When life gives you broken lines, you should do your best to connect them. Those who played the previous part already know what to expect.
I was a bit surprised when, after loading Sakura Hime 2, I saw the main screen that looked overtly familiar. It looked so familiar, in fact, that I thought I opened the wrong part. Nope, it was not my mistake, SH2 looks pretty much identical to SH1. While I do appreciate the crafty aesthetics the previous part introduced, it feels a bit too lazy not to apply any changes. There are, just like in the previous game, 10 stages requiring you to form straight, self-contained lines. There are also colour restrictions that were introduced in the previous part. Some stages look like a carbon copy of the ones in the prequel. Moreover, all the ills haunting the predecessor are present here as well. In other words, there is no gradual character stripping, and all reward scenes are unlocked from the get-go. The only new thing here is the poorly translated story about a fairy world and a greater variety of animal girls. This has to be one of the best examples of how to release a sequel with minimal effort. Still, it is certainly risky to rely on art alone; then again, it is the main selling point of this game, so perhaps it's a valid profit-generating strategy. I have a feeling that the next game in the series will follow the same lazy approach, but I'll confirm this on some other day.
Now back to the main selling point - art. Again, just like in the previous game, the quality of the anime art stands above even some higher-priced titles. The characters could easily be incorporated into ero-vn on par with Nekopara. I guess the art alone justifies the price. On top of that, all h-scenes serve you with two nicely animated, uncensored loops. Too bad they're not present during the story mode, like I think they should. Code bugs lifted from the previous part.
As for the music, the Japanese tunes from the previous part are back. I'm not 100% sure, but I strongly suspect they undergone copy-paste treatment. I won't count it as negative since they're pretty good. I like traditional asian music, but if your preferences differ, you have the right to complain here.
No bugs were encountered other than messy code. Nothing game-breaking.
In conclusion, if you never played the previous game, then it might be a good enough time-waster. However, those who are familiar with this series already will certainly feel deja vu, so unless you enjoy more of the same, it might be more prudent to give it a skip. Tepid recommendation overall: 4.7/10
