Sewing near me

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KEY NOTES:

• Rogue-lite/turn-based gameplay
• No voiced dialogue
• Multiple Endings
• ~30 Hours to clear the game
• Directly follows after the events of the 1st Game

INTRODUCTION
Back in 2020, NIS released void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium (VT1) which didn't seem to sell particularly well. The game remained quite unknown to many people to this day even when compared with other NIS' niche games. Despite that, the game had won the hearts of a small fanbase with its fun rogue-lite combat loop, the charming characters and the surprising emotional story beats. About 3 years later, the sequel finally gets released in the west. For people new to the games, I highly recommend checking out my Review of the first game since it will cover overlapping content that aren't necessarily covered here.
Void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium 2 (VT2) is essentially more of the same from the first game, but with some new gameplay changes.
STORY
VT2 begins right after the events of the first game and the Terrarium trio has moved to a new location. In addition to adapting to their new home, they also start investigating into Toriko's origins, the last surviving human on the planet.
Like the first game, VT2's story is filled with happy and sad moments that did an excellent job of making me interested in seeing where the story was heading to despite not a whole lot actually does happen. Fans of the first game will most likely feel the same level of investment here. What VT2 does different and a bit better is that there is a story direction right at the start. It didn't feel as aimless as seen in the majority of VT1.
If you wanted another roller coaster of emotions, then VT2 is the ticket that delivers. I didn't expect to experience the same level of raw emotions as the first game, but the second game had surprisingly exceeded it.
CHARACTERS
The three returning characters are as lovable as they were in the first game. They haven't really changed much either. Robbie is still the loyal and kind robot. FactoryAI is still the very expressive chatterbox, but her fondness for Toriko may have reached a new level.
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As for Toriko, she remains as cute and adorable as ever, but her new animations and interactions have allowed her to seemingly express even more of herself than before.
Toriko has picked up a few new tricks
ART DIRECTION/GRAPHICS
The graphics hasn't changed a whole lot from what I noticed. It is still quite beautiful during the Terrarium scenes. VT1 seems to have more vibrant colors while VT2's colors are "softer" in comparison which I think looks a bit more pleasing to me.
The graphics in the dungeons remains pretty mediocre and uninspiring, but they weren't very noticeable as I went through my exploration runs.
MUSIC
The music style hasn't changed much either. The dungeon music range from upbeat techno music to relaxing atmospheric ones. I think the quality is roughly the same for both games so I still enjoyed the music here.
GAMEPLAY
At its core, the gameplay loop for VT2 is nearly the same as VT1. Go to the dungeons, reach the end or until you die, collect any blueprints and materials you find along the way, return to the Terrarium hub, feed and interact with Toriko before going back to the dungeons.
This is part rogue-lite so your level and skills obtained will reset back to the default each time you die or return to the Terrarium. Items obtained are converted into one of the four main resources in the game which are used to craft things. Resources are noticeably more in abundance this time around even Contaminated ones so you can craft most of the blueprints as you obtain them. The items you do keep are food items, blueprints, and special items needed to craft blueprints.
Fortunately, these games aren't too challenging in progressing compared to other rogue games. You can permanently increase your stats by crafting blueprints. All of them except for clothing related ones come with a permanent stat upgrade when crafting it for the first time. It gives you a steady pacing of progression just like a typical JRPG so it's not too demanding or stressful on the player.
The core gameplay loop aside, there are some new changes and mechanics.
DUNGEONS
Dungeons are now connected with each other so instead of picking one dungeon from a list and then going directly to them, you start at the same one in the beginning and then eventually get to branch out at the later ones during the same expedition. It was annoying at first that you have to keep running through the same dungeons just to reach other dungeons, but fortunately, you will eventually get shortcuts that allows you to skip ahead. Although, you might not always want to do that considering your level will always be at one at the start and the tough enemies found in the later dungeons do not scale down to you.
New to dungeons are the portals that randomly appears on a floor and will transport you to a random mystery room. The concept is similar to the Mystery Rooms in the Disgaea games, but aren't as varied. Nevertheless, they provide helpful benefits for entering them which includes items and even a bonus temporary skill. Probably most important is the room with the gem trader.
One of the few mystery rooms in the game where you can get a free item
You can collect gems for completing various tasks. The time allowed for the tasks reset after a set amount of expeditions, but are generally very simple to do. The tasks mostly involve defeating a certain type of enemies x amount of times, use an item x amount of times or just clear a specific dungeon. The gems can be used to trade for special items from the trader. The concept sounds nice in theory, but I found it to be not as good as I'd liked.
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First, it takes a while to accumulate a decent amount of gems. The reset period is often too long so there is a noticeable gap as to when your supply just stops increasing for a while. The second issue I had was that the gem trader's appearance is too reliant on RNG. It's already random if a mystery room portal would appear, but there's a second level of RNG with its appearance too. If the trader's inventory was just decent and not that important, then I wouldn't be bothered as much. However, the trader has many exclusive robot customization blueprints so being able to get them is key to creating and customizing for fun builds.
