Conception 2 - Persona meets child making simulator

This game sucks. When I first heard of the title I thought it was some kind of porn game but after hearing people talk about how its a persona clone and is actually pretty good I went and looked it up. This thing looks like a giant ripoff of persona from the social links, to the ui, to the combat, to the dungeon crawling, and even the music. Only difference here is instead of making friends with others to strengthen your persona and summon stronger ones, you make friends so you can "classmate" with them and make children.Yes you're probably going what the fuck and I don't blame you. I said the same thing out loud when 5 minutes into the game you meet someone and the priest tells you to start classmating. Yes I hate that term too. Other than this the entire game is basically a bad ripoff of persona.

I started this review with this game sucks and I'll repeat it again. This game sucks. They tried very hard to copy persona but didn't realize what they are actually copying. Each "day" you get 3 hearts where you can talk to the 7 heroines each represented by one of the 7 virtues. Talking to one of them will raise their affection slightly and there are 7 bars. Each bar is locked behind one dungeon each represented by the 7 deadly sins. Here is the issue, there is no time limit like persona where a big bad monster is coming every full moon nor is there someone trapped in the shadow realm waiting to die. There are no days where you cannot enter the dungeon because of a school event or there is no fog. No in fact there are no time at all. So why the fuck can you only talk to 3 people a day and then have to go back to rest in your bed for the next day is beyond me. So the majority of the time is spent navigating the menu going to sleep talking to a girl then going back to sleep. There are random events you get and you answer a question and their affection and mood goes up. Only problem here, unlike persona mood doesn't really matter because your not limited by time. It doesn't even matter what the mood of the heroines are because its almost impossible to fuck it up. So both mood and limited hearts is a completely worthless mechanic added in for almost no reason.

The point of raising affection is because when you have higher affection, you'll get stronger children when you classmate. And by classmating its not exactly sex as its just the male shooting his star power into the woman's star womb and a starchild gets born right away. There's also the sailormoon silhouette thing where they do sex poses and moans but its totally not sex! They are affected by the level of you and the mother with higher level parents giving the child better stats and higher maximum levels. They can also be different classes, some are gender locked, some are hidden classes, some require items. Which brings me to another point. This game is fucked up. I wanted to get a mercenary class and kept classmating but kept getting girls. Mercenary is a male only class so I ended up having to toss away tons of children. Same thing happened when I wanted a diva class and kept getting boys. Even more annoying when you have a full bar of affection, you have to classmate to advance the story but I don't want children right now. I'm still leveling these children and the new ones being born can't be saved for later because their stats will be shit once I finished leveling the ones I am using and the mothers level increases as I grind in the dungeon. So toss them away again. If only they let us advance the heroine bars without forced classmating. There's also this part later in the game where you have to perform classmanting with two other guys and the scientists create some artificial womb for you guys to get children and you have a gay orgy and some children were actually born. They ended up dying within 24 hours and everyone is all sad and like what the fuck. Why is that in the game.

Before we get further with all the children and classmating and all that shit we need to first introduce the people in the game and the story. Basically dusk nests appeared in the world and monsters are being spawned and children from the age of 16-18 are blessed with magical ether energy from the star god so they can fight back. The higher the ether count the higher your rank and two S rank disciples can classmate for a 1% chance of conceiving a child. They gathered everyone with the star god brand and put them in a school for them to fuck and fight all day long.

God's Gift - G.G. for short. You are called god's gift because you are filled with a monstrous amount of ether energy that lets you enter labyrinths without danger. With your super ether it also means you have a 100% conception rate with any S rank girls so you get a harem of them there to make children for you. What the fuck.

Fuuko - The first girl you meet she's the normal girl who is so normal she's kinda boring but not really. After meeting the other heroines you wish for normal. Basically all she does is swim and eat croquettes nothing special.

Narika - Another girl in your class she is the super shy student council vice president or something. Soft spoken, super shy, and blushes every other sentence. Warning though, later on you realize shes a yandere and tries to stab you with a knife. "Why do you talk to Fuuko when you have me? I will gouge out your eyes so you can't see another girl. I will cut off your tongue so you can't speak to another girl. I will cut off your ears so you can't hear another girl. You are mine, all mine." I'm not fucking kidding.

