PixlBit

I knew this game was coming to 3DS and Vita but until I saw a tweet from Atlus (oh god I actually said tweet didn't I?) I did not know there was a demo up on the eShop and PSN.

As soon as I got home from work I fired up my 3DS and downloaded said demo.

Conception II is the second game in the series but it is the first game to be released in North America. The first was released in Japan in 2012 for the PSP but never made it here. 

Fortunately for us II is a standalone story so no knowledge of the first one is required.

How do I begin to explain what I just played? Well I'll give it a try so here we go.

Conception II is an RPG with somewhat unique gameplay. Your character goes by the nickname of God's Gift and your mission is to create Star children and use them to defeat monsters in various randomly generated dungeons.

These Star children are created by getting to know the ladies of the Academy and taking them to church where you "classmate" with them. 

Now before all you dirty minded buggers get any ideas, "classmating" apparently involves holding hands and floating around as pink and blue featureless human shapes until you cook up your kid in a container that is chosen beforehand.

You can then decide on a name and class for your newborn. There are 30 classes to choose from. After that you form teams with your kids and off they go monster slaying (They grow up so fast. *sob*)

The turn based battle system is quite unique and looks like it will require strategy in the full game. On your turn you surround a monster with up to 4 teams, one made up of you and a lady friend and three teams of three Star Children. Each team appears to share a pool of HP and MP. Teams also attack as a single unit.

You can move the attacking team around the circle to hit the enemy's weak point and choose to use physical attacks or magic.

Buy performing certain actions you can "chain" an enemy making them slower and more susceptible to your attacks.

There are special team attacks which depend on your female team mate and the combination of Star Children in a particular team.

The enemies in the demo seemed extremely easy so I didn't have to use much in the way of strategy. In fact I set my guys on autopilot for many battles and survived.

Battles can be set on auto by pressing the X button. Pressing it again allows you to control what you and your lady friend do while leaving the kids to their own devices. In manual mode you choose what every team does.

There are no random battles. enemies are clearly visible as you roam the dungeon and can be avoided if they don't see you and charge at you. There are apparently three colours of monsters but I only remember seeing blue and purple. the colour indicates the monsters strength and you defeat blue monsters by simply running through them.

As in the Persona games the monster blobs you see moving around the dungeon are not indicative of the monsters you actually fight once the battle begins.

One thing I thought was cool is that you can use an item to discover how many monsters will be in a particular battle and what kind of monsters you'll face.

This demo is only about a half hour long but it does give you a taste of what you'll be doing in the full game.

After playing the demo this one is definitely on my list. 

In closing the best advice I can give you is that if you go into this game expecting the next Persona you are likely to be disappointed. Taken on its own merits this game has the potential to be a lot of fun. I guess we'll know for sure after April 15th.