Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon sets itself many years after the first with relatively small changes that make a considerable impact. Upon getting started, you’re introduced to so many new moves, it appears to be brimming with new abilities. So much so that it’s almost overwhelming to begin. That is until you get a grasp on it.
With some improvements and curious omissions, Nights of Azure 2 carries over much of what the original built itself on. It’s a story-rich action RPG where party building and team control is an intrinsic element of the gameplay.
After an unfortunate demise, our player character, Aluche, is revived using demonic blue blood, effectively turning her into a half-demon. The majority of gameplay revolves around going out on “hunts” as Aluche and her companions set out to kill demons and gather information about the Moon Queen. Due to Aluche’s unstable blue blood transfusion, she cannot over-exert herself and as such only so much time can be spent on a hunt before needing to return to the hotel.
It’s a race against the moon as it becomes new, allowing the Moon Queen to conquer. The moon phase will advance after each hunt and a new moon results in a game over with the option to reset the chapter. It becomes a challenge to get all the side missions completed in time as you need to be fast to cover all that ground and quests should be devised accordingly.
The creature companions known as Servan are back and help in a few ways, but they now take a back seat to the Lily system.
There is a large emphasis on your partners, known as Lilies, that lend themselves as the newest feature in this game. They can be commanded in a multitude of ways, such as focus on your currently targeted enemy, defend, disperse, or freely act on their own.
Each Lily has their own unique abilities and skills to aid you in different ways. You may even spend your own mana to aid them with attack or defense buffs and healing. They also have their own experience points, levels, and equipment slots. There’s a wide enough selection of partners to choose from and each are different enough to find one to suit your play style.
Different Lilies may aid you with defensive skills, higher attack power, healing, and more depending on who you’ve chosen. They’re equipped with their own skills that you can command them to activate which comes in handy very frequently. These skills are free to use but need time before they can be activated again. Additionally, there are more powerful attacks known as Double Chase and Lily Burst that become available after filling the Chase Guage and Tension Guage respectively. For these attacks, you and your Lily stand together for an ultimate barrage against one or many foes. They all function differently and are one of the more critical aspects to choosing a partner that suits your play style.
Even with choice, the many side quests require certain Lilies to be partnered with the player which will help them grow in experience and affinity, and allow you to get closer to them and learn more about them. These side quests additionally grant Servan points that can be used to level up the Servan.
Servan aren’t incredibly helpful save for a few instances. Besides their basic attacks, they have only one ability to command in combat and can generally be ignored. I wish the Servan had been expanded instead of being shoved to the side as they were the most unique aspect and what really made Nights of Azure stand out. They are necessary for reaching certain areas or breaking barriers that will net you additional items, more servan, or areas needed for side missions. In this way, you do need to plan on which Servan to bring on each mission, but overall feel very under-utilized.
The hunts themselves begin with choosing a location on the map after deciding on a quest and fighting through hoards of demons until either you reach your objective or run out of time. While the Servans have been simplified, the combat feels more involved with much tougher enemies than in the game’s predecessor. The Lily partners are in consistent use as their abilities greatly help in making difficult fights more manageable. It’s a nice system with easy to understand button combos, and even though the Servan don’t make as much use as they should, the team aspect is fun and enjoyable. Your own attacks aren’t much more than button mashing, but you do have access to several different attack combos consisting of normal and strong attacks that are serviceable.
Defeating any bosses encountered will push back the moon phase to allow more time. Hunts will often results in obtaining items and of course experience points which need to be manually spent to level up in the maintenance room.
Blood can also be spent here on the huge skill tree to boost things like health, weapon proficiency, gold drops, and even the hunt time limit, among other things. Servans can be leveled up here with very simple point allocations and can also be reincarnated after reaching max level. This puts them back at level 1 but stronger than before. Items may be purchased at the hotel shop where they can be upgraded by combining them.
The main quests follow the essential plot points while side quests consist of either ancillary “kill x amount of specific creature” missions or requests from partners that incidently advance stories specific to them. The overall narrative does a fine job keeping things interesting as relationships build and more is learned about the threat at hand.
That is, however, at the exception of some long, unpausable, unskippable cutscenes that plainly overstay their welcome. Nights of Azure 2 has a very, very slow start but manages to pick up with some decent pacing after it gets going. Much of both the story and the gameplay can at times be rather pedestrian but not usually boring.
The whole thing comes together as competent with nice artistic direction, passable controls–if not a tad jerky with its eight-directional movement, and an exceptional soundtrack that I maybe would even be willing to buy if given the option.