Ellie - The little sister childhood friend you almost forgotten who died when you were kids and got resurrected by the church and became a zombie assassin. I wish I was joking. That's her entire character she is a super happy cheerful little sister but have a darker side to her where she goes around murdering people for the church. I don't know about you but I really can't stand little sister characters. Even less if shes a zombie and an assassin.

Ms. Chloe - Your teacher who is actually only 1 year older than you because shes a genius and skipped grades. Yeah what the fuck right? At least give us someone older but no the game has to keep everyone within 16-18 years because only they can handle ether energy. Anyways blah blah blah she becomes an idol and you become her manager somehow and her singing can cure diseases and mend broken bones blah blah. Boring ass shit.

Serina - Haughty senior who is slightly tsundere. She has a huge complex about her short height and how successful her sister was when she was a disciple at the school. She's pretty likable and not very annoying. Kind of on the tame side after seeing all the other heroines though. Constantly having fights with her sister then later on gets a magic spell that lets her transform into a "tall busty beauty" from a kiss from you so you end up having to kiss her all the time to help her transform and enter a beauty pageant. Its not as bad as it sounds.

Torri - Eccentric super genius who talks in monotone with no emotion. She's odd but not in a bad way. Nothing too special about her shes just normal outside of her eccentricities. She does build planes from scratch and golems and send them flying and shit. Loves birds, tries to be a cicada, stands in the pouring rain all day because of a promise, walks around naked without being embarassed, tries to fight monsters alone because you said you wanted world peace and almost dies, and a bunch more shit. Although you do have the same feeling with her as you have with Ellie. She feels more like a little sister than a heroine. And you know how I feel about little sisters.

Feene - Foreign girl with blond hair blue eyes and talks in really weird formal speech. She's ok but they try to hard to hammer in the fact that she's foreign and shit. Shes all about justice this justice that justice everything blah blah blah.

Clotz - Fuuko's childhood friend. You classmanted with him and he helps you guys out when you're in the dungeon as the radio guy. Similar to the characters in persona who never actually fight but is always giving hints and talking through the radio.

So yeah these are the people who are going to help you fight in the dungeons. What is annoying is you can only bring 1 heroine with you and 9 children. So you will be forced to grind each heroine individually until they are high enough levels to have good children to power up your team. This is fucking annoying and grindy. Luckily if you are playing the steam version it comes with all the DLCs so you get a rare mob called Saggita on the final floor of dungeons. If you pick up the quest to kill them but never turn them in then the mobs remain golden so you can easily scout them out and kill them. These guys give like 3000 exp each and comes in a pack of 3 while normal enemies give like 30 exp each. What the fuck? Basically strategy is skip every pack of mob you see in a dungeon and go down to the bottom floor then hunt for these. Kill them and tp out and come back in to the same floor and repeat until you are leveled up. This is fucking boring. Near the end I pretty much gave up because the dungeons get so fucking large. 15 floors of 30 rooms each is way too much to explore for a game with shitty combat. Well combat isn't bad but its all just spamming your strongest skills since there is no time limit so you can always leave the dungeon and come back at the same floor when you need mana anyways. And its not like mana potions are in low supply. There's even an autocombat button you press and it does all of this for you. They know the game wasn't about the combat. That said bosses are stupidly easy and boring. Unlike persona's giant health sink hour long boss fights, the ones here ends in one turn. All bosses use the same skill, dusk release which is a full party aoe attack that does moderate damage. That's it. From the first boss to the last they only use one attack and you can blow them up in 1 turn if you're decently leveled.

So if combat sucks, if the social links suck, then what about the story it has to be good right? Nope! Not even close. It the most generic and mediocre bullshit save the world story that every shitty mindless developer makes. Monsters suddenly spawn 20 years ago and all the kids start fighting. Why? who gives a fuck. Then there's an evil corporation who wants to harvest the power or some shit and people start turning into monsters and what the fuck. So you use your powers to make children with all the girls and then you and your army of kids go into the dungeon and fight them.There are basically two short cutscenes before a dungeon opens up and you go in there and spend the rest of the time farming. After you beat it, two more short cutscenes, talk to all the heroines to raise another bar of affection, classmate, do two cutscenes with each of them, then do 2 story cutscenes and enter the next dungeon. Repeat until its over.