It will take a really long time to clear out the Gem Trader's inventory
Other than the above points, the dungeons and its mechanics remains the same. Dungeon layouts are randomly generated so none of the floors are fixed.
In addition to the returning Endless Dungeon where time stops outside and you can go on an infinite dungeon expedition until you die, there's a new optional Danger Zone dungeon. This actually consists of five separate dungeons each with a noticeably higher difficulty. All of them have only 11 layers with the first and last completely voided of enemies. The first layer has four random items to start with. The last has unique blueprints on the first run and the special exclusive Gold materials needed to make them. These blueprints are meant to be made multiple times to essentially power up for the end/post game. Most are stat upgrades, but others provide certain effect upgrades like Critical Chance % Up.
Each Danger Zone level is meant to prepare you for the next one considering the high difficulty of each subsequent one. The optional dungeons are great if you want to reach an even higher level of power than before, but it can be a pain to clear. Other than simply power grinding the permanent stats for it which may take a long time, it heavily relies on good RNG to clear them otherwise. The initial items you get are very important to determine how you fare and in many cases, make or break your expedition.
TORIKO CARE
Other than enemies and the items in the dungeons, you have to pay attention to Toriko's condition while she's left back at the Terrarium. The tamagotchi-like image in the bottom left corner of the screen will reflect her condition. The hearts represents her health gauge which if she loses all of it, will be a Game Over. The Pet Nanny system is available right at the start and allows you to deal with the issues that will routinely arise such as clean the terrarium or play with her. The system is usable anytime during an expedition at the cost of some EN points. A new function allows you to even feed her food that you already have. It does not recover any hearts like when you feed her directly back at the Terrarium, but it will at least stop her hunger momentarily and prevent her from losing any more hearts.
Even if you prevent her from losing all of the hearts, if you let her Terrarium continue to pile up the dirt without promptly cleaning it, she may fall ill regardless. The same would happen if she gets bored and you don't play with her.
In regards to her illness, many of them return along with some new ones. They range from minor tame ones like Toriko suddenly become pixelated to more disturbing nightmare fueled ones. Treating them is a bit different this time around too. Before, an illness would unlock a temporary new dungeon that has the material needed to treat it. This time, all of the materials needed will be placed in one of the currently available dungeons. Furthermore, the time duration to cure her has been extended for some of the illness. It just took one expedition to normally cure her before, but a few now requires multiple expeditions and it's not because more materials are needed. It's because it just takes several expeditions for Toriko to recover after administering the medication. For some, it can take up to 5 expeditions which can be a hassle. You can't advance the story while Toriko is ill or while she is recovering from an illness.
COMBAT
The combat itself hasn't changed much. Despite how it may seem, the underlying mechanic for the combat is turn-based. Characters move on an invisible grid and each action takes a turn. If you're standing completely still, then enemies don't attack or move. Any action other than simply changing the direction you are facing counts as a turn. That said, some of the higher tier enemies are allowed multiple actions per turn up to about three. In those cases, those enemies can attack or move more than once before you can take a subsequent action. With these information in mind, you can slowly take your time to calculate your next move and approach accordingly adding a decent layer of strategy to the game.
It's worth noting that health will regenerate at a slow pace unless you're poisoned. It is also based on turns so if you stand completely still, your health will not regenerate.
Other than attacking with melee, you can throw bombs at enemies. In addition, you can activate gadget items for various effects. Active Skills are high powered attack skills with various effects and can be very strong. The drawbacks to them are the turn cooldown after using them and that they cost EN to use each time. EN is Robbie's endurance gauge which continuously drains as you go through the dungeons. Once it reaches 0, your health regeneration stops and instead, health starts to decrease instead. EN can be recovered using items like Batteries.
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One new notable change with the combat mechanics involve the weapons, armors and the Active Skills. With Active Skills before, you have a chance to learn them on level up as a random skill. Now, they aren't included as part of the pool anymore and are instead attached to weapons as a skill there. You can level up weapons with continuous use. Each new level unlocks a passive skill or effect which may include a straight stat boost or a new Active Skill. It was fun to unlock new levels especially since they are permanent upgrades. If you find the weapon type again on a subsequent expedition, the level will be the same as where it left off before giving an additional sense of progression in this game.
Armors have their own levels and effects as well
The biggest change with the combat comes from the skills you get on leveling up. The skills seems to have been re-balanced with many new ones. The OP builds from the first game don't exist anymore especially with the high criticals and evasion builds based on the mods in your inventory. The evasion skills in general have practically been removed other than maybe one. It took out part of the fun for me, but at least this game gave more varied builds to work with instead. The addition of the different weapon and armor effects also help in creating different builds.
ROBOT CUSTOMIZATION
While the vast majority of blueprints consists of Terrarium objects, there are some that directly affects the customization and builds you can experiment with. First are the Knacks which are labeled like various job classes (Fighter, Assassin, Berserker, etc..). They affect the type of skills that are more likely to appear on level up. So for Offensive Oriented Knacks like Berserker, more offensive related skills would more likely to appear. You can have up to 3 Knacks equipped to further focus on a combination of skills.
