Welcome to the stage of history. The history... of Tales. No, not Tails, the little orange guy who's never gonna reach puberty... ever, but the series. The Tales series may very well be the last living evidence that Wolf Team and Alfa System ever existed, and, quite frankly and honestly... the series never caught my eye. See, what Wolf and Alfa and Namco and Atlus and the like would do best is make games with a certain consistent look that, while polished, looks to the jaded gamer like a wash of stereotypical anime gargle made for single use and prompt spitting-out. While the graphics are charming, the rest of the package is... unremarkable.

Initial opinions spouted, there is a certain amount of... curiosity that consumes a lorehound like myself, so I dove into this one with an opened mind and came out... conflicted. First, this game looks gorgeous. There is no getting around that fact. The art is clean, the palate (while a wash of slightly irritating pastels) is very suiting and almost dreamy, and the animations are quite good and hella cute considering the system. (This might be me: I keep forgetting just how much data you can fit on a GBA cart...). I found myself gathering new outfits just to see the cute animations.

The sound, while well-balanced, is very 'there'. The tracks are catchy, but nothing will really stay with you. To explain the addictiveness (or lack thereof), one would have to explain the gameplay and plot... In this mixed RPG, you play as two spunky, over-excitable little kids who have just reached the age of adult-ness. Having done this (And had an impromptu “Save the World” interlude with three dying goddesses... like you do when you come of age...), you gain the ability of COSPLAY. I'm quite serious. Wikipedia tells no lies. The outfits that you can craft and find give you a sort of Job Change system, only no carry-over abilities like Final Fantasy. Add to this a menu-based, story-driven mission system, a few sprawling dungeon areas, and a cooking system, and you have Narikiri 2 in a nutshell.

Unfortunately, none of this ever takes any of the grindy-ness out of acquiring any of the items. The battle system just takes some of the fun out of discovering what all you can do. It's either stupid hard to do anything, or plug frigging' easy. They do get points for inserting other Tales characters; shows some effort in creating a universe. But even at it's hardest, it just doesn't come together in the end. Not a bad game, it's just not a very good one either. 6/10. Not even charm can save you this time, Wolf Team...

Creative Title. Decent review. Is this your first review? I think you could use a little more detail. The third paragraph needs to be a lot longer. That paragraph is the one that contains all of your information (in this case). You need to explain the game a little better. Not what the game is about, but it's pros and cons. Is the sound good or bad? Why? What makes it good or bad? Answer those questions with each of the categories that you rated and you have an excellent review.