A look back at: Last Bible II

Sorry if this one took longer than expected! Or not. I really could care less about this one. Last Bible II thankfully was playable fully with English translation with the occasional swear word, but even discounting all of that what you get is basically Last Bible I (for those who forgot, Revelations: The Demon Slayer) but with newer characters, plot, and music. The gameplay is almost totally the same, the only super duper difference that I could find was the usage of eggs, where you have one get beaten in combat to make a good monster hatch. Otherwise, you're better off figuring out how to recruit and how to fuse monsters, or just get the super ones from bones like the Dragon or Kirin or so. Those still work.

Sequel games are always weird to play. This one is one of those "thousands of years later" sequels, but it still has a weird plot where everyone who is playable is connected in some weird way that almost rivals that of how the characters in FF8 were all familiar with each other. Here, the main ones are basically going "we fought together at one point thousands of years ago but lost and everyone died" and now they're reincarnated somehow in this case. Also the main character himself happens to be the resurrection of a beast king, and appropriately a corrupt human king and his more corrupt advisor try to kill you. Using demons. Which ends up in demons killing them. Because of course evil humans don't know how to control evil demons properly. There was zero character development in the first game, but here, we get a little bit more. Yuri is still a silent protagonist like El, but the other characters are more talkative, the rambunctious Safia has her reasons for being who she is, while the more concerning Krau and Ganzu have their reasons for being who they are, and then there's Esau who's clearly trying to go somewhere important. Gotta love how everyone gets the Force. Okay, not THAT Force, but whatever.

Bottom line is, this wasn't that good of a sequel game. Almost nothing new gameplay wise, it's not gonna appeal to anyone who just wasn't a fan of the previous game, and considering how many of this type of turn-based RPG I've done so far, I can relate to it not being as good.

A look back at: Revelations: The Demon Slayer

My first RPG of 2025! Wonderful how I was supposed to do Devil Summoner, but couldn't find a single English translation that could work. This game, part of the Last Bible series and supposedly a lot easier, ended up replacing it, but yes, I am crowing through this franchise as best as I truly can. This game actually could be a whole lot quicker overall for me, but at the end of the day, it was because I was also simultaneously enjoying other things like Super Monkey Ball rom hacks and what not. Oh, you don't care about that stuff! Let's talk about this game.

...and basically a whole lack of things that are actually interesting about it. This is a very simple RPG, going for the top-down view instead of the usual first-person dungeon crawler the original series is known for. The talking to monsters (yes, monsters, not demons) is the only true holdover from SMT, along with a primitive usage of fusion and sorting of things. The game's got only two companions, with almost zero character development all across the board. The music would be normally fine but gets kinda boring after a while, since every town uses the same music as does every dungeon. The game's plot is basically a journey to find your missing mentor, who seems to be a conspiracy theorist against who are supposedly good guys, and it turns out your mentor is of course right all along. Gameplay is average on the whole, you have the opportunity to grind at any point for equipment like I did, gaining tons of levels and learning spells as needed. Recruiting monsters is a simple set of four yes or no questions, while fusing monsters is fun for experimentation. Others have said that the latter part of recruiting monsters isn't as necessary, although I think it could be for getting Amon, Kirin, and Dragon, the three best non New Game+ monsters, to their highest potential. The last few bosses have tons of HP, so having them along to take blows is what I aimed to do. It all worked out. No intention of playing through a New Game+ though.