Developed By: Spike Chunsoft
Published By: ATLUS
Date of Release: April 15, 2014
Price: $39.99
Heeeeeeeey baby, here's a question! Who wants to make babies? Wait, don't run away! I didn't mean it like that! I am of course referring to the latest release from Spike Chunsoft, courtesy of the fine folks at ATLUS. The sequel to the Japanese PSP exclusive and awkwardly titled Conception: Please Have My Baby!, Conception II: Children of The Seven Stars is a dungeon-crawling RPG in the vein of the Persona series. With added childbirth. Now don't make that face, there's nothing grody happening here. This is good clean fun for the whole family! Or maybe not... It did earn a mature rating after all. ^_~
In Conception II creating Star Children is the order of the day, and you'll need an army of them to fight for you in the dungeons. It's kinda like Pokemon plus parenthood, except you don't catch your team, you give birth to them! Don't worry, this isn't some creepy eroge. Said procreation, known as "Classmating" happens simply with the holding of hands, and channeling your ether and your partners spirit energy into a matryoshka doll. If you're successful, out pops a new Star Child! Or twins! Or triplets! I hope you bought enough baby bottles to go around! Your player character has an unusually high level of ether, and is known as a God's Gift, which means he'll be getting QUITE a lot of attention from the game's lovely ladies.
The dungeon crawling works pretty much like the Persona games as mentioned before, with your party exploring the dungeon areas populated with monsters. Coming into contact with said monsters initiates battle, and here's where things differ quite a bit from Persona. The combat in Conception 2 uses a unique turn based battle system that shows the order of the battle progression through a stream of character/enemy portraits, and also lets you choose which side to attack your foes from. If you attack their weak side you'll do massive damage, plus earn other nice bonuses. The way the battles progress offers a nice refreshing change from standard RPG fare.
In my hours playing Conception II I never found that the game dragged on at all or got repetitive, though that may be because I am used to RPG grinding. Despite the odd subject matter, Conception II is quite a wonderful RPG, and is well worth investing in to add to your Playstation Vita or 3DS library. With lush anime visuals, a wonderful soundtrack that fits the mood perfectly, and masterful voice acting, the production values are really high. So head out and buy it now, do it for the children!
