X Change 2
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Reviewed by YYY
After a three year hiatus, the English localization of gender-bending, romantic visual adventure comedy X-Change 2 from Crowd has been completed and released by Peach Princess to much fanfare. X-Change 2 features a compelling story of male Takuya Aihara learning to understand women as he lives out a week in a female body, full voice support for main and supporting characters, improved game engine, higher graphic resolution, as well as all the formulas that helped make its predecessor X-Change a veritable success.
X-Change 2 is a sequel to one of Peach Princess 's best selling title X-Change . Takuya Aihara reprises his role as protagonist in X-Change 2 . Although no longer a woman, Takuya still has many nightmares of becoming a woman and facing subsequent rejection from girlfriend and childhood friend Asuka. After departure of the chemistry club president Asami Satou, the chemical genius responsible for turning Takuya back into a man again, Takuya unexpectedly earns the distinguished post of chemistry club president due to his seniority in spite of his utter incompetence in physical sciences. The chemistry club is still notoriously eccentric, perhaps even bordering on dangerous, as members of the club continue to suffer from unusual disorders and afflictions-of-the-week. Though Takuya is president, he prefers to steer clear of chemistry club to avoid a rerun of last year's episode. Yet, self-conscious of his unusually short male stature and lured by the promise of growing a few centimeters taller, Takuya volunteers as guinea pig for Chisato Kawahara's latest bizarre invention "Quick Revolution." The machine of course does not work as originally planned, or as the infomercials would say "results may vary," explodes with Takuya strapped into it, and surprise, surprise, turns Takuya into a woman again.
Much to Takuya's dismay, many classmates are ebullient over Takuya's new female body and can't wait to take a number for a chance to get jiggy with her. Takuya's girlfriend Asuka tries to lend a sympathetic shoulder for Takuya to lean on, but she gradually grows weary with Takuya's indecisiveness and appears to give Takuya the cold shoulder treatment whenever they meet. Despite receiving a lot of unwanted sexual advances, Takuya attempts not to lose his sights on his goal to return to his male body, and confess his true feelings to the girl he loves. During his week as a woman, Takuya is able to embark on several different adventures, a few of them include visiting the women's public bath; taking on a part-time job as a karaoke bar waitress, a tutor, or as a pinup model; shopping for lingerie; exercising your hidden thespian talents; or fighting off unwanted sexual encounters.
Crowd invested diligent effort to address many of the shortcomings of this title's predecessor, and increased the number of area options that Takuya may explore in a week. Each supporting character seemed to also have matured physically and psychologically, so Takuya's dialogue with everyone feels more substantial and natural than rehearsed stage directions from scripts. Judicious decisions at critical encounters will help to unlock new areas or help Takuya become intimately acquainted with new characters or new girls, thanks to Crowd 's excellent direction. When Takuya comes across a situation she feels ill coped for, she isn't always provided with a rosy solution to resolve an impasse . Takuya faces problems that aren't classical role playing decisions, such as heal the injured and you become good, kill a good character and you become evil, work for money with little regard for mores and you become a mercenary. Takuya may be a woman on the outside, but on the inside she has a male mentality, and that becomes a detriment instead of an asset when Takuya interacts with women soliciting her as a colleague for advice. When Takuya's female friends open up their innermost problems to her, she is not faced with a decision to "say the right thing to comfort her," but "how can I try to understand how she feels?" The same characteristic helps to set X-Change 2 apart from the crowd of Bishoujo games, instead of becoming just another Bishoujo game with fomulaic characters such as the childhood friend, the shy girl, the debutante, or the lolicon girl.
X-Change 2 doesn't need to played in dead earnest from beginning to end. One of the turnoffs of visual adventures is the inordinate amount of story text. Visual adventures can be especially hard to sell to gamers who don't have the attention span to read anything except the back of a cereal box. If the story is not only exceptionally long, but also so boring as to lose the interest of a gamer, you can just nail the coffin on it, end of story. X-Change 2 provides Takuya with more interesting supporting personalities, more awkward situations that unfold with hilarity, and several new mini-games to waste away the time on easy but fun challenges. Before Takuya is [unexpectedly] transformed into a woman again, Chisato Kawahara's persistent sales pitch of her "Quick Revolution" to Takuya is an amusing takeoff of Japanese infomercials, an offer which Takuya regards skeptically with good reason until he hears not only will the machine make him smarter, but also help him grow a few centimeters taller. During your tutor session, you can also play a simple hack-and-slash RPG that won't win any awards for creativity, but is an entertaining diversion from adventuring and reading. The way Takuya gloats after winning a bout, which your student declares as merely "a fluke," suggests that Crowd understands gamer's mentality well.
X-Change 2 was released within the same year that Tokimeki Check-In was, but the game engine seemed to have grown by leaps and bounds. Though graphics during the game are still at resolutions of 640 X 480, the opening is at resolutions of 800 X 600. Text is no longer overlayed on the CGs, but instead in a separate text box on the border of a clean and improved interface. If you missed reading or listening to a dialogue, X-Change 2 has an engine that supports unlimited undos, which is certainly a welcome addition. Have a CG that you wish to save as wallpaper but hate the tedious task of copying and pasting? The same game's engine now lets you save CGs on the fly. The "Load Game" option has also been drastically improved to let you replay all the important decision branches, all endings, and all ecchi encounters once you've come across them. Few visual adventure engines are this comprehensive to address the wants of a gamer. X-Change 2 accesses its music from CD-DA. The opening theme, ending theme and BGM can't top those in Tokimeki Check-In! , but they are pleasant to listen to during the game or in your CD player. There's nothing not to like about a soundtrack bundled with a game, and I love getting game soundtracks just for buying my games.
X-Change 2 is a near-perfect product with very few blemishes. Famous Bishoujo game music composer I'VE assumes responsibility for the opening and closing themes. I am generally fond of compositions from I'VE , but the singer for X-Change 2 's opening and closing themes sticks out as incredibly inexperienced. Her voice sounds weak and frail, she can't hit high notes, and sometimes sings off key. These were genuine observations that cannot be attributed to differences in stereo equipments.
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