8-Bit Adventures 2 captures the charming elements of old RPGs and turn-based combat but without the long slogs.
I have spent many years on older RPGs, but coming back to some of them has been a bit challenging as there is so much grinding for levels and so many random battles that you have to deal with. Neither of those are necessarily bad, but sometimes I wish these games would pick up the pace in some way. This title feels designed around that mixture of love for the genre and for that need to have things move along a bit quicker, getting rid of random battles and having you flow through towns, story, fights, bosses, and dungeons at a good clip.
Making an RPG go by faster isn’t enough to make it appealing, but 8-Bit Adventures 2 is appealing and creative in its every element. Its mixing of sci-fi with its fantasy setting makes for some wonderful variety in the places you visit and the things you fight. The pixel visuals capture some sharp battle effects for your various abilities (especially the team attacks you can do with your other party members), and the bosses and monsters are all filled with great detail and feature some clever designs and takes on classic RPG monsters.
The combat is solid as well, giving you seven party members with unique abilities that give you some opportunity to be tactical. You can freely swap any party member into an active fight if you think their ability will make a difference, and given that there are no random battles, the showdowns against monsters are planned out to be challenging enough that clever use of abilities is needed. You can still grind to overpower things if you like, but the game feels more satisfying when you take it as it comes and use your head to figure out which abilities will let you overcome.
8-Bit Adventures 2 is just a well-crafted take on old turn-based RPGs, capturing a sense of nostalgia that makes use of some good modern design decisions to create a game that draws you in without wasting any of your time.
8-Bit Adventures 2 will be made available today on the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, and the Microsoft Store. It is available now on Steam.
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