Nights of Azure 2: A disappointing sequel.

Never before have I seen a game so completely spoil the promise of it's predeccesor.

Nights of Azure was a gothic fairytale with sets ripped from an opera and game-play similar to PS2 era Castlevania.

Where do I begin?

Where the first game centered on the tragic love-story of a Saint set to be sacrificed and the lady-knight sent to lead her to her death on a sacred alter, the new game has become some strange harem that fails to sell the drama or the fanservice.

The summoning system and demonic transformations--gone.

Artfully-framed boss battles with memorable music? Replaced by a series of find the gimmick bosses.

What is a possessed floating fish named Joe even doing in a warehouse of oil barrels? Why is a woman fighting me to "save her friend from me" by trying to kill the friend, my party member? Why have all the servants suddenly changed from possessed toys and statues to actual beasts? Why does the party member who is coming with me wishing me good luck as I leave the hotel? The attention to detail that made the original a low-budget, highly stylized product is gone.

How come the blue-blood monsters that once shared the world with humans in the first game suddenly drove them out of the capital a few hundred years later int he second game?

The basement challenge dungeon? Gone and replaced by a swimming pool. Who needs gameplay when you can have low-resolution swimsuits?

And by bringing back a certain person mid-game, it invalidates nearly every one of the old game's endings.

I'm thoroughly disappointed. I would have been fine if the game went a different direction. In fact, treating the new heroine as a much weaker half-demon who must rely on friends and combos instead of summoning Balrogs with death-lasers and transforming into an invincible tank for 45 seconds at a time should have made for a very interesting second game.

It's just the execution of it all that sucks. The parry system, basic before, is gone. Any sense of tactics to the battles is gone. And the timer on boss battles means you can often lose to them simply by time-out, a lame gimmick to drag the game on.

Same with the larger cast. The potential dynamics, with a Frankenstein-esque demon researcher, opposing knightly orders, and an abandoned Church capital were great. It's a shame they aren't followed up on.