Yesterday at Bandai Namco’s HQ here in Tokyo, I got some serious hands-on time with Project X Zone 2. It’s all the over-the-top cross-over craziness I remember—and then some.
Project X Zone is a 2012 tactical RPG that crosses over many of Bandai-Namco, Sega, and Capcom’s most popular characters. Project X Zone 2 is pretty much the exact same thing—only with a new plot and more characters.
The demo I played was of a single level and included nothing plot related. Instead, it was all battle. The long and the short of it? Project X Zone 2 plays almost identically to its predecessor.
You control several groups of characters on a grid-based map. Characters are then split into either battle ready pairs or support characters that act as summonable characters for the pair you equip them to. Then you move your characters into range of an enemy and attack.
Each battle pair has several attacks and using them at the correct moments can allow you to juggle your defenseless opponent. You can also summon your equipped support character as well as another battle pair of characters if they are close enough on the map. Following a limited number of attacks, the battle ends and you move onto moving your next group of characters. After you do this for all of your characters, the enemies get their own chance to attack and you may choose to counterattack, defend, or simply take the damage.
A few cycles later, (if all goes well) you will have defeated all the enemies and so the battle ends.
As with the first game, while the battle system is solid, it is the characters and their overly elaborate attack animations that steal the show in this demo. There already are several famous characters that have joined the Project X Zone 2 roster (like Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney or Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil) and more are on the way. Moreover, many of the returning characters find themselves in different battle pairs than in the first game—meaning they play differently.
When it comes down to it, based on what I played, if you are the person who just needs more Project X Zone craziness in your life, Project X Zone 2 is tailor-made for you.
Project X Zone 2 will be released in the US for the Nintendo 3DS on February 16, 2016.
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