Chosen 2

Hoo boy, here we are.

As I mentioned in recent reviews, I am currently going through RPG Maker games I own. I have some that are free, available for all to play, and others that aren’t free, but included in bundles or sold cheaply on Steam. As an example, there's The Chosen RPG and its sequel, Chosen 2. 

This guy's in full armor...

The Chosen RPG was my first review of an RPG Maker title on this blog, and it was also one up-and-coming developer’s first creation. Created by Little Big Lee, The Chosen is a fairly basic RPG title that didn’t reinvent the wheel or made itself recognizable with unique elements. Sure, it went above and beyond by featuring bonus bosses and a special equipment item for each main character – and, to be completely fair, it had a full map, a few dungeons, and some puzzles as well. So, not all bad for someone's first game. It did, however, suffer from a story beyond cliché and a lot of odd design choices, in combat (with tiny character sprites against the normal monster sprites that looked gigantic in comparison) and in cutscenes (90% of the female characters walked around in little more than undergarments; perfectly gratuitous, blatant and unjustifiable “fanservice”). Make sure to give that two-part review a read.

...while the ladies aren't even wearing anything that could
look like the Zero Suit. Nah, just make it bras.
And while we're there, imply they wear no bottoms either.

The Chosen ended in a cliffhanger, with the three allies escaping while Edge, the “Chosen” (urgh…), remained trapped in the Underworld, Land of the Dead, world of Akuma the final boss. Let’s see where it goes from there. Hopefully this one is an improvement over the original.

"But I'm still dead, even though I can still die from
getting hurt by enemies. Don't think about it too much."

The three girls of the original make their way back to the world of the living and have to tell everyone of what happened back there, all while dealing with the fact that Edge might be gone for good. Meanwhile, Edge realizes his God’s Wrath sword has been scaled down to its original form, the God’s Tear. He finds a secret room in Lord Akuma’s castle, led there by a female voice that asks him to speak her name. It’s his mother, Ayaka! The room contains a sacred fire that lets one bring the dead to the Underworld, and so Edge is told by Ayaka to use it to summon her, so she can help him. Appearing to him, she also summon their family’s maiden (or servant?), Sakae. Oh mom, you may have died a while ago but you don’t look a day over 16! …Mind you, almost nobody in this world looks older than 16.

A dead girl with an equally dead, and very much anachronistic,
highschool-teenage-girl cotton long-sleeved shirt.
In a universe of magic and fantasy.

Venturing deeper into the castle’s secret areas, Edge, Ayaka and Sakae encounter a fearful stuttering demon who claims that Akuma had three siblings, all of whom might try to take on their brother’s legacy and conquer the world in his place. Thankfully and conveniently, they can all be reached through the three doors in that room, in the last moments of their lives. One at a time. And so, the party starts by the leftmost door…

Are those monsters too powerful, or just unbalanced
for this part of the game? I would say "You make the call!",
but... you really don't need to play this game.

We arrive in a desert-like area, and encounter our first enemies. I’ll give credit where due, this game doesn’t waste any time throwing you into difficulty. Whereas The Chosen was ridiculously easy (with only some battles being genuinely difficult if you went in underleveled), Chosen 2 throws you into difficult fights without giving you a chance to learn, as though developer Little Big Lee expected you to know the general ropes of RPG Maker’s fighting system. Edge has Technique Points that let him use special moves at times, while his allies have TP as well as proper Magic Points to use spells. Use logic to figure out which attacks are the most useful against the current enemies – lots of fire to kill wasps, plants, spiders and bats. Ice for reptiles. So on. The monsters are powerful, and our team begins at Level 3, so the first fights are decisive. Make sure to save often. Although it may be more of a balancing problem than an attempt at difficulty.

LOOK AT THE DRESS! SHE HAS NOTHING UNDERNEATH!
Clothes are torn, but don't worry, Edge will keep his armor on. Same
can't be said for the other two, as you can see here. Hell, if Steam allowed
it, you can bet your ass that these two ladies would be fully naked,
with perfectly-visible, detailed attributes, when they're sufficiently hurt.

