With the start of 2024, many games would come out and one of those games was the newest entry for Under Night In-Birth, being Under Night In-Birth II: Sys: Celes or UNI2 as it’s usually called. Unfortunately, this game was released at a horrible time. This was because a day after, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth came out, and Tekken 8 was the real killer for this game. Although people like me, who enjoyed the previous game, and wanted to play the game, did so. With that, we came across some issues but they were eventually patched out, but how is the game as a whole? This review will tell you about my experiences with the game.

Pros

• Very fun gameplay with some more simplified combos
  
• 25 different characters for you to play as
  
• Custom coloring combinations have been added
  
• Updated soundtrack
  
• Beautiful graphics that look very detailed

Cons

• Online has some issues
  
• The DLC wait time is too long for the season pass to be justifiably

Three months after the events of the previous game, the Hollow Night has returned once again, although a new issue has come up. Kuon The Eternal Re-Birth has now shown himself and when the next night comes. He will try and put an end to mankind, In-births soon start to rise, and while different goals are put into place, Koun must be stopped at all costs.

That’s it in terms of the story for this game, there isn’t any other story that the game has, other than what the characters will go through in the arcade mode. There isn’t a Chronicle’s Mode yet, even though 99.9% of people who played the previous game never went through it. We may get a mode like that shortly but only time will tell, as I think it would be nice if some of the lore was talked about so we know what has happened in the past three months.

The core gameplay has remained the same from the previous entry but has been tweaked somewhat with some improvements. One of the newest features that the game has is Creeping Edge, this is a forward dodge that allows players to roll past an attack, with the cost of them losing some of their GRD. It will also shield incoming attacks while moving the character forward, although they are still vulnerable to grabs. New Force Functions have been added and they have different inputs were added to a few characters.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210833088
Celestial Vorpam State has been added which allows players to fill their GRD gauge for the player. They do have to win the GRD gauge though with six or more blocks, which is a tug or war-based mechanic, it’s the meter on the bottom center of the screen. Although I should mention that this feature was in the previous game, it’s just Celestial Vorpal State that is new. Guard Thrust inputs have also been reworked, it’s been changed from a 214D to 6ABC, and some EX-only moves inputs have been changed with more improved inputs.

Smart Steer has also been reworked with new finisher moves, which will act as the fourth move that has been executed in the Smart Steer. It can be used in a normal combo and the player could gain or lose GRD, although this depends on how early or late, they use it in the combo.

There are a total of 24 different characters for you to play, with three DLC characters coming out soon, the first one is in August, while the other two are coming out in 2025. Some characters do feel different when playing as them, but their main gimmicks are all there. The ones I liked playing in the previous game still feel fun to play in this game as well. There is a character for everyone in the game, so just pick your favorite and go from there.

The controls for the game have also been simplified as well, there is an auto combo you can do but at the same time, there are inputs that are tricky to pull off. It just depends on what character you use and how you utilize their moves. I liked how they made the controls somewhat easy to pick up and play, it can get newer players into the game.

There is also costume coloring for the characters that have different colors on each of their skins. This was taken from Melty Blood: Lumina and the system works fine here, there are a lot of different colors you can put on the characters and your favorite colors of a certain color set. I really liked this feature as I can now make all my characters wear green.

I only have two issues that I want to bring up with the game, with the first being the online experience. It is similar to the previous title which isn't bad, but the lobby system has issues while you are spectating. It will bug out and you are unable to watch the match as it will kick you out. Also sometimes tabbing out will cause the game to go into a black screen forcing a restart but that's all of the issues I have with online for the most part.

The other issue I have with the game is that the DLC’s are really spread apart, even if there are only three characters, they are six months apart from each other. This technically makes the season pass not really worth the money at the time of writing this review.

I go into more detail about this game in the video that I made on it, so I recommend you check it out if you want to learn more about the game's history and such.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6n33bHNRoM&t=20s&ab_channel=Skyknighter

The soundtrack has been updated with remixed music and they actually sound pretty good. There are a few new songs for the game and they are pretty good as well, my favorites were Tearing Bullet, Icefield White Night, Extreme Steam, Flame and Destiny, Monochrome Memory, and Bad Surface. All of them sound very nice and I never had a song I never liked.

The graphics for UNI2 are beautiful, the designs on the characters have been updated and they all look fantastic, with the stages matching the upgraded experience which look amazing. I love the look of cities at night and this game delivered with its aesthetic. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I had no issues while playing the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210833513
Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes is very fun sequel to UNIclr that I myself have enjoyed very much. I do hope the game gets some fixes for some of the issues it has with online and for some of the bugs some people have encountered. Although with that being said, I would wait for a small sale before picking this up if you are new to the series and have not played the previous game. Existing fans may still feel justified purchasing at full price, including the DLC, even if they will be waiting some time before all the characters are released.

