AOT: 2 is a game was developed by Omega force and Toei Temco the studios responsible behind most of the Hack and slash games, such as Dynasty warrior, One piece and the Original AOT- Wings of Freedom . The game came
out 2 years after the first one on March 2018. Within it's year of release the game had a number of DLC. A year later in 2019 the game Aot2: Final Battle was released and it acts exactly like the Game of the year edition of other games. By that it means that that the game
includes both Aot 2 and the DLC that came after it.
What is AOT?
AOT is an acronym used in place of Attack on Titan. Attack on titan is a popular manga series written by Hajime Isayama. The franchise receive it's anime series in 2012 and skyrocketed it's popularity. The series were so popular
that even main stream media covered their success. The series focusses in a world where Humanity is going up againts Giant genterless carnivores who seem to be trying to excting humanity. To counter this, the Human race developed their
Omni directional gear, a weapon that shoots angors to allow them to elevate with the help of a special gas, and use two blades to cut the back part of the titan's neck which is their weakest point. As the series proceed things
become more comvoluted. As of the writting of this,(Jan 2022) The series had 5 seasons (1,2,3a,3b,4) with the final season in the horizon currently airing, plenty of OVAs focussing on different aspect of the story, 3 novels, plenty of
animated movies(recapping the episodes), 2 live action adaptations and 34 Manga volumes.
Story and Expedition Mode
The game has two main game modes, Story mode and Another Mode.
In Story mode the player goes through the original story mode of the attack on Titan Season 1 and season 2. However unlike the first game, the sequel allowed the players to create their own Custom character and involve him/her in the story.
On the oppenning cutscene where the titans first break the wall the players are met with a first person prospective of an individual who similar to the iconic trio of Eren,Mikasa and Armin are running from the titan invantion. With the appearance of the armor
the nameless hero losses his family due to falling rocks. While feeling sorry for themselves, Kid Eren's word about getting revenge and killing all the titans motivate the hero to join the survey corps. The story then proceeds to play the events as they are meant
to however, the players hero is always placed in the scene, not adding anything new but also not changing anything. For example, although the hero is beeing praised for his abilities , he never finishes on top 10 of the class cause thats established in Lore that
these spots were taken from the 104th canditates. However it does become a matter that the heroes will discuss with the OC. The story of the game tells the story of the original
season 1 and season 2, and very similar to the first game the developers once again added their own ending which once again does not change anything from the original story. What it means is that the last mission, could have been part of the actual story as it never adds or
removes anything established and its just an action pack episode with cool boss fights and concepts.
The Good and bad of the story
The story of the game is not originall and it shouldn't be. It tells the story of both season 1 and season 2 which is approximately the first 40 episodes of the show. The story is delivered through dialogue, in game cutscenes and fantastic prerender cutscenes that when placed
side by side with the anime shows an amazing resemblance. The studio made sure to treat this property with respect to the source material. Several Cutscenes are also delivered through the Nameless Hero prespective (which is first person for the player) and it works in all cases.
The players feel like their hero is in the tale. Ofcourse it should be stated how there is a fair ammount of cutscenes that have been taken directly from the first game and that there's another fair ammount of scenes where the cutscene was taken from the first game and simply had
a different camera angle. This reusing aspect is very noticable for those who might ve played the original game.Furthermore, the story of the game consist of 75% season one and only 25% for season 2. Key points about the story is that:
Good:It tells the story of the first two seasons in a good way
Good:It tells a complete tale for the custom hero
Good:Not knowing the lore of the series doesnt matter as the game covers it for any newcommer
Good:The story can be enjoyed in CO-OP with up to one more friend.
Bad:It's story 75% the same with its prior title.
Bad:(Not relatable to the author) but game is Japanesse Audio only.
Inferno mode is a game mode that becomes available once the game is finished and it's litteraly the same story with the difficulty increased. It's litteraly the definition of the New Game + found in every other game. The titans are more aggresive and have more healthbar. The
rewards of Inferno mode re simply better craftable objects to create more powerfull weapons.
Another Mode on the other hand is more about , open the game select a character, choose a mission and enjoy the game. It is exactly the same as Expedition mode found in the first entry, same lobby, abit more NPCs but plays exactly like it.No story mode and ofcourse no need to
be cannon in any way. In other words the player can fight three different female titans and there won't be any problem lore wise. In another mode the players are placed on a hub world where they can upgrade their characters and check the online rewards and challenges. In the hub world the
players can only visit the store to purchase materials and the crafter in order to forge better equipment. At the same time the player can talk to two different NPC. One of them marked with SOS allows the player to search for distress signals in order to join somebody who is searching for a partner.
