About RoCitizens:
I really wish I could recommend this game, I truly do. I loved the first game, and I wanted to love this one too, but… well, making a sequel is always a fine line to walk, I suppose. Change nothing, and fans will complain it’s just more of the same, might as well have just released a DLC expansion-pack or something. Change too MUCH, and fans will complain that it’s nothing like the game they previously enjoyed, a sequel-in-name-only, so what’s even the point of tacking that name on there? These particular developers sought to thread the needle by changing just ONE thing. Unfortunately, it was the WRONG thing – they added to the first game’s perfectly serviceable battle-system a bevvy of Paper-Mario-style ‘battle minigames’. They start out fine – pound the button, press the RIGHT button quickly, hold a direction until the bar fills, etc. But every character apparently needed at least two or three DIFFERENT minigames, and so, inevitably, they get steadily more complicated. Indeed, they quickly become frustratingly hard, poorly explained, and above all else OVERLY LONG. In the Paper Mario games, your basic attacks never required much more than a timed button-press, and it was only the special attacks, which you’d naturally use more rarely, that had anything elaborate attached to them – and this feature, alas, they forgot to copy over. Every battle gradually turns into an endless slog as you sit through the same overlong minigame over and over and over again, just to use a basic attack. And for the battles to become a chore, well, that’s a death-knell for any RPG. So there you have it. The world is still colorful and fun to explore, the characters amusing and varied, the voicework excellent, and there is loads of secrets to uncover and collect. But with every new character you recruit, you’ll hate the battles a little bit more, and for that, I give it a thumbs-down. No great house can be build on a foundation of sand…
