Woah my first review on a modern game! Granted it's one modeled on early 90s RPGs. 8-bit Adventure 3 was actually something I've been looking forward to play for a while now. I eventually got it on sale after some delay. I really enjoyed it! I would be lying if I thought it was the most revelutionary RPG, but for something to get a retro RPG fix it's good.

The best place to start I suppose would be my least favorite aspects of the game. I really think that the dialogue get's very winded at times. Not as much as most people say it does, but sometimes it shows up at some of the most unnecessary times. I really think certain scenes would set in better if they didn't talk as much. It would be nice to take in the really beautiful artwork without Charlie or Fern (what I named the theif) pipping in to say "Gosh golly, isn't that beautiful kiddo!!" Or have more of the 'action' scenes to just be it's animation with limited speech.

My other issue with the game is the difficulty, it's way too easy. I appreciate the lack of needing to grind, it's actually a plus. I would like it to be harder though. I think I only heavily strategized on about 2 to 3 boss fights. The rest was a pretty simple routine of buffing/debuffing then crit godding with Charlie with support from Orlok(Mage) and Fern. I think my most useless party member was Duke(Warrior). Even Fern out damaged him and I found that his unique mechanic of choosing attack strength in trade of accuracy was pretty bad. You would really just do well by choosing Normal and leaving it at that. The only reason I would use him was to perform team moves.

Now that the negatives are out the way, the battle system itself was good. It's simple, but fun. I do think it fairly balanced power wise with party members, other than Duke and ROB. Duke for the previously mentioned reasons, ROB because after getting Orlok he becomes useless. I liked the Omega Burst a lot. I remember before Boss Fights I would go and fight some random encounters to build up my meter to use during the Boss. Fern's was probably the most useful for Bosses, with Charlie's coming in the close second if the Boss had goons. Being able to swap characters was also the second part of my enjoyment. I'm glad that swapping didn't take a entire turn or cost anything, it incentivized me to actually use it unlike some other games. It also caused me to not fully bench the deadweights.

As much as I critiqued the chatty speech of characters, the actual story wasn't bad. Pretty standard stuff, we need to save the world and along the way encounter Party Members blah blah blah. Although I was a bit surprised to my liking of the setting. The world really does feel alive, especially with the NPCs. Some dialogue choices actually effect future events. Like if you help the jewllery merchant get his wedding ring back, he shows up later on thanking you and starting a shop. Or the lady that you can tell to move back home will show up in that area when you arrive. It's mostly inconsequential things, but really made me more engaged into the world. I also like the mix of more Sci-fi elements and thought the inclusion of the Computer was unique.

I can't really consider this a negative, more of I suppose error on my part. I really should've played the first game before this. I feel as if I would've been more invested early on if I was actually familiar with the past trio of heroes. This isn't the fault of the game, as you really don't need to play the first title and it gives you pretty good context to past events. But no matter how much context is given, it could never really tell the full story. This really applies to Duke's and Fern's relationship, if I where to name specifics. I couldn't find myself to care as much as I cared for Charlie and the kung-fu blind chic that I can't remember her name. As I said before, my fault.

The only other things to talk about is the sound and art direction. To begin with the sound, it was good. There where a couple of stand out tracks like City Under Siege or The Power to Change the World. The rest where pretty fitting, but nothing particularly stand out. To move onto the art, it really is amazing. The sprites for the characters are rather simple, but have a nice appeal to them. It really does make me happy to watch them do exagerated expressions, especially with Charlie. The actual world is the really beautiful part of it all. I anticipated each new area, I think my favorite were the Fortress City when being attacked and City of Sound.

Overall, I reccommend giving 8-bit Adventure 2 a try if you want to play a modernized version of classic SNES RPGs. Not exactly a life changing game, but a worthwhile experience.