Over the past few years, Japanese developer Atlus has been very busy indeed. Not only have they been hard at work on the next entry in fan-favourite RPG series, Persona, but they have also released new titles in their Shin Megami Tensai series, branched their Persona 4 franchise into fighting and (most oddly) dance games, and even picked up the production of Citizen of Earth after it failed to reach its Kickstarter goal. All of this while dealing with the closure of its parent company and its acquisition by Sega last year, so you could be forgiven for forgetting that they also have taken on international publishing duties for one of the more unusual JRPG series to hit Western shores over the past few years in Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars.
Released in August 2013 in its native Japan and April 2014 in North America, Conception II will hit stores in Europe in just a few weeks, where it will have to try to stand out from an already crowded RPG line up on both the PS Vita and the 3DS. As its release date approaches, lets take a look at what we already know about this series and what we can expect from the second entry.
Don’t be put off by the unusual concept
Despite a title that implies that this might not be a game to play in front of your parents and a story that requires you to, err… “classmate” (I see what you did there, Atlus) with other students at your high school in order to produce Star Children to fight your battles for you, the entire game is decidedly tame in many regards. Star Children are conceived through a magical ritual and have stats and bonuses that depend on your relationship with the “mother” of the child. While there will likely be some tongue in cheek humour with the occasional joke or allusion to how strange the concept is, don’t expect to have to hide your console away in shame if you happen to be playing on the bus. It isn’t one of “those” games.
Don’t expect it to be like the Persona series
You could be forgiven for thinking, with the name Atlus on the cover and a decidedly anime feel to the character design, that this series will have a lot in common with the popular Persona 4 franchise, but the game was developed by a different company called Spike Chunsoft. While there are more than subtle similarities between the aesthetics of the Atlus flagship series and Conception II and while both of them seek to merge the RPG genre with the somewhat more niche dating sim genre, there are significant differences between the two series. While combat in Persona is your standard RPG mix of buffs, debuffs, and hitting your enemy with its weaknesses, the Conception series focuses on battlefield placement and securing the right angle of attack to allow you to hit the enemy’s weakpoint. While both offer up their own share of challenges, Conception will likely be more forgiving than the Persona series, which can see one poorly played round turning into a complete disaster, so don’t expect the same sort of difficulty level.
Get ready to obsess
If you’re a fan of the obsessive compulsive nature of the Pokémon games, then you’ll likely find the possibility of forming bonds with the multiple female protagonists and acquiring the dozens of potential Star Children that come from these bonds an attractive concept. Each one has different abilities and characteristics and can be used in different situations, so there is a wealth of tactical possibilities available as you play through the game. Combine this with the possibility of multiple side missions and quests that JRPGs are known for, and there should be a wealth of possibilities for the completionist to sink their teeth in to.
With so many games coming out of Japan in the next year (and many of them also having the Atlus logo proudly on the box), it might be easy to overlook this somewhat strange and definitely niche title, but I’m looking forward to seeing just how well this series fares in its first foray into foreign waters. If it does well, hopefully we’ll see more publishers bringing us the strange and wonderful games that often get ignored by all but the most dedicated of genre fans.
Written by: Trent Cannon