The other one allows the players to create their own lobby and select a mission that they wish to replay or simply need help with. In online mode the player can forge a party up to 4 players. There is no character lock, so if every player wants, they can all choose to be Levi Ackerman.
The missions that are available to play are the missions the host player unlocked during solo campaign.
NOTE: the following paragraphs are taken directly from the first review (Aot2), as it's literally the same game. Below the paragraph about the gameplay adds the new content found in Final battle.
Gameplay
There is a total of thirty eight (38) different heroes for the player to choose from however unlike the prior entry most of them feel very similar. Ofcourse some heroes vary with each other but thats just selecting the special individuals. For example similar to the orginal game selecting
heroes like Levi and Mikasa allow for the player to have multiple dashes and multiple blade strikes. Playing with heroes who re titan shifters such as Annie, Eren Reiner etc are very basic in terms of their manuvering however their special attacks allows them to temprarily transform
into their titans in order to mellee a few titans.
NOTE:It's Important to state that most of the 38 heroes are simply Reskins of others and not new. They use the same animations and same abilities.
The bigger deal with Aot2 though is the creation of the player's Custom Character. As mentioned AOT2 tells the story of the nameless hero whose story coexist with the heroes of the series. The players are given a small amount of options to customise the appearance of the hero. It's a small
selection of character creator but it more down to "Earth." Similar to every anime game, the custom creator allows the player to select a gender between Male and Female. Once the gender is chosen the players get to choose the proposions of the hero's Height,Head, torso arms and legs. Following
the selection the player can choose a haircut, eyes and pupils along with their colours. There are no bizzare options such as bright red or anything like that. The options that follow are nose, eyebrows mouth and outline of the face including injuries if any. Furthermore, the player can choose
the outfit of the hero such as the innerwear, the jacket and the boots. With the exception of the innerwear the rest two are mainly colour paletes, where as the inner wear has a variety of shirts such as hoodies, jackets, shirts vest etc. The last two options are optional cosmeticks such
as face masks, flowers, scarfs and glasses and the voice of the hero.
Basic Gameplay
The game starts by dropping the player into a huge sandbox. Theres a fair amount of maps to play which is a genuine nice thing to have . Once the mission begins the players 're free to do whatever they like. On the minimap on the right theres a red Exclanation mark.
The mark represents the main event. Once the player heads over to that area, the main enemy of the mission will appear, and the moment it is killed the game is over, unless it's a story event which upon completion might spawn a different one. However it
is not recomended to go straight there because the player wont get enough points, materials and etc, unless the main goal is to finish the game. The red mark should be left till the end. The minimap will have a set of green exclanation marks which act as
side missions. Side missions are mostly in the form of:
go there kill the titans to protect the certain person who set the green flare
kill the titans and escort that person to a different area
protect the civilians who re in the nearby area
Succesfully dealing with green signals will most likely allow the player to reroup that person in the players team/party or the NPC will build a better base. In the game the hero might start alone but in most cases he'll have three lower class soldiers in their team. The green signals are mostly main characters
from the series. The more side quests completed the more warriors will join the battlefield. Regrouping soldiers in general is easy, simply approach the soldiers and Interact with them. The gameplay similary to all games of it's genre is simple. The player will have to approach an enemy and then lock on an.
Changing the locked target can be acquired with R3. Targeted Limps with a golden rock means that upon dismantling them they will reward the player with a crafting item. Once the limp of preference is locked on a titan, the player will have to shoot their anchors on the enemy. Once the anchors are set,
the player can use their gas to build speed and then use their attack button to slice that part of. If the playable character has chain attacks, continue to tap triangle to continue attacking. There is no need to relock or shoot the anchors as it auto aims. New to the game is the base structures, the assists, the perfects dodge and the sneak attacks. To elaborate on each:
Assists
Each hero who joins has a small simple below their face. Blade means that individual will attack the target,sun means the hero will shoot a stunt granade, healling bottle will heal the player, blade and up arrow means they will boost the teams confidense (very similar to heroes ultimate). Individuals who re
ranked with A and S have a stronger Assist however, they have a longer cool time. Heroes ranked with A will make an attack that will either:
Launch a powerfull attack on the titan's neck (E.G Mike,Jean),
others will remove the titans arms (Petra,Connie)
others will transform to their titans where the player will control them(Eren(And the others in another mode))
others will cut the titan limps and attack their necks (Levi, Mikasa)
others will capture titans (Hange, Shasha)
Every hero including low ranks will always rescue the player if a titan captures them.
