Eureka Seven Vol. 2: The New Vision feels very much like the first Eureka Seven game not with a new coat of paint, but with different story segments spliced in. If the first game was any fun at all then this wouldn’t be a bad thing, but the original game was riddled with problems that have been faithfully recreated in the second installment. Fans of the show may enjoy themselves, but everyone else should stay away.
Throughout the game you’ll play the part of Summer Sturgeon. Summer has two problems going for him. One, his last name is a type of fish. Two, he doesn’t have a mind of his own – throughout the adventure Summer does nothing but follow around his girlfriend, do what she says, and try to keep her out of trouble. Somewhere a whip is cracking and Summer is snapping to attention because Suri needs something and Summer is just the mindless lapdog to get it for her.
Gameplay comes in three flavors: ground, aerial, and race. Ground combat is easy and repetitive. What little challenge there is comes from ambiguous mission objectives. Aerial combat sounds interesting, until you realize that instead of flying and dogfighting you’ll be twirling in circles on hoverboards blindly firing missiles and hoping one hits your opponent. To make matters worse the aerial combat sections are mandatory to progress the story. To break up the tedium that is ground and aerial combat there is also hoverboard racing. If the races worked as races then they might be a good time, but they’re broken. Get to close to the ground and you’ll get off your hoverboard. Get within ten feet of a wall and you’ll fall of the hoverboard, too.
Everything about Eureka Seven Vol. 2: The New Vision is a disappointment. There is something here for fans of the show if they can wade through the clunky controls, easy combat, and frustrating races, but even fans of the show would be better off reading a story synopsis than playing through the game. Hopefully we won’t see a third installment in this franchise, but if we do it’s a safe bet that it will play a lot like the two existing games: badly.
