I played and finished this long ago, right after I finished Summon Night, but I jumped right into several other games, so I never got round to writing about it. Well, there wasn’t much to write because Summon Night 2 is very much a direct sequel to Summon Night 1. The storyline is different, but a lot of the characters show up again, the battle system is exactly the same, almost all the summon creatures are carried over from the previous ones, the music sounds the same, etc.

The first thing I noticed when Summon Night 2 started was the improved character designs. Not vastly improved, they’re still rather ugly, but much, much, much better than the horrible things in SN1DS. It’s especially noticeable when you see characters like Mimoza and Gibson from the previous game (they play a big role in this one too but aren’t playable), and even the newer characters are cuter to look at, particularly the girls.

The other thing different, obviously, is the story and the main characters. I chose the girl named Triss. She’s a member of the Blue-something Summoning Guild [I keep forgetting the name, but it’s the same thing Gibson & co. belong to] but they treat her like trash for no good reason. The story starts with Triss qualifying as a full-fledged summoner and then immediately being cast out of the guild to “make a name for herself”, i.e. “GTFO and don’t come back.”

On her way out of town, she gets involved in an attempt to heal a girl with amnesia and finds herself in a village with a girl who can supposedly work miracles. This village is immediately attacked by mysterious Black Knights, and the story begins: Who are they? What do they want? Why does this girl have special powers? Why do Triss & co. throw everything away to protect a girl they only met five seconds ago? And will the girl with amnesia ever get her memory back?! (Shockingly enough, the answer is no.)

And…that was about it. It was pretty boring, to be honest. Fight random people, fight black knights, fight random people, fight black knights, long talking sequence, meet new characters and immediately bench them, etc. I bench every character after the first 8 or so because after every level up you get points to assign to stats. That means your homegrown characters are almost always stronger then new, pre-leveled ones, even if they’re the same level. While we’re at it, I should warn you not to bother trying to boost your MC’s magic. If she’s anything like my Triss, she will always be a crappy summoner in a party with three other better, stronger magicians. Her physical stats will be great through, so if I had to do it again, I’d make her a mighty warrior and call it a day.

The nice thing about Summon Night 2 is that the shops are slightly less expensive than those in SN1, or maybe you get more money from battles, I forget which. Either way it was easier to outfit your party properly without too much fuss as long as you didn’t get greedy. I still had to go for every other upgrade in order not to break the bank, but I managed quite well. The new mini-games are also more fun than those in the first one, especially the cake delivery and scratch card games, which I could play all day.

Since I was used to the system already, I blazed through the game with ease. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t really stick in my mind all that much. It’s not a bad game at all, in fact in many ways it’s much better than SN1. So I don’t know why I felt so bleh after finishing it, but somehow it’s put a damper on my Summon Night fever for now. Just for now. One day I’ll get Summon Night 3 and 4 for the PS2, and then we’ll talk again.

Related posts:

Summon Night X ~Tears Crown~ Summon Night DS Summon Night 3 – Fine game, but a little too long Summon Night Swordcraft Story – Slightly above average (spoilers)