To summarize the story the enemies are all taking advantage of something binding the multiverse together via golden chains.  With all of these enemies the heroes of those respective universes such as Yuri from Tales of Vesperia, Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening, Ryu from Street Fighter and Kite from Dark Hack band together in order to understand and solve this problem. Project X Zone 2 certainly took some time to beat but with that massive amount of time into a game is it a game worth taking that kind of time to see the entire story unfold?

First I’ll talk about the story which is actually a high point of the game but for an unusual reason.  The story itself really doesn’t have much depth to it, some enemies are taking advantage of the situation while one enemy unleashes a master plan.  That’s really the main theme of the story till all the details come together towards the end.  What makes the story really great is how all these playable characters come together and not only make hilarious subtle references to their games but also the interactions between the franchises themselves.  I love how every Sega character recognized Segata the famous advertiser of the Sega Saturn, which does get advertised in the game.  Another stand out moment was X and Zero’s incredible fear of spikes which would cause an instant death in their respective games. The game never takes itself too seriously which makes it so much fun to watch all the cutscenes and while the dialogue is great the sheer number of characters that have to talk in each scene makes all the conversations take an amazing amount of time so at some point the snappy gaming references get old in some moments.

The gameplay was good as well, but it really offers little change from the first game.  The main difference is that all your characters can move at once so everything is turn based between you and the enemy rather than every single unit having a particular order alternating frequently between you and the enemy. It makes it easier to plan out every move and react to when the game decides to randomly spawn a couple dozen enemies.  I loved the gameplay and for me it’s one of the heights of the game offering a mixture of turn based strategy and the actually fights requiring perfectly timed execution to get critical hits, but again it’s almost exactly the same as the first game which isn’t bad but I was hoping they would do more to evolve the combat a little more. One of the downsides is the fact that most levels take at least an hour to do so it’s not a game to pick up for a little while and sit down, it’s one of the game where it’s best to make some time and go through a level. While the game does offer saving mid-level the level of strategy needed to plan things out makes it difficult to go back and refresh your memory of how you were setting everything up so for me I couldn’t save in a level and continue where I left off.

I loved the music in the game and listening to the different soundtracks to each of the series, as a huge fan of gaming soundtracks I was disappointed that there was no soundtrack offered for pre ordering this game, which was the main reason I waited for a discount before I bought the game.

Overall the game is a lot of fun, offers about 40 hours of gameplay and it’s fun to play for a while. The cutscenes are entertaining and the characters are all well represented, but it’s not without its flaws.  It does drag on a bit to give many characters a chance to say something and while you get invested in the characters you don’t get invested in the games plot.  It’s not worth the full price tag it had when it was released but I got it on sale for half price and found it well worth the money.  Right now it’s a must have for RPG gamers who enjoy a lighthearted humorous game with in depth strategy.