River City Girls 2 Review (Devi)
UPDATE: Since writing this review, there has been a performance patch released that fixes the 30 FPS issues mentioned in this review. However, the patch also did a lot of changes to the gameplay, physics and flow, making the game feel very off to many players, myself included. With the exception of 60 FPS online, which you probably aren't going to find games in the lobbies to join anyway, I'd say the game is probably worse now than it was when I originally wrote this.
Getting the obvious question out of the way, the vast majority of my play time has been making mods for the game. I've only played the story around 2.5 times and have yet to 100% a save file.
If you liked the first RCG, this sequel expands on the game world, side quest, better accessories, playable characters and improved combat. On the other hand, this comes at the sacrifice of being more directionless, less polished, more buggy and mostly less funny. There are moments where everything clicks and comes together but it's too often a slog to get to those moments.
There are many instances where the execution doesn't match the ambition. An example is the way the middle story missions can be tackled in different orders. It's a nice idea but it's fairly clear that there was a default order in mind and what areas got worked on first. If you don't follow that order, you risks losing out on dialog and context. If you do follow the order, it becomes obvious that the backend is full of filler locked-screen fights and forced fetch quests that involve repeated globe trotting back and forth between the same screens.
The dialog system is weird and it seems like it really handcuffed the writing. You can play as multiple characters but for the most part, there are two talkers, speaker and responder. Speaker lines are almost always something Misako might say and responder lines are almost always something Kyoko might say. Speaker and responder talk to each other quite generically, in a way that prevents their words from needing context to who they are talking to. At its best, the dialog falls flat and provides no insight to the characters speaking it. At its worst, characters speak nonsense that doesn't fit them or their context at all. An adult woman worrying about being late for high school class, for example.
This might seem like a costs cutting measure but I'm not sure. In order to make this system work, the majority of the characters had to record both speaker and responder lines to avoid conflicts between combinations of characters. It's hard to imagine this was the most efficient use of resources. Considering the manga cutscenes are always told from the perspective of Misako and Kyoko, I'm not sure doing things this way made any sense.
There are other areas of the game where it just feels like different parts of the development were not communicating with each other. Story dialog that makes references to side quest that you may not have done. A sprite of a character crying in peril, only for the joke of their rescue dialog to be that they were oblivious to being in mortal danger because they were too busy being an airhead. One character's entire introductory manga sets up a story that is instantly resolved the second she joins your crew and no story dialog follows up on it afterwards. There are multiple collectibles in the game but you can't start collecting most of them until you start the quest, which may be several hours into the game, depending on your route. It might seem like little stuff but there's a whole lot of it and it adds up.
The game was released with a 30 FPS cap but not even in the way you'd expect it. Elements related to the gameplay are locked at 30 while the rest of the game runs at 60. This includes menus, transitions and particle effects. This means you're seeing things run at both 30 and 60 at the same time, which is even worse than just seeing things at 30.
There is a "beta" branch that band-aids this problem but only this problem and only for offline play. A proper patch has been "almost ready for certification" for two months as of this writing and has yet to be submitted for approval by the console manufacturers. Because the game supports cross-play across all platforms, everyone has to get the patch at the same time.
Little information is available about this patch and communication from Wayforward is very sparse and what little we get involves a generous amount gaslighting, hand-waving and absurdist claims. As mentioned, I have spent time modding the game which required getting familiar with its code. While I'm not an expert on the engines of the game, I can say confidently that the manner in which this cap has been presented as nothing more than "error in the code" that went unnoticed for the entirety of the game's development is nonsensical. The evidence within the code is that this cap was put in intentionally. Why? Can't say for sure. Was the plan always to go back and change it? I think it's probable. It sure feels like a stopgap solution to get a game out before Christmas. I would love to hear a believable explanation that contradicts this evidence but I am not holding my breath.
There's a good game buried beneath all of this and if you liked the first game, it's hard to imagine you'd outright hate this one, if not like it more depending on your tolerance of certain flaws. If you do get it, I wouldn't pay the $40 asking price again and certainly not the much higher regional prices I've heard about. 50% sale, at least and if you do grab it, go check out some mods! :p