Perfect Dodge
As the name suggests, if the player perfect dodges an enemy grap, an animation will be triggered where the hero will dodge the attack and procceeds to heavily damage the neck
Base Structures
Similar to the first game the player can build a base at given points (giant white circles). Each time a base is build, the heroes are given resources such as blades, gas, granades specials. Unlike the prior game the game offers a bigger selection of bases. Some bases:
Automatically Attack titans
Detonate when come in touch
Provide supplies
Builds a canon that the player can use
Rewards more items based on times and performance
Builds statues that boosts the heroes abilities the more the players build
Sneak Attack
By holding the button down the player will enter in a sniper/telescop like view, in order to aim. Once your target is lined up, press the attack button to charge towards the titan with amazing speed. Once close to the tian, pressing the attack button will trigger a cutscene and deal a great ammount of damage. Keep in mind while in
the sniper view, a titan will react fast and target the hero with the purpose of killing him.
The Titans
The titans come in various sizes and various speed levels. They have 5 different health bars, 4 for limps and 1 for neck. The player can chop all of them but unless they kill the neck the dead limps will regrow within a specific time. The titans try to kill the NPC alongside
the player and also they destroy the map. Normal titans can deal damage to the hero by grapping them. If the team doesnt help the grapped player, they will be required to spam the attack button. But dont worry,
normal titans are nothing to be scared of as they re easy to be dealt with. However, The final kill or the black signal aka Desicive signals are different. These Titans in higher level missions they come with a bigger healthbar and the players will be task to first chop every
single limp before they 're allowed to target and attack the titan's neck. In other cases the final kills might be a fake version of the Armor Titan, Female titan or even the Beast titan. These titans very similar to the other special ones, re reguired to first have their limps
removed before approaching the neck. However, they re faster and they deal damage without even the need to grap. The decisive signals mention prior are the blacked smoked signals that appear after specific criteria are met. When starting a game, press they touch pad on the controller , Select Missions Task and there
should be some smaller tasks that need to be taken cared of before the final titan kill in order for the black signal to be spotted. These small Missions are in the form of, kill a number of titans, do this amount of side missions, make sure to regroup a certain hero Or
even don't let any scout to die. Last but not least, as mentioned before some of the limps of the titans have a rock symbol onto them. This means that when the specific limp is chopped , the character will obtain a crafting material. A major complain about the game is that in the old game, special
titans were actually special and had a different way of approaching them. The sequel however, went easy mode and made the special titans push overs. In order to defeat them, the hero will have to attack NOT cut the limp with the green light in order to stagger the titan and expose their necks.
Hub-world
While outside of missions, the game turns into a social simulator where the nameless hero can interact with the heroes . While interacting the game gives various of dialogue options (up to three) that the hero can use. Each answer is importaant as they boost the friendship and trust levels between
the hero and the heroes. Boosting characters is important as the more they level up they re willing to teach their skills. For example, Levi when reach level 8 of friendship will teach the multistrike to the hero while Mikasa will teach him double dash. On the other hand other heroes will teach the hero
about teamwork and dexterity which on their own are responsible for the assist cooldown reduction or the speed of the character. These RPG elements add alot to the character as all of them are essential and needed. The way confidenseis built, is through dialogue options, usage in compat and ofcourse
giving them presents. It's important to give heroes items that they like and not simply any item. For example, Levi will be happy with tea, Shasha with meal and Hange with Titan books.
Capturing Titans
Capturing titans is very simple. Similar to the gas,blades and nades, the special menu has a net that represents capture. The hero can capture most of titans either on his own or through the use of an assist. Titan capture is essential, as in the hub world there is a location where the players will
get their result on the capture point.Leveling the room allows for more options to be crafted such as flash granade and smoke bombs. Most significant is the fact that the more it levels the player can create more styles, speed base ,attack base etc. The leveling occurs based on the titans captured, small,
big medium size and whether or not they were abnormal. In order to capture a titan the player can do the followings.
Small Titans: On small titans simply using the capture key will most likely work on capturing them
Medium Titans: In order to capture them, certain limps must be removed.
Large Titans: In order to capture a large titan all limps must be removed.
A titan cannot be captured if its a special, and every titan captured will reward the player with the crafting material (if any). Any titan captured can still escape, and the player will receive a notification. Special Capture assist does not require limp cutting.
Final Battle
The first and most noticable change between the two games is that the games Main menu offers two new options.
Character Episode
Territory Recovery Mode
Character Episode is a gamemode that allows player to play through Events that occur in OVAs, Novels and ofcourse the entire Attack on Titan Season 3 part A and part B. However unlike the original story mode, the game is played through the prospective of the hero who was near the event and not the Custom Character in a mission
select screen. For Example, the first mission finds Armin as the playable hero, who return to the base after the events of the second season. The following linked mission focusses on narrating what happened between the last episode of season 2 and season 3. (The political coup e'tat that found the wings of freedom guilty and Eren and Historia a threat).