If I could wish for one thing... it's for the dark spirit to follow Life Needs a Little Sin the trigger of resentment is not pulled lightly

When it comes to fighting games, I tend to usually enjoy my time with them despite not being too good at them. I play them and I have fun, that’s that. I am also someone who likes to play niche games that no one has really touched. Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Sisters EXTND (Arcana Heart 3), is one of those games that has not gotten too much attention out there and I sure enough decided to go check it out.

I should note that I understand I do not have a whole lot of time and I have a good reason for this. However, I should note that mechanically, Acana Heart 3, is pretty good in that regard and I think the game plays very well. It’s just how the game presents itself in how to teach the player to do things, which is what holds the game back. I should also add that I have not played any of the previous Arcane Heart games, so I have no idea how the others played. 

Pros

• Wonderful cast of playable characters
  
• Gameplay is incredibly fun
  
• Beautiful pixel art style that is genuinely nice to look at

Cons

• Does a very poor job of giving tools to help teach the player mechanics
  
• The Arcane System isn't explained
  
• They removed trails mode and arcade mode from the game
  
• Online is dead for the most part

The game takes place in a fictional futuristic Japan, where a dimensional distortion occurred in the Kanto region of the country. This was caused by a being known as Angelia Avallonem this event is known as The Great Kanto Incident. The group known as The International Holy Spirit Institutions suffered greatly after this, although it’s been healed in the last two months.

The story for this game is decent, I don’t know much about its lore because I haven't played the previous games. I think there may be a hidden story that is interesting in this series somewhere, but this game does not really provide an interesting story for me to be invested into it.

Arcane Heart plays like a typical fighting game, although the game does in fact have two unique mechanics tied to it that that I will explain. This game is an airborne-based fighting game, you have a homing mechanic that will allow you to home in on the opponent, it will automatically track them with a single button press and there are certain actions that are performed by using this feature.

There is also a wonderful cast of characters for you to play as well and two new characters were added into the game recently. The gameplay overall is very fun and I actually do think this game is a solid fighter, however, there are a few issues that hold this game back. I should state this again, this game is good mechanically but how the game goes about it, is where the issues lie.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3220379978
I am going to put you in this scenario, you start the game and pick a character, ok we are starting out simple. Then, as soon as you are done picking your character, the game then shows you this.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3220378831
You are now asking yourself, what is this, what are these things and why do I have to pick one of them? These things you see on this screenshot, are called Arcana Spirites these give you passive-based abilities and can also determine your special move. Certain characters are tied to certain Arcana Spirites but the game never tells you which one goes to whom, although this is fine as you can find certain combos to go with others. 

Although the game never explains to you what each of these Arcana Spirites do or what special moves it grants to the player. The only way for you to know any of this is to go on the internet, which is not really something I would think to ever do for a game like this. Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code has three Moon Styles. That being Full, Half, and Crescent Moon Style, did the game tell you which Moon Style fit for which character? No the game did not but that was fine, as there are only three of them. Also, characters could use a different moon style to change how they functioned. They probably weren’t recommended but it was something you can do and the game actually explained to you what each style did.

Arcana Heart 3 has 25 Arcana Spirites for you to choose from, You don’t need to match the one the character is associated with, as you can choose a different one that may work better for that character. However, with the lack of how the game tells you this, makes this game a little complicated. I am not saying that having 25 Arcana Spirites is a bad thing, in fact I welcome it for giving players more options to play the game. But the lack of explanation that the game gives you on these things, is what makes me not like how the developers did it.

Although that’s not the only thing either as there are missing features that were taken out as well. There is no arcade mode and trails mode has been removed as well, trails mode taught you how to play the game. I am baffled on why this feature which teaches you how to play the game, was removed.

Online is also completely dead, so if you are looking for some matches, you may have to get someone who is willingly able to play the game. I also heard that the net code is bad, but I can’t attest to this due to my not finding any matches.

The pixel art style that the game has is genuinely nice and well done with an arcade-like feel. The animations are also well done. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, 16 GB of RAM, I experienced no issues while I was playing, and the game ran fine.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3220380374
Recommending Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Sisters EXTND is a bit difficult for me. On one hand, it plays fine and the game is fun but with how the game goes about handling the mechanics and the removal of game modes, this prevents me from fully recommending this game to others. Arcana Heart is a niche fighting games series, with its first two games selling poorly, so seeing this one get treated like it is, is honestly quite sad. If you are still curious on what this game has to offer, then I recommend picking this one up on a sale, other than that, I would skip this one.

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