Arcane Arts Academy 2

J'avais déjà bien accroché au premier opus (dont je n'ai pas encore pondu l'évaluation...). On retrouve bien ici l'esprit et l'ambiance de l'Académie. Les protagonistes du premier volet sont de retour. On y incarne à nouveau Erika qui va devoir faire face à de nouvelles menaces. Elle est souvent remplacée par ses camarades que l'on joue de la même façon. L'université est découpée en plusieurs niveaux qui représentent les matières et professeurs qui nous entourent. 60 niveaux - des joyaux qui permettent d'acheter du mobilier et redécorer la salle de vie des étudiants - le chat (qui remplace la souris) à trouver dans chacun des niveaux - une cinématique avant, après. Bref, tout ce qui compose la recette et la réussite des jeux GH est présent. Une difficulté correcte même si le rythme pourrait être un tantinet plus soutenu pour nous forcer à retenter quelques niveaux et débloquer les derniers succès "farming" sans avoir à les refaire juste pour le plaisir. Ca reste une ballade agréable dans un univers qui me plait bien et qui a agréablement occupé un peu plus de 10h de mes vacances. ^^

[i]Arcane Arts Academy 2[/i] is a time management game developed by SQRT3 and published by GameHouse. For those who might find the title to be familiar, well, this is the sequel to the first game, [i]Arcane Arts Academy[/i]. Although it is recommended to play the first game, so as to not miss out on possible story spoilers, it isn't strictly necessary to do so. Anyway, you take on the role of Erika Tinley, a student at the Arcane Arts Academy who's returning for her second year of magic school. After the exciting events at the end of her first year, Erika finds herself to be the subject of unwanted attention, due to her popularity over [spoiler]stopping a certain major event towards the end of the first game[/spoiler]. Even though some of the students admire Erika, others, like the new prefect Dominic, have issues with her. On top of that, there's the return of a person close to Erika that she'd rather not see as well as the return of the Chaos Extremists, determined to wreak havoc in the magic world. That's the basic gist of the story, and I'll stop here to avoid spoilers. XD As for the gameplay, like in the first game, there are a total of 60 levels and you can choose from among three difficulty levels: relaxed, normal, or hard. (For purposes of this review, I chose to play on normal mode.) In each of the levels, you have to serve magical students by fulfilling their requests. Serving them quickly and having them checkout can earn you up to 5 hearts per student. Also, there's the usual task of finding Erika's cat (like in the first game) as well as the additional task which will earn you a diamond. In addition, you can earn diamonds from serving students quickly as well as finding the cat. Thus, for each level, you can earn up to 5 diamonds. Diamonds are used to purchase items for the students' common room, purely for aesthetic purposes. Although a couple of locations are the same as in the previous game, there are mostly new locations, like the scriptorium and atelier. There are cutscenes, and of course, there are the usual Steam achievements/in-game trophies although no Steam trading cards at the time of this review. Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. As I highly enjoyed the first game, I was very much looking forward to this sequel. (I was surprised that there was even a sequel although I suppose that's saying how popular the first game is.) I liked getting to follow Erika as she goes through her second year of magic school. She's no longer the novice, getting used to the magical world. She has a reputation, and for better or worse, she has to learn to deal with the people around her. As if that isn't enough, the Chaos Extremists (who were basically the villains from the first game) return to cause trouble. What's a teenage magical student to do? lol As I read through the story before and after levels, I liked seeing how Erika has to deal with such problems and how she interacts with various characters. Of course, characters, like Siren, return, and it's great to find out what's been happening with them. (Their lives aren't without drama, though.) In addition, we meet new characters like Dominic, who was absent during Erika's first year. At first, he dislikes Erika because of her popularity and nags on her to get to her duties on time. (We do find out later, though, that there's a good reason behind that.) In short, I enjoyed the story and the interaction among characters. No one seems to be bland or a one note. As for the gameplay, I found it to be very smooth. I didn't encounter any major technical issues. As for earning achievements, I was able to earn all of them. However, for a few, I had to grind a bit (replaying levels) to earn them, but this wasn't too troublesome. As for the art, the style is like that from the first game, which I like a lot. It has that colorful, yet slightly cartoony feel, and the sprites and backgrounds are well done. In regards to the music, the soundtrack is the same as in the previous game. I didn't find any new tracks, which is a bit of a letdown, but this is a minor point. Overall, would I recommend [i]Arcane Arts Academy 2[/i]? If you're a fan of time management games and you highly enjoyed the first game, I totally recommend giving this a try. It's well worth it, and the story leaves off on a cliffhanger. (Perhaps we'll get a future sequel?) For the asking price, I recommend waiting for a bit of a sale, as it took me around 9 hours to get all of the achievements. However, I think it's highly worth getting, and it's lots of fun. ^^ [quote]Flying free and writing reviews solely for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44702020/]The Introverted Gamer[/url].[/quote]