Design-wise, Little Big Lee seemed to learn from the first game. The monsters are still their normal size, but the party is no longer represented by small sprites on the right. Instead, you get a full bust shot of the character you’re currently picking an action for. This is so much better! It also allowed the dev to feature bust shots where clothing suffers wear and tear as the characters get hurt in battle – leading to fanservice even more gratuitous and unjustifiable than in the first. Because yes, that includes the incredibly form-fitting armor and cotton shirt of Ayaka and Sakae respectively, tearing to become little more than bras that seem to stay in place by the sole power of their will. Moooooooom, put on something better, I don’t want to see your boobs! You’re putting me to shame in front of the Darklord!

For added creepiness, here’s a reminder that not only are Ayaka and Sakae Edge’s mother and servant respectively, they’re also dead. So yeah, enjoy these barely-covered breasts on spirits of dead people.

This is... you know what? Fuck it. I'm grossed out by this.
The fanservice here is gross. I'm disgusted.
THIS WOMAN IS DEAD, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Someone has a soul in this game? I just thought they were
dessicated corpses following a bad script, including every
single "living" character...

By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I despise the name Edge for the main character? It’s just… so… cliché! It’s like naming some dark, brooding guy Shadow or something. You know what? There are some names, just don’t use them, they’re either cliché or they’ve been overdone. There’s way too many dudes named Ryu running around the video game-verse right now. And “Edge” feels like a name from a creator trying too hard to be, well… edgy.

Good thing Tim Langdell’s no longer around! Ooh, that’s a video game industry history deep cut right there.

From there on, the game’s pretty simple – go through the left door, complete the dungeon, beat the boss…

Hey, I already have two dead people in my team.
I can take a third one.

…save your father? Wasn’t he dead? Wasn’t he dead in this underworld no less? Yeah, you actually do save Edge’s dad Kenshi. And oh boy, he joins the party! Now, in all fairness, his clothes are torn as he gets hurt too, but he is decidedly much less fanservice’d than his wife and servant are when in the same situation. Kenshi doesn’t have magic attacks, but can use TP-based moves like his son.

Yep. He keeps all his clothes on. Not even goes shirtless
with bits of torn clothing around him. Meanwhile,
the ladies almost end up breasts out in the open.
Where's the fairness in that??

From there on, the quartet comes back to Akuma’s underworld castle, goes through the door on the right, completes the mini-dungeon, kills the next sibling of Akuma, and then comes back to the castle again. Those bosses are really easy. Either that, or I over-leveled because of the sheer power of the regular enemies. Again: Balancing issues much?

With only one sibling of Akuma left – and the most powerful no less – the team decides to go back to the magic flame at the start, so they can summon Akuma and ask him how to defeat the last sibling. Surprisingly, he cooperates and even tells them how to finish her off. Why? Because these three apparently considered him a weakling, a tool to use, and because of that, he’s happy to see them die now. Or something. What a happy family.

Speaking of which, the set-up doesn’t make a ton of sense. Apparently the three doors in Akuma’s castle take the heroes… each just before Akuma’s siblings died. So wait, are we traveling back in time? And space? Or… um… This makes no sense! No sense at all.

Well those seem pretty easy to beat up.

So,, center door it is, and it takes the heroes to a greener version of the path to the Sacred Tower from the first game. Once again, monsters on the way include wasps, scorpions, spiders, earth elementals, rats… You notice quite quickly how few different enemies are in this game. Not even 12. Excluding bosses, that is.

Yeah, it's all green instead of desert-y.
Still deserted though.

Speaking of which! Chosen 2 is much shorter than Chosen 1. There isn’t a map that can be visited at will, there isn’t a special island with plenty of super-strong enemies. The puzzles are much easier than in the first. Like I said, there are less enemies in general, not a lot of bosses, and there are no special areas or side-quests. I don’t even think Edge and his allies have personalized powerful equipment to gather. There are no bonus bosses, either – and on Steam, there’s only 5 achievements and they’re all based on story progression, so you will get them by just beating the story. As much as I despised The Chosen and felt it was overall a very weak game, I at least acknowledged that it had interesting bonus material. Here, no such thing. Improvements in places, new weaknesses in other places – and some stuff hasn’t changed. Stupid goddamn fanservice. I don’t know why it insults me, but it does.

I think what insults me more is that the base price for this one is over 4 dollars while having less content (about 90 minutes of gameplay), while the fuller Chosen 1 is only a dollar and has more to do (2 to 4 hours of gameplay if you try to get everything).

"I'll miss seeing your boo-I mean, your faces so much!"

