Utawarerumono returns with a bang offering another great story in its fantastic world.

Release: 2015-2016 (Aquaplus)
Writers: Suga Munemitsu (Utawarerumono, To Heart 2)
Japanese difficulty: Medium
English: Atlus
Ratings: VNDB (8.13); EGS (8.07)

If you’ve played the original Utawarerumono, you already roughly know what to expect from the sequel. It’s a medieval fantasy visual novel interspersed with SRPG battles… that follows an amnesiac man’s path to glory.

Okay, as much as the original was fantastic, the sequel might have been following it a bit too closely with about two thirds of its scenario covering the exact same ground. Luckily, the game has a great cast of likable and interesting characters that make even the less exciting parts of the adventure a treat. And, well, world conquest is one trope I don’t mind seeing again.

Although Utawarerumono 2 relies a bit too much on its predecessor for story ideas, and some of the setting reveals aren’t as shocking when you already know its most important secrets, the game’s narrative is interesting enough to keep your attention from start to finish.

The sequel never really blew my mind like the original and the stuff about the secret final villain felt a bit forced, but neither was I ever bored or felt disinterested when I played the game. There were even a few scenes where I almost teared up, especially during the last minutes of the final epilogue.

That said, the game has some severe pacing problems that most likely killed any hope for it appealing to an average gamer. Utawarerumono 2’s story isn’t the fastest out there with multiple countries and countless characters warring in Game of Thrones fashion to begin with, but on top of it, each time the story moves a little you have to watch a bunch of daily life scenes, which, granted, tell you more about the characters and can make you smile at times, but also feel like padding to make the game twice as long as it should’ve been.

If character dialogue (and translation) wasn’t so well-written, I might’ve ran out of patience and started skipping those fragments.

I felt Utawarerumono 2 lacked punch in certain areas to truly make it a masterpiece (like there were a lot of missed opportunities for some good tragedy and drama), but it’s definitely both a solid visual novel and a satisfying SRPG that is a must-play for anyone into medieval fantasy.

And it also somehow received an absolutely fantastic translation from Atlus that I’d recommend over the original even for Japanese speakers. It single-handedly turned Maroro into one of my favorite characters when his voice was pretty dull in the original.