You can equip up to four customization parts which have various effects including decrease chance of a specific tier of skills to show up on level up. You can also have three or four skills show up on level up instead of the default 2. Finally, you can also have a chance at picking an additional skill instead of just one for each level up.
The last major customization mechanic is the Skill Removal. The general Skill Removal blueprints allows you to outright remove specific skills from even appearing at all thus increasing the chances of obtaining the other skills.
The combination of the three major customization functions in addition to the weapon/armomods you can find, all help to create a build you can experiment with for a more varied experience.
TERRARIUM
Customizing the Terrarium was surprisingly addicting in VT1 and a big component of why I enjoyed these games so it was great to see that it has been improved greatly in VT2. The new Terrarium has a flat ceiling and side which makes it seemingly larger in size than the previous one. This allows you to fit more things inside which will delight people who are fans of the customization. The number of different Terrarium blueprints are quite large which includes many (if not all) of the ones from VT1 and its DLC.
The new atmosphere type objects will change the Terrarium BGM
NIS took it one step further by adding up to three total Terrariums to use at a time and even allow saving Terrarium settings so you may quickly switch back and forth.
The Terrariums aren't connected directly so Toriko won't be able to cross one to another by herself. You would have to manually hold Toriko's hand and walk with her to another one. Fortunately, the distance between each one are noticeably small so it's not a long trip.
To my great delight, Toriko will interact with more things now such as picking up a feather duster and dusting some objects. She will even dust Robbie at times. A fun past time that involves Robbie is playing catch with her which has them throwing a ball back and forth between the two.
Toriko doing her part to keep the Terrarium clean
You can still play hide and seek with her
Then there are some subtle actions from Toriko that makes it feel like she is more alive than before. Every now and then, she would just smile and follow you around. When you return from an expedition, she sometimes stands by the edge of the Terrarium and welcome you back with a wave. Interacting and spoiling Toriko had never been more fun.
GROWING PLANTS
A major new function of the Terrarium now involves growing plants and small trees. You can craft a seed which would quickly grow so that you can eventually harvest them. When you harvest a plant, you get to use it as a Terrarium object, but more importantly, you can obtain various "Cores" which are items needed to craft some blueprints. It is annoying that harvesting a Core is random and not a guarantee.
You can also obtain clothing blueprints from harvesting. Fortunately, you get a new seed after harvesting so you don't have to craft new ones unless you want to grow multiple at a time.
The growing process is short in steps, but does take a while to complete in-game. It goes through three phases which starts with the planted seed, half grown and then full maturity. It takes one expedition to reach the half grown phase and then another to fully grow it. You have to water it one time each for the first two phases. It's a simple process, but having to go through two expeditions just to reach full maturity for harvest does take longer than I'd liked. Especially considering it's not a guarantee to get a Core from it or a clothing Blueprint.
There is an added layer for growing plants that can be tricky at times depending on how many concurrent different plants you are growing together. Each plant requires the Terrarium's temperature and humidity to fall within a certain range for it to actually grow. Temperature and humidity slightly fluctuates after every expedition, but to make significant adjustments to them, you can install electronics like heaters or various Terrarium plants/objects to change the values. If you're growing just one plant or multiple copies of one type of plant, then it's not really an issue dealing with that. But if you're growing different ones together then getting the right amount to overlap can be tricky. Furthermore, extreme temperature and humidity can get Toriko sick if she's inside that specific Terrarium.
It's nice to see Toriko helping out, but it does not count as watered if she does it
Overall, it's a nice new mechanic to the game even if I had some issues with how they worked.
SIDEQUESTS
For those that have played VT1, it might be surprising to hear about the existence of sidequests. They do in fact exist in VT2 and they actually make up a large portion of the overall game. The sidequests consists of mostly fetch quests where you have to find certain items in the dungeons and then bringing it back to craft something else. It doesn't sound all that interesting, but you can take care of those along with any story related expedition at the same time so it's not really going out of the way too much. The rewards are more blueprints which are very helpful.
Surprisingly, I thought the story related to these quests are quite good. I got emotionally invested in a number of them and despite the large amount of them, they are very well worth completing just to experience that. That said, most of the story isn't directly related to the main story.
FINAL REMARKS
Overall, VT2 is very much like VT1, but with a bit more content and changes. Fans of VT1 will likely enjoy what VT2 has to offer, but those that were expecting a full blown set of changes and additions to the overall game might be disappointed with it.
The story has its relaxing moments, but as expected, some pretty powerful emotional moments as well. The endings had lingered in my mind days after viewing them. The more focused story direction early on is appreciated.
I had mixed feelings about the new skills and its rebalance, but trying to experiment with new builds was still an enjoyable process.
While VT2 does directly follow right after VT1, you can technically jump straight to VT2 and understand much of it since VT1 wasn't that plot heavy to begin with. That said, I highly recommend starting with the first game to familiarize and appreciate the characters and the world. It makes the events of VT2 much more powerful and meaningful if you do.
I sincerely hope that a third game will be developed which will be a Day 1 purchase for me.