They gone ‘n dun It again in ‘ClaDun x2′

It's wallpaper. Get it.

I’ve been painfully behind on recent titles from one of my favorite localization houses. NIS America has put out Disgaea 4 and Atelier Totori in the last few months, and I haven’t even touched them. I haven’t played Ar tonelico 3 either.

Fortunately, I did get around to playing the PSP title CLADUN X2 after spending a little too much time with my treasured indie PC games.

The first game in the series, fun as it was, had a lot of weaknesses. There were too many dungeons before the ending; there were loads of unnecessary, meaningless dialogue sequences with even more unnecessary, meaningless characters that joined your party by default. There was also a little too much that remained unexplained or buried in multiple layers of tutorial.

So, how did the sequel improve? For the most part, developer System Prisma acknowledged the unnecessary stuff and simply cut it. Yes, there are still some key characters and dialogue. This time, what little exists makes more sense. It’s a simple plot you can follow, and the few characters have their personalities adequately fleshed out. This was a great decision, and I appreciated it immensely.

The Magic Circle will grow on you. Give it time. This is a great game mechanic.

As for the learning curve, I admit that I have some bias here because I played the first game, so there was less for me to learn. But I thought the tutorials were done well here, and the “advanced” gameplay mechanics were introduced in a timely manner. What perhaps helped the most was the introduction of a straightforward job system, with inherent difficulty levels accounted for in the notes.

I’d also argue that dungeon design is improved; less random, less massive and confusing. This does not mitigate the challenge, however. Learning the “Magic Circle” and how it can best help you is the key to progress, especially at the endgame (and post-endgame) dungeons. Up to 8 sub-characters can use their stats to support the single “main character,” that you choose to set. Add to that the ability to do job resets while maintaining a proportion of stat increases and all abilities learned, and there’s much more room for branching and good-times-having than in the predecessor.

Yet, as intentionally retro games go, I think I still prefer 3D DOT GAME HEROES, and as far as dungeon crawling Action RPGs go, I’ve had my fair share in the last few years, so this wasn’t scratching any critical itch in my brain.

Oh, and the music, while great (both live instrumentation and chipped), was largely borrowed from the first game. I would’ve liked more new tunes from Studio ZIZZ.

At its price point ($20), ClaDun x2 is a decent PSP game to own, but likely one you can live without. Fans of the first will enjoy the sequel even more, and supporters of these sorts of niche games will be pleased. I would encourage System Prisma to avoid making a third ClaDun for some time, and instead try out some new ideas in the interim. We’ll see what happens!

Played: 15 hours
Platform(s): PSP (PSN only)
Price: $19.99