The next few missions have Levi as the main Character who is up againts none other than Kenny.
Missions found in Character episode have three forms, Compat (With either Titans or Humans), Dialogue (images of the events with dialogue) and one in one compat with a boss level titan.
The stories covered are :
Season 3 part A and part B
Season 3, through the eyes of other heroes
The OVA with Annies Story during the first appearance of the Female Titan
The Warriors Bertold and Reiner (during missions like Trost, their defeat from survey corps season 2 and season 3 part B)
Extra mission that were left open in the series such as Zeke's Escape plan with Reiner and the Cart Titan, and the mission to extinct all titans from the island.
It is worth mensionning how the game has it's own DLCs, with a total of 8 DLC episodes for Character Episode and plenty of Characters costume appearances that are fan Service such as Halloween, Christmas and others. The Story of the episodes is deliveres in one of three ways. Pictures with little motion while a voice is narrating the events,
good animation cinematicks similar to the ones found in the main game. The last form of story telling, is having the heroes or a picture of the current location, with squares popping up depictioning a character who is currently talking.
Territory Recover Mode is a different mode the players can join and acts like a chess maps where the player can build bases and proceed to free lands with titans.The player will have the opportunity to customize their own team (like police, wings of fredom) name and emblem, as well as assign the leader from any of the game's playable characters(including the OC).
The Territory Recovery Mode features two rounds, with the first being a base phase where players can freely roam around to socialise with allies, use materials to prepare and upgrade equipment, and just generally ready themselves for future encounters. After that phase is over, the Outer Campaign phase begins and here, the team venture outside of the walls in order to
claim the land back.
Gameplay
The gameplay remains relatively the same when it comes down to the odm Gear, however it added alot of new things. First things first, with the addition of season 3 Characters who starred join the playable heroes sections. These are, Zeke, Kenny, Caven, Nifa and Flock. Very similar to the original game, some of the characters are reskin and some bring their own uniqueness
to their character. The biggest inclusion to the DLC are the introduction of Thunder spears and the Anti Personnel Omni directional Mobility Gear which are the ones that replace the blades with guns. Similar to the blades there's plenty of customizable guns such as snipers, Bazookas, machine guns etc. The omni directional acts very similar to the blade one, however the attack
button instead of getting closer to the titans nape, it will siply shoot the titan. There are plenty of new animations that trigger with the guns whether or not is during movement or simply attack. There are a few special attacks that allow the player to use their mobility to get intoa fighting range and there are different types of Ammo. Heavy ammo, normal ammo and spread ammo.
Last but not least thunder spears are new ultimate attacks that trigger when the right buttons are pressed. For a limited time the heroes can release their spears that deal a heavy ammount of damage that destroys all the limps on a titan and anyone near by.
Final thoughts
Overall all the game is really good. It deliver the story of Attack on titan (season 1-3) in a very nice way that made even people who did not watch the anime to understand what was happening. The effort spent on making the Nameless hero feel like he was in the anime is also worth commenting on as he is essentially the player
reincarnated. Season 3 also introduce more concepts and a whole new gaming experience, with different boss battles and attack concepts such as cannon section and stealth kills on falling pieces. The graphics of the game are really good and the music used, although no where near the sountracks used in the anime they did a
fantastic job making soundtracks almost similar to it. The destructive environment is absolutely stunning as the animators made a perfect job capturing the destructions caused from such events. The titans look scary and move scary similar to the show with alot more animations added in comparison to the older one. The
omni gear manuvered felt really good, polish and clean, altough when in lower ground sometimes the player might stuck in the bottom of the building. It was also improved and became better. The heroes although plenty, do not feel unique as most are reskins of simple heroes. The Game offers an online mode, for both story
mode and another mode. However it is highly recommended to play with friends or use microphone while playing cause what tends to happen is that the people that join will most likely ignore everything that happens in the battlefield and head over to the final titan kill ending the mission with a bad rating and the
dissatisfaction of ending the game so fast. There's also an olnline mode where two teams of four fight in a battlefield on who gets the most kills. Finally in online certain events play different in one screen than another but the health bars are the same. For example, in a mission save Jean, player A might have Jean
next to them while player B will have their Jean eaten leading to a mission fail. Events such as player captured or down are seen the same for both players. All of the original voice actors are back reprising their roles and once again they do a fantastic job. If i was to recommend a game out of the three currently on market,
this version would be the most appropriate. Wings of freedom only covers the first season of the game with a few OVAS, the second one is litteraly included in Final Battle and all three are usually on sale in online stores with little difference.
This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game
