Experienced players from the first game will feel right at home in the sequel. Insert new gaming heroine and you're basically playing the same game from last year with a different story. For those of you who missed it, here's a brief recap. Your playable character has a Rune Stone that lets her maintain control over monsters through the use of cards. These cards are collected, organized, upgraded, bought, sold, and used in battle throughout the game. This year there are about twice as many cards, and a couple of new categories have been added.

The basics of card play during battles have not changed at all. So, to avoid repeating myself, here is an excerpt from my Lost Kingdoms review.

These cards represent one of three types of creatures, weapon, independent, and summon. On top of that, each card/creature belongs to one of four elements, wood, earth, water, and fire (each stronger than the one that follows it, wood > earth). Weapon type creatures may often be used more than once before they are burnt, and they consist of a single attack emanating from where you stand. This is most akin to a regular action RPG and often appears as a sword slash or a fire beam or a claw swipe in real time. Summon creatures are called upon for a specific service and actually replace your character on the battlefield for a brief moment. They are very much like Final Fantasy summons where they will appear and perform an attack or heal and then fade away. These are burnt after one use. Finally, the most intriguing, Independent cards are thrown down on the terrain and spawn an ally creature. These creatures are computer controlled (so you can go on playing other cards) and perform actions such as attacking the opposing monsters, providing protection, or boosting strength. Independents have hit points, so they can actually be used across a span of battles before they are completely burnt.

Even though Lost Kingdoms II suffers terribly from sequel-itis (like any good summer movie), it is still improved over the first. Maybe From Software realized their own mistakes from the first game, or maybe they took our reviews and criticisms to heart. Looking back at my review again, I can honestly say that they covered or at least attempted to fix all the negative points I listed.

Although still a decently easy game, Lost Kingdoms II is a bit longer than the first but still nowhere near true RPG length. Just like the first though, there is the aspect of collecting all the possible cards in the game (around 200 this time), which adds considerable length past the end of the story. One major enhancement is the ability to re-enter levels as soon as you've completed them, where in the first you had to wait until you completed the game. Now, if you didn't get the rating you would've liked, or you just want to level up, you can immediately hop back in to any level you've cleared along the way. Battles all take place on the same map that you adventure on where before it confined you to a new battle area. It's a nice touch. That also goes hand in hand with the new camera and lock on system. Now, instead of only turning the camera 90 degrees at a time, you have full analog control over the camera with the c-stick. It's nowhere near a perfect camera as I usually find it too close or too high with no middle ground, but this is mostly made up for by the new intelligent lock on system. When enemies are close, a gold beetle flies out from our hero and circles the monsters. At this time, you can press up on the c-stick and enter lock on mode where the action becomes much easier to follow. You can also press left and right on the c-stick to move from one enemy to the next, or press back to disengage the lock on all together.

The graphics are much better than in the original. Character models for all the monsters look so much more detailed than before. The visuals were really a sore spot in Lost Kingdoms too, so it's great to see the developer take some care in making a better looking game instead of reusing all the old pieces. They've also added voices during many of the story sequences that aren't half bad. The music is the only thing that hasn't seen some kind of improvement.

Lost Kingdoms II is really just more of the same. I've really enjoyed both games mainly because of the interesting battle engine and card collecting, but the sequel hasn't done anything to push the envelope forward. Bonus points for addressing all the issues from the first game, but minus points for being pretty much the same game. Therefore, the same score applies.