The classes in the game are interesting but the problem with having a lot of classes is most of them end up sucking. But they did a good thing in that when you bring children with you they travel in a pack of 3. 3 groups of 3 will make up your team of children and you with a heroine makes up the 4th group. Different classes in the groups will unlock hidden group skills so even if Bulleteer is the strongest gun class in the game, you're not going to get full potential unless you mix it up with a say Gambler or Ether Sniper. The stats of the child is determined by the mother. For example, Feene has a lot of attack and defense but low speed and technique. Torri has a ton of speed and Serina has a ton of technique but no attack. If you are making an Archer class you should pick Serina since Archers use technique for their damage while a Paladin class should be on Feene since they are tanks. That means to get the most of all the classes you'll need to level up the mothers so their stats will be better. What if you want a shitty Archer could you just go Feene since she's the highest level? Nope! You must reach certain stat thresholds before you can create a class so since Feene's children's growth is mostly into defense they will never be able to make an Archer no matter how much you level her. The mother will also pass her element down to the child. For example, Torri's children will all have the wind element, Serina's children will have fire, and Feene will have dusk. So having all your children be one element may be good when you're fighting against one you are strong against, but as soon as you meet water enemies with a team of 9 fire element children you'll start crying. Some weapons can change the element of your attack, but your defense will always remain. Casters will always learn spells based on their element. So Narika's children will always have earth element spells.

Now comes the more complex stuff. Later on you are able to perform trimating when you get heroine affection high enough. Any heroine with 5 bars or more are able to trimate with each other. Trimating lets you pick two heroines and create a child with bother their stats and one of their elements. You're probably thinking you can just mix Feene with Torri for a child with both great defense and great speed but it doesn't really work that way. Those two are probably the worst mix because it averages out both mothers and they grow into some weird shitty average child with no specialization. Trimating is a trap that people fall into because they think they can get away with a low level mother and a high level mother to make children not easily available to one mother. Lets use the Archer example again. Say your highest level mother is Feene and Serina is at level 1. When you trimate the max level of the child will be low and the growth of the archer will have weak technique, lower defense and attack and even lower speed than normal. Archers want technique for their damage and since their growth is so low once you leveled up they will be doing shit damage. Sure you'll be able to hit the threshold for an Archer but its going to be a giant burden character not able to do shit because you handicapped yourself. Archers don't care about attack, or defense really since they're not going to be tanking like paladins are. These stats are completely wasted. Mixing say Torri with Serina might be better because Torri is all about speed by sacrificing some attack you get to move at incredible speeds. What trimating is good for is unlocking thresholds of special classes early on. For example you might get an Astromancer or Dungeoneer unlocked but no one is able to pick it because no one can hit the threshold, trimate and you can make one. These two classes aren't as specialized in stats so you can make an average child as one of those classes. Trimating also lets you get different elements on classes that are usually focused heavily on one element. For example Serina's Archers will always be fire, but if you trimate with Serina and Torri you'll now have wind element archers. Since Serina also has earth element defense you could have wind element attack, earth element defense archers or fire element attack, non elemental defense. Its surprisingly complex and probably the best part of the game.

Classes are good, choice is good, but it all ends up being more grind. After basically finishing one dungeon and unlocking the next bar of affection for the heroines, its time to get rid of all your children and get a new batch of powered up children! Your child hit their level cap of 13 and now you make a new batch which are level capped at 28. After clearing the next dungeon they most likely hit their cap again so you make a new batch with a cap of 51. But I unlocked a new class I want to make it but oh no I only leveled Ellie but I want to make a Warlock. If you try to make it with Narika you'll get a child with like a max level of 17 or whatever level Narika was. Now you have to go back to level the mother, then you make the child then level again! So once again its back to grinding level 1 children. This shit is boring. Every once in awhile you will get a genius child, marked by a star on their stat screen and a giant star aura around them in dungeons. Genius children get better stats and have a max level of 99. You might be thinking, I have a genius child I'll just keep him forever! NOPE. If only it was that easy. The stats of your child is based on the level of the mother. A level 4 mother with a genius child will not be as strong as a normal child with a level 40 mother for example. Sure you can grind to 99 but so can a genius child from a higher level mother. The game is also limiting you to 3 genius children at a time so you'll need to get rid of them before new genius children can be born. By getting rid of them I don't mean killing them off because that's just cruel. You send them away to become independent by helping out the city. Each child will contribute exp to raise the level of the city which opens up new shops or upgrade shops with new stock so you'll always want to send them away when they don't need them. Higher level children contribute more exp but since there isn't a time limit in the game you can just make thousands of level 1 children in one sitting and send them all away to max the city level anyways. Once again they didn't think shit through.

