10 people found this review helpful
4
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 6.5 hrs on record (6.4 hrs at review time)
Posted: Feb 15, 2022 @ 3:16am
Updated: Feb 15, 2022 @ 3:23am

Amazin' George 2 is a fairly standard JRPG but the things it does well are all excellent and the things it fumbles on are minor and easy to overlook.

Story:
The story follows old school JRPG conventions where there is a simple starting goal (in this case find your master) that takes a while to solve, and then there is a twist that sets up the final portion of the game. The dialogue is told through poetry and it lends a lighthearted feel to the story. This is nice for a change as too many rpgs have high stakes serious storytelling.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is fairly standard. You move around local maps with visible enemies you have to fight (I think they are limited and don't respawn which is nice), and you move around an overworld map featuring all of these locations where you get RNG fights similar to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. The combat system is turn based featuring abilities, items, guarding, attacking, and fleeing. A nice quality of life feature is that fleeing works 100% of the time so you aren't stuck in battles you don't want to fight. Each local map has treats which are the game's currency scattered around so you get to collect them as you clear the area of enemies. This actually helps the level design as it is fairly fun to collect it all (even though most of your currency is still gained from turn based combat). Throughout the course of the game you end up with four party members, but for the majority of the game you will be controlling two characters. This all works and the game feels fun.

Graphics and Sound:
The graphics remind me of the PS1 era of games and it seems to be heavily inspired by Final Fantasy. For an indie game these are surprisingly well done. The textures have enough detail and the art design has made each area feel distinct. The soundtrack feels very warm and bubbly. As I said in the story section this game feels very lighthearted and the music really lends to this feeling. Nothing feels better than a catchy tune after you win a turn based battle and this game has a pretty decent one.

Bugs:
As of the time I am posting this review (2/15/2022) there are a few bugs still in the game. One of them is a chest that gives you nothing when you open it and Japanese characters appear in the popup text box. Another is well known where one of the party characters will become more and more offset each round of combat (this doesn't prevent anything and is just visual) which is funny when he gets so far offscreen in a boss fight that he may as well have went to the Moon. There is also some text that seems to reference unused mechanics like the ability to use fireworks under effects in the menu and something about changing a map to dark theme or something of this nature and neither actually exist ingame that I could find. Also it seems that I cannot get the starting the game achievement so perhaps that broke sometime between version updates. With that said there are no game breaking bugs or anything that would ruin your enjoyment of the game. 99% of amazin' George 2 is very well polished in that respect.

Value:
I was able to get around 3-6 hours or so of playtime for $5.99 at the time of writing as my out of game time is a little bit higher than my playthrough actually was ingame. I would say this is pretty fair value for the price you pay and the experience is enjoyable enough especially if you like JRPGs already. While it is already worth it, a content update adding another hour or so of playtime would be very welcomed. It is good to support indie developers and the creator of this game definitely made this out of passion for the genre.

Overall:
Amazin' George 2 is a fun lighthearted romp through a classic JRPG style story with all the twist and turns and gameplay that genre entails. Well polished with appealing graphics and music, and 3-6 hours of solid gameplay this is an easy sell to anyone interested and reading this review already. Especially so if this game is on a sale as $5.99 is more than fair. Definitely check this one out!
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Developer response:
spacefarergames  [developer] Posted: Mar 1, 2022 @ 6:19am
Hi Starner, we've put a quote of your review on the game's main store page. Additionally we've today updated the game that adds 1-2 hours more gameplay, with a new character and ties up loose ends ready for the next game.
1 Comments
spacefarergames  [developer] Feb 15, 2022 @ 4:38am 
Thank you ever so much for the review and positive constructive feedback and critique, the bugs are noted and we will fix them in the next patch. Again, thank you Starner for your feedback and taking time leaving this review for us. :)