Rock to Sleep | Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars Review

Yet another Japanese RPG has made its way over to the states, and this time, it’s an odd game called Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars.  Conception II (yes, that kind of conception)  follows the story of a second-year student (you choose their name) at a unique academy. While this academy features a mix of good and bad students, they aren’t students at a normal academy, this academy trains students to fight against monsters that are threatening the existence of the humans.

Conception II might seem like an interesting concept – and some parts really are – but the delivery is anything but good. The risk taken by the developers with some material was quite the gamble, but it ended up backfiring. For all its good ideas, Conception II’s potential dies along with its lack in creativity and polish.

Conception II’s main hero, God’s Gift

Your character is introduced as a strong fighter in the very first cutscene, but there’s even more to him than even he knows. When the students enter the academy, scientists measure their ether – or in other words their light – to measure potential power against the monsters and dusk circles, which are both made of darkness. When the lab inside the academy gets off-the-charts readings from the main character, it’s discovered that he’s a “god’s gift,” a disciple who can produce enough ether that allows him to battle monsters inside dusk circles, which normally is only possible outside of the circles.

Conception II introduces an interesting event called “classmating.” Classmating is when two students join hands and embrace with what look like their spirits. When taking a female classmate to the church, you can perform this act in order to make Star Children. Star Children are allies you take in battle with you and your chosen female companion that are created through the classmating process. Star Children aren’t human, they’re warrior spirits created to fight monsters, and since they’re made by the female, a female (any in your party) must be present in battle to use Star Children.

Perhaps what’s most troubling about this concept is the erotic situations and images that Conception II presents the player with by using underage girls. Yes, the game states that the girls at this academy are about 16 to 18 years old, and the game does its best job to jiggle as many boobs, deliver as many blatantly implied-sexual situations, and produce such painfully awkward moments with as odd dialogue as possible. The game even has a scene where the girls are talking about who’s breasts are the best for no apparent reason, after a battle, and it just seems immature – and more importantly – unnecessary.

Talking and flirting with female companions is an integral part of classmating

While classmating is explained to not be any physical contact besides the hand holding, and it’s more of a spiritual connection. The game never really explains what exactly happens during classmating; so much is implied, but they never show anything past a pink silhouette of a girl’s body, and the top half of the main character’s blue silhouette connecting hands. The game acts like we’re supposed to know what classmating is ahead of time – and a lot of story elements, for that matter – and talks about these subjects without explaining the context whatsoever until later on. It made keeping up with some elements of the story incredibly confusing, and it just seemed like poor planning of explaining plot points.

Once classmating is done and your Star Child is “born,” the game allows you to name and assign a class to the Star Child. They then join your party into teams, which allow up to three star children per team.  With four teams in total (with one being a team of you and your female companion), you are tasked with leveling up the main character and your Star Children to defeat these monsters from the dusk circles, and close the portals for good.There are seven total dusk circles in Conception II, with each taking on the identity of one of the seven deadly sins. Inside every dusk circle is a multitude of enemies ranging in level and they also include boss fights against larger, more powerful monsters, though their difficulty isn’t much greater than the already fairly easy monsters you’ll fight everywhere else.

Conception II mixes together two games into one experience. The game is one part JRPG, with dusk circle exploration and enemy encounters making up the entirety of the combat. After being dropped in the dungeon, you’ll navigate through floors to try and find the boss, while on the way you’ll encounter many enemies. When running into an enemy, you’ll be placed into a simple square battle room into a fairly by-the-book turn-based combat.

During combat, your teams can attack one of four angles to hit the enemy. Most hits on the sides or back of the enemy’s position will reward weak point hits which are high-damage dealing attacks. This is implemented to give some sort of strategy in Conception II, but I never felt that the system was deep enough to create interesting scenarios. Every single battle I fought was started with the exact same strategy: move characters to weak points, attack, repeat. It grew tiresome much too fast, and there are rarely any new modifiers to increase the challenge or even to introduce a new element. Some special attacks look cool, but they start becoming less refreshing after you perform it in every other battle.

Combat is shallow and uneventful

The second part of Conception II is the dating simulation found back in the academy. You’ll interact with mostly girls and occasionally males like your character’s friend, Chlotz, but talking with them won’t product meaningful benefits like with the girls. You’re allowed to talk only a select few times to the main girls, because each encounter increases your relationship, which will produce more powerful Star Children. During  your time in this section of the game, you can also buy items, replay missions, visit church to classmate, among other things.

The environments you’ll encounter throughout the game are poor, lazy attempts to capture any sort of worthwhile fantasy. The same repeated walls and floors are used for the entirety of a dusk circle, and each new dusk circle follows the same pattern with a different color and some minor cosmetic changes with just the layout being tweaked. The environment is so incredibly boring that it diminishes any sort of enjoyable lore and instead produces a cheap, uninspired feel that sinks any excitement right from the start.

Dusk circles are uninspired and lazy dungeons that make up the majority of the game

The coupling of its shallow combat and lazy visuals makes Conception II seem like one long blur. You’ll fight the same enemies in identical areas dozens upon dozens of times, and soon it will just seem like you’re in one never-ending battle. There just isn’t enough visual diversity to keep the game engaging. It’s a self-inflicted wound to a game if you try and build an interesting world and proceed to fill it with sub-par environments.

Sprinkled throughout Conception II are some excellently animated cutscenes that look absolutely stunning. Scenes of action are exciting, and the character visual transformations when entering dusk circles show flips and poses, but that same excitement and energy quickly dies when the game itself doesn’t share these same qualities.

Conception II tries to present a different, strange narrative, but its inability to create a fun or engaging game around that idea leaves a mostly uninteresting and fumbled mess. The ideas presented could have been interesting, but the questionable handling and delivery of the ideas erases any sort of worthwhile potential. If you’re looking for a quirky JRPG, you may find some parts of Conception II interesting, but there are much better JRPGs out there to fill that desire.

This review is based on a review copy of the PlayStation Vita game Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars by Spike Chunsoft.