Class of Heroes 2

Class of Heroes 2 is an indirect sequel from the original game for the PSP. It takes various game elements and blends them together to form an interesting mix and by introducing into the E.U. market it certainly has made a very convincing grasp on the JRPG market.

Combat puts you in the control of up to six classmates of your choosing and venturing through dungeons otherwise known as Labyrinths. Battles pit you against waves of up to four different types of enemies at a time, with at least an enemy per row you may face up to 16 monsters per encounter.

There is a front and back row arrangement to your party with the first three being able to attack the closest enemies and the remaining characters (class depending) being able to attack any row of enemies. The game uses a party battle system letting you use your unique choice to your advantage. The Focus gauge exemplifies this, for once it fills to a certain amount, it will allow you to perform a group attack. You can also use your mages to double their attack power or defense, or allow your fighters to attack all enemies on-screen. An interesting addition, as it brings the affinity of your troop’s closer, making them grow faster and incentivizing experimentation with your classes to find the group attacks that suit your play-style.

Class of Heroes 2 starts off by introducing you to your home academy, the game’s hub. The academy is where you find most of the mechanics, such as character creation and customization in the office, where you can also switch between teams that you may create and experiment with. Item creations in the alchemy lab acts as your basic stop and go for upgrading equipment. Also in the academy is a clinic for reviving fallen allies and a library for taking quests and reviewing monster and map data.

As you progress further through the game you’ll find more academies, which opens up more advanced job classes for your characters. Each academy has a specific branch to it with the advanced schools going further into magic or sword skills.

Having played the game on a normal PSP, I was unable to fully take in the visual splendour this game had to offer. Even so, the artwork for the characters was superb and the backgrounds were brilliant and really drew me into a dark forest or a mysterious ruin.

The music the game offers is very little in Labyrinths, leaving you at the mercy of your imagination to listen to monstrous growls and the rustle of tree’s ,making you turn around, make sure you’re not being followed.

The dialogue in the game is in plenty with each quest you take having a humorous side to it, be it saving a snake instead of adventurers or fooling a teacher to get a confession out of them.

However, everything is not perfect in this follow up. The game throws you straight into the deep end with initial enemies being very difficult for new players. This is very daunting for beginners and has to level through trial and error of what enemy is weak against what class. Further in the game this remains the case as the enemies stay several levels ahead of your own.

Throughout the game you will find the tiles you walk upon will contain some sort of trap, from causing damage to you party or turning you the wrong way. While this may seem like a fair trap, it is a an extremely poor decision to put an anti-magic tile and a deep water tile together, which instantly kills all party members that cannot fly naturally and leaving you unable to heal them.

That aside, it is quite annoying to have to go through previous Labyrinths in search of once portal tile that will reveal the next area. There is no introduction into the item creation and between looking for materials from monsters in the wild from having to buy the recipe and going to different screens to find it.

All the faults aside it remains a brilliant game to come back to and play over and over again. I found myself creating my own personal parties to use through the labyrinths and if I would lose I would start again with an entirely new set-up. The character affinity system means that unless I get the characters right then they won’t develop as strong as they could be.