odd one. The entire premise is based on the title of the game: Conception. In a world plagued by dusk creatures, it’s up to you as a high-ranked male Disciple to make cute little babies with the high-ranked female Disciples. Of course, there’s more to the title than that – strategic team-based combat, town development, and character progression.
After spending a little time with the demo, here are the seven tidbits I’m happily passing on to you – just in case you don’t have the time to roll through it.
- So, so, so much of this game reminds me of P4G. It sounds, acts, and feels like the same game. A Persona clone? Maybe – but is that such a bad thing?
2. Much of Conception II revolves around the act of Classmating. It’s a PG version of sex in which high rank male and female characters “hold hands and concentrate” to produce Star Children. They’ll follow you around in combat, and you’ll eventually create three teams of them for a total of 9 little tag-alongs. The process itself is simple, but appears to allow for a sweet amount of mixing and matching.
3. Get ready to head back to high school. As a Disciple, you will spend a good deal of time at the Academy – learning about the elements, flirting with your classmates, and otherwise having a good time. Similar to other games of this style, you have opportunity after opportunity to interact with the many characters of the game.
4. Combat is heavily based on direction. It influences too many things to list: how much damage you deal, how much damage you take, how quickly you build the chain gauge, and so on. It’s a simple, but still a surprisingly interesting mechanic.
5. You can choose your name at the beginning of the story, but prepare to be referred to often as God’s Gift. Like, all the time. “God’s Gift, please report to the headmaster’s office.” I’m not even kidding.
6.When you’re not Classmating or spending time at the Academy, you’ll enter Dusk Circles, or Labyrinths, around the world. It consists of battling your way through a number of floors, eventually dominating the boss at the end. This is the core of the game, so get ready for it. Before you head in, you get to choose a heroine to take with, along with three groups of Star Children.
7. Based on the demo, the game is dialogue-heavy. However, I did feel like the pacing was reasonable, and you’ll experience beautifully rendered cutscenes between the sections of dialog.
These thoughts are based on the Vita version. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this one…but with the many similarities it shares with P4G, I don’t think I’ll have a problem flying through it. I guess we’ll find out when Conception II: Children of the Stars hits shelves on April 15 for Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita.
