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Five years after attempting to revolutionize the tower defense genre with the visual novel/tower defense hybrid Winged Sakura: Mindy’s Arc, Winged Sakura Games returns with Winged Sakura: Mindy’s Arc 2, promising a superior experience. Does the sequel deliver on this promise?

Winged Sakura: Mindy

Simple Yet Engaging Gameplay

If you’ve played Plants vs Zombies, you’ll quickly grasp Mindy’s Arc 2’s tower defense mechanics. Early levels are a breeze, offering a gentle introduction. However, the difficulty ramps up as new enemy types are introduced, requiring strategic thinking. Unlocking snipers, for example, is met with a fivefold increase in enemy snipers.

Each level consists of waves of enemies, increasing in density with each wave. Your objective is to eliminate all enemies while keeping Mindy alive. If Mindy’s health depletes, it’s back to the beginning.

Mindy can upgrade her skills to turn the tide of battle, including summoning fireballs, increasing MP (for skills) and SP (for summoning Sakura) regeneration, and healing.

Winged Sakura: MindyTo assist Mindy, players can select up to eight Sakura units, each with unique stats and abilities. However, Sakura have limited lifespans. Summoning them requires SP and incurs a cooldown period.

There are two Sakura types: common and special. Common Sakura have lower stats, lower SP costs, and can be used repeatedly. Special Sakura are story-relevant, boast superior stats, powerful attacks, and unique skills triggered by meeting specific conditions. As the story progresses and their bond with Mindy deepens, these special Sakura can be further enhanced.

Due to their power, special Sakura require significant SP, and their cost increases with each use. Over-reliance can lead to SP shortages.

Players can further strengthen Sakura by equipping them with gear. Common Sakura gear has lower stats than special Sakura gear. The drop rates are balanced, ensuring rare items are attainable without grinding excessively.

Winged Sakura: Mindy’s Arc 2 offers simple yet challenging tower defense gameplay that encourages strategic unit development without becoming tedious.

A Narrative Misstep

Winged Sakura: Mindy’s Arc 2 blends visual novel storytelling with tactical tower defense. Ideally, the narrative should be the driving force through its 15 chapters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

Winged Sakura: MindyContrary to the engaging gameplay, the narrative is weak, relying heavily on fanservice. As advertised, prior knowledge of the first game isn’t required, with characters reintroduced for newcomers.

Players assume the role of Mindy Akumori, who, having regained her lost memories from the previous installment, joins the Hysteria army and trains under her sister, Cindy.

The plot unfolds slowly, bogged down by meaningless dialogue that obscures crucial details. Chapter one offers little more than the vague notion of Hysteria being in danger, most male characters being absent, and the female warriors exhibiting strange behavior. Subsequent chapters improve slightly, but the pacing remains slow and meandering, pushing players to skip the story and focus on the tower defense.

Winged Sakura: MindyCindy and Mindy are sisters. Driven by guilt over Mindy’s amnesia, Cindy aims to compensate by training Mindy and keeping her close. While seemingly wholesome, the subplots portray Cindy as overly attached, constantly praising Mindy’s cuteness and expressing desires to make her a maid. Mindy, in turn, exhibits similar behavior, hugging and petting her Sakura units.

Beyond the fanservice, characters lack distinct personalities, compounding the narrative’s dullness. Players are left wanting to fast-forward through the story to reach the engaging tower defense gameplay.

Conclusion

Winged Sakura: Mindy’s Arc 2 delivers satisfying tower defense gameplay, but its narrative falls short. The weak story, over-reliance on fanservice, and underdeveloped characters detract from the overall experience. While the gameplay shines, the narrative leaves much to be desired.

Game Information

• Developer: Winged Sakura Games
• Publisher: Winged Sakura Games
• Genre: Strategy
• Release Date: April 26, 2019
• Platform: PC

Minimum System Requirements

• OS: WINDOWS® 7+ (64bit)
• CPU: Any CPU after 2013
• RAM: 4 GB
• VGA: DX9, OpenGL 3.2
• HDD: 3 GB available space

Tested System Configuration

• OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• CPU: Intel i3 8100 3.6Ghz
• RAM: 8 GB
• VGA: GTX 1060 6GB
• HDD: 2TB