Pro's
Its Mugen Souls 2
Lots of clothing options
Overwhelming in all areas
Potentially countless hours of gameplay
Random events in Mugen Field
Lots of characters
Con's
GRINDFEST
Excessive cutscenes
Mugen Field bugs
Censorship
G-Castle battles still bad
Not aged well
DLC Tickets ruin the game once again
Obnoxious pay to bypass grind DLC
Too many different mechanics going on
Heavily recycled content
Incessant back tracking
Crafting required to progress story
Obnoxious challenge mode
Lacks critical information
Okay, so I originally had MSZ on PS3 and enjoyed the game back in ""2014"" and decided to replay in 2023 and honestly, that was a mistake because the rosy memories I had back then, and playing now are different and I can attribute that to age, the game just hasn't aged well at all and I'll explain further.
You have far too many types of grind going on, most notably the typical PEON grind which is still fairly obnoxious and will keep presenting you with hard brick walls forcing you to peon farm for basically hours in order to level up ChouChou different forms which is essential for progression, this grind is entirely forced and absolutely slows the pace of the game down to an entire crawl at times, especially at certain chapters and grinding for 3 - 5 hours in order to gain a few % in Ego/Ditz/Hyper etc becomes essential to unlock certain planet points otherwise you end up failing each and every time, generating frustration and boredom, not to mention that farming PEONS is also essential to level up G-Castle otherwise you can find yourself in very very difficult, or near impossible situations to progress.
Add in farming for multiple currencies to unlock more options, upgrade gear, unlock new classes which become equally grindy and really require high level Mugen Field trips and some lucky encounters, alternatively looking at specific guides, in fact often using a guide is the only way to avoid some of the frustration from unlocking some planet points because sure, it gives you some clues but never on what 'level' you need a particular % of the Ego to successfully charm it.
To once again, further add to the grindfest is that you'll run into many planet points that require a specific item to unlock, and in Mugen Souls Z.... its crafting + gold to buy from stores, example one planet point may want a parasol beam for instance, well you can't just outrightly buy it....so, get a guide online, look up what materials you need to craft it....find the specific monsters you need to drop the materials...and farm...until they drop, or attempt to steal with Nao or a "chaser" class, but once again - this isn't something that can be done quickly.
The story first time around is pretty good, I'll not lie - second time around, honestly? I'm literally skipping all the cutscenes, and story because it gets literally excessive, fight a few mobs and hit a story point...5 minutes of visual novel story...a few minutes of walking to the next story point for another 5 minutes of story, this becomes far too frequent and first time, its good....second time doing it, boring and definitely excessive, another gripe is that the game doesn't tell you enough details, such as that unlocking more Mugen field options is now done via challenges unlock the previous game, or that crafting is done by selling your materials to the store, or even how to activate things like fever mode - and breaking large crystals are still annoying as heck, honestly I just really wouldn't recommend MSZ to only the hardcore of JRPG fans who haven't played the original, which is honestly a better game overall.
Mugen Field is once again, the best way to level up - however, its not nearly as good as the original Mugen Souls game, a lot less ship battles for quick EXP for example, and mostly serves as your best method to farm PEONS by repeating the field day in, day out....day in, day out all the way up to level 9999 or until you get bored, whatever happens first - or if you are vested heavily enough to get the 'true ending'
Besides gamebreaking bugs which are notorious, especially with the mugen field, they also decided to add a challenge mode which is nessessary to unlock further mugen field exploration, and bear in mind here - this is almost ""mandatory"" and some of the challenges are absolutely disgustingly obnoxious, not because they are hard - nono, they require absolute precision especially the later challenges which require sheer perfection, such as activiting fever mode twice....its actually pretty difficult to activate it once, let alone twice and the challenges just get more frustrating and unfortunately, this is the best way to earn tickets outside of a rare event in Mugen Fields....or buying them for $3.99.
Overall, MSZ is a relic of the past and for people who have never played Mugen Souls or Mugen Souls Z before, I'd actually recommend the game but be heavily warned that this is fairly hardcore and comes from the era where grindfest level JRPGS were commonplace, the story first time around is great, many different characters each with their own quirks and plenty of customization options but this is a game that has extremely limited replayability, if any - I've beat this game fully nearly a decade ago and replaying it has definitely tarnished my good memories of it.