At the top of the Sacred Tower, Ayaka, Sakae and Kenshi explain that since they’re still technically dead, they must stay in the underworld. No following Edge in the land of the living. But hey, Edge’s sword gets an upgrade, so yay for that, I guess. So he comes out of the underworld into the land of the living, in the Sacred Tower no less, and rushes out towards his village. Alone to face the monsters on the way – and of course, it had to be packs of goddamn ghosts that have a resistance to sword attacks.

Reaching the village, Edge sees it burning, with his friends Trinity, Serenity and Myste threatened by Akuma’s last-living sister. He joins in for the final battle and learns a special move called “Family Trinity”, which deals thrice the damage of any other move he can use. It does require 30 Technique Points, however. The first fight isn’t that tough, but then the sister (named Azion) takes on the form of a lamia and the true final fight starts.

Who the Hell put a bloody sepia filter on the world?
I can barely see a goddamn thing!

What’s wrong with this fight? Oh, so much is wrong with this fight. And hey, if I need bullet points to express how bad something is, then you know it's bad.

Oh no, the filter is still on!
And also I'm stuck with useless moves, against a
boss that I can only beat through luck!

• First off, the boss is way too powerful for the party. Uber-Azion hits hard and uses a lot of attacks that target the entire team;
• The party members you haven’t been using all game are down to Level 11 with a layout of special and magical attacks different from what they could use in The Chosen 1. Even if you brought Edge a couple levels above (like 15 or 16), it’s still not enough to let yourself or your temmates survive;
• Most of the attacks your party has are either useless or require too many Technique Points. All elemental-based attacks are barely effective, and the girls’ regular physical attacks do laughable damage too;
• The boss is fairly resistant against any magical attacks that could either put it to sleep or stun it, and if it gets hit by those it recovers fast;
• You get TP by attacking, and also by getting hurt – but since she’s so powerful, every attack that hits you could be the end of you – not to mention that Revives in this game still give you only one HP when bringing someone back from death, so your only chance is to waste another character’s move to heal the character you just revived;
• Oh, and the healer of the team no longer has a team-healing move, so you can’t heal the group easily.

I eventually found a strategy – try to stun the monster or put it to sleep as often as possible to prevent it from attacking, build up TP and use the Family Trinity attack twice or thrice, which is enough to take it down. Even then, you need more luck than skill once you’ve figured it out. Then there’s a third phase where the incapacitated monster can’t fight back against Edge, and then he kills it by stabbing its heart.

Wished I could kill this game the same way - stab through
the heart and twist.

CLICHÉ ALERT

Ahhh! The world is still on fire!
Oh wait, no, i's just an orange-hued filter.
Dumbass game.

However, Serenity was hurt badly in the fight and is dying. Trinity casts repeated spells on her to keep her alive (even if you did turn out to have Revives in your inventory to bring her back), all while Serenity and Edge finally confess their love to each other. She seems to pass on, until Edge’s Sword uses its godly magic to bring her back to life, although weak and needing treatment. Phew! For a moment I was afraid he was going to revive her with the power of his singing voice or something. She spends three weeks under intensive care and then is back to life, and finally finds Edge and they can live happily ever after, making babies until the end of nearly-naked times. Roll credits!

END CLICHÉ ALERT

Oh, this game is bad. This game is so bad.

So bad.

Props for improvements: A better combat layout in which the sprites have been replaced by animated torso shots of the characters; improved cutscenes; some attempt at a new story with better elements.

The new weaknesses: No bonus material to seek out; very horrible balancing issues making for a game difficult for all the wrong reasons, in the wrong places; a much shorter playtime of 90 minutes for a game that costs 3 to 4 times the price of the previous game; a story that somehow makes less sense and employs more clichés than Chosen 1; and a very crappy final boss fight in which you rely more on luck than strategy to win.

And problems that haven’t changed: No attempt to change the look of the basic system used by RPG Maker; so many clichés that, if I pointed them all out, you’d still be reading this two days from now; revive items are still BS; few attempts at using any tiles and character sprites outside of those in the RPG Maker free library; oh, and have I mentioned the stupid fanservice, made even creepier now as it’s applied to the protagonist’s dead mother AND servant?

Long story short, I don’t recommend this game, much like I don’t recommend the one that came before it. Good on Little Big Lee to have released another one of those, they’re improving when it comes to using RPG Maker, but this is still rather weak. You can skip The Chosen and Chosen 2. Even if they’re sold in a bundle, don’t bother.

There are way better RPG Maker games out there.