Is this game good? No its not. If you want to play a good game try Persona. Persona 3 isn't the greatest but Persona 4 is pretty good. One thing that this game does well is that it gives me a new appreciation for Persona. Thanks Conception 2, at least you have that going for you. It has potential but it doesn't know why exactly they copied such and such from Persona.

Firewatch - A Midlife Crisis

When I heard of this game being good I sort of just brushed it off going its probably like Gone Home or Dear Esther and didn't really bother with it. While I liked those two games I found this one to be much superior and believable. In Gone Home you learn of life through notes hidden in the house and in Dear Esther its from a unknown narrator. In Firewatch however, you are basically alone, isolated in the woods and the only form of companionship is a friendly voice on the radio, your boss Delilah. You learn of the world, yourself, your fellow coworkers, and Delilah though conversations with her.

What is the game about? There really isn't much you can say without spoiling the game too much so I'll just say its about a game about a man named Henry going through a midlife crisis. When you first start the game you get a little text narration of your life going from how you met your wife Julia, to how you ended up at Firewatch. The narration will constantly give you multiple choices on how you want to react in certain situations. It doesn't change the story at all, but it changes little things and affect your conversations with Delilah. Basically it starts with how you met your wife and then the years you spent with her and her eventually suffering from dementia at the age of 40 and how your life spiraled into drinking and petty arguments with your estranged wife and her family. Eventually you decided to run away from it all and take a summer job in Firewatch as a park ranger away from civilization. You will then spend the next few months there with your boss talking about anything and everything from her failed attempts to marriage and running away here for a decade to random conversations about trees. You start from being annoyed by her constant prodding into your personal life and sarcastic remarks but eventually both you and Henry will get along with her. Shes very realistic in the way friends egg each other on and is quite entertaining since she will be your only human interaction for the entire summer. Then shit starts happening.

The first half of the game is sort of calm and in a way boring. Delilah gives you instructions to pick up a supply drop, someone setting of fireworks in the forest go warn them, check out that smoke pillar in the distance, blah blah blah. Its relaxing walking in the trees with no one around and soaking in the image and sounds of nature then Delilah pops up on the radio to give you a friendly jab to remind yourself that you are not quite alone. At the second half, you start noticing shit happening. Someone breaks into your tower while you're away throwing your shit out the window stealing your stuff. Someone cut the phone lines so you cannot call for help. Getting attacked from behind and finding stuff about a Wapiti station that shouldn't exist. A giant conspiracy happens and the game starts getting interesting but the formula doesn't really change. Delilah sends you somewhere and you go do it. You find clues and you report back to her. You spent the entire game constantly chatting with her and the time you found out how someone has been listening in on your conversation and then Delilah saying the two of you should stop talking for awhile really puts it in perspective how lonely it is out here without her. Its really quite unnerving to hear silence on the radio. The ending is pretty great too. It doesn't try too hard to give you a bad ending or a good ending, but a realistic ending. While some people were disappointed about it, I enjoyed how it ended. This summer was your escape from reality, and eventually you have to face it and return. What you choose to do is up to you.

While I found this game to be interesting, it is quite short. It can be finished in a couple of hours and most people will find that isn't worth the cost for the game especially since there is little to no replayability. If you're a fan of Gone Home or another narrative story game then you will enjoy this and probably worth the cost. Otherwise wait for a steam sale or something before grabbing it. However if you hate walking around doing nothing or listening to random conversations then this game obviously isn't for you. You don't get to do any fighting. There is nothing out here in the forest but you and your radio.