The Caligula Effect 2

The Caligula Effect 2 improves combat, delivers an engaging story and adds a level of polish that the original game couldn't afford. From engaging characters to the wicked tunes of the Musicians, the game delivers a great JRPG experience from start to finish. This game lays the groundwork for an exciting future of FuRyu and Historia developed RPGs going forward!

If you loved The Caligula Effect, chances are you’ll love The Caligula Effect 2 even more. It’s certainly an improvement across the board, with a story that will keep you invested for the duration. Newcomers, however, might be put off by the references to the first game, and also may not gel very well with the relationship-building aspects that aren’t all that rewarding or interesting. Overall, th...

If Persona has been your only experience with Atlus’ RPG output, The Caligula Effect might feel remarkably familiar. With a scenario penned by one of the writers of the original Persona titles, Tadashi Satomi, Caligula’s story delves into the taboos of our society and the desire to do anything that’s prohibited. The result is a Vita-exclusive JRPG, that gives players more freedom than a traditiona...

The original The Caligula Effect was originally released for PS Vita in 2017, but sadly, it didn’t make a splash. It was released way too late in that system’s life cycle and it had the unfortunate issue of coming out the same year as another JRPG starring teenagers fighting demons and overcoming teenagehood problems: Persona 5. It did see an improved port released on PS4 and Switch a few years la...

PlayStation Vita is home to dozens of JRPGs so it takes a lot for one to stand out. Does The Caligula Effect have what it takes to get the attention of genre fans or would you be better off replaying some of the classics?

The Caligula Effect's localisation took many by surprise. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those cases where an under-the-radar title is rescued to the betterment of the RPG scene.

Overall, The Caligula Effect is a title that showed quite a bit of promise, but ended up being a plain chore to play through. The gameplay is tedious and repetitive, with its multiple featured engines being completely ignorable. The game doesn’t perform well on the hardware. Graphical design is uninspired and also repetitive, and the game grinds its catchy music in your face until you hate yoursel...

Finally, the music deserves a mention. Since idols and musicians play an important role in the story, you’d hope for a strong soundtrack, and it succeeds. The dungeon themes are exciting and catchy, with a neat transition from the instrumental to vocal version whenever you enter combat.

In this manner, The Caligula Effect is broadly consistent. It brings an interesting twist to combat, a great soundtrack, a huge world, and a solid story and very effectively undermines them with some really poor design decisions. The Caligula Effect is a mixed bag and it is all the more disappointing because developer Aquiria has produced far better work with far less creative freedom, under the g...