Josh

Feels more like an expansion to the existing game than a sequel. Hardly any new units were introduced and these new units are rather niche, hardly impacting how the game was played in the original. I have mixed feelings about the campaigns. They feel appropriately challenging, but as for the stories, the characters consistently remove my interest in progressing the game. For example the campaign missions typically feature bandits assaulting villages, the defending armies take casualties, death on both sides, and after emerging victorious, the main characters' main concerns lie with whether or not they should reveal who their childhood crush is. I can appreciate some humor, but I'd like the story to at least acknowledge the battles fought to some degree. It's where we spend most the time playing the game afterall. I spend all this time devising strategies, perfecting my game to avoid loss of units while beating the enemy quickly and the reward is to read dialogue of 7 year-old drama. The original game suffered similar story telling issues but the sequel feels far more forced.

A story about a decorated agent who understands nothing about her agency's operations, the culture of her enemy, and actively fails every assigned objective. An incoherent mess centered around our "protagonist's" abilities with computers. However these abilities are only seen effective when actively disobeying her superiors to save a boy she intentionally manipulated into working for her.