Ok currently I’m forced to work weekends so Monday-Tuesday are my off days. My copy of GAII came in at about 10am on last Monday and on Tuesday night at midnight, the credits are rolling and my first playthrough is complete. Yes GAII is so stupidly good that I played it for 2 days straight with about 5 hours of sleep in the middle. So, if you’re already a fan of the previous 3 games, stop reading this and go buy it. Forget ANYTHING that would prevent you from playing this jewel and go buy it now, sure you may lose your job from skipping work, but damn its worth it.
Alright now for the actual review. Galaxy Angel II is the latest game in Broccoli’s GA series. This is actually the 4th game in the series, but it makes sense to give it a “II” because not only are we introduced to a new cast, but just about everything you can imagine has been rebuilt and given more polish then even the most hardcore fan could have hoped for.
Lets begin with the basics, after the events of GA: Eternal Lovers, a whole new universe was discovered, a set of intersteller gates were constructed so that travel between the two would be possible. However, the gates do not directly connect the two, they are actually connected by a third space known only as Absolute. Here the central core powered by the Gate Keeper allows the gates to remain open at all times.
The people of the Eden and Neue universes quickly became friends and established good relationships between their rulers. The Hero of Eden, Tact Meyers, was given an all new ship, the Luxiore, and with it the Rune Angels and was charged with protecting the gate system and making sure Eden people could freely live within the Neue system and to protect the peace. But lets face it, when Tact is in charge nothing goes they way it should. 
But on the whole he always comes through and is exactly what a hero should be. Kazuya pilots Unit 00: Brave Heart. The BH is basically just a booster craft and actually combines (think Vandread) with normal Rune Angles to greatly increase their individual powers.
And now for the girls
Apricot Sakuraba: Pilot of RA-01 Cross Caliber. Yes this is actually Milfy’s little sister and the default heroine. Apricot looks up to her sister and tries to mimic her ways, however she has an innate fear of men.
Lily C. Sherbet: Pilot of RA-02 Eagle Gazer. She was the leader of the Rune Angels, but went on a mission and never came back. Her response to just about everything is either “Ok-da” or “NG-da”. My 2nd favorite character.
Nanonano Pudding: Pilot of RA-03 First Aider. She is actually not human, but a living Nano-machine generator and is a piece of lost technology discovered by Vanilla herself. Nanonano scares me for the most part…
Kalhua/Tequilla Marjoram: Pilot of RA-04 Spell Caster. Kalhua and Tequilla are a set of sorceresses who inhabit the same body, and can switch whenever they drink alcohol. Sort of like split personalities, but they are actually seperate people, theres a whole transformation sequance when they switch. Kalhua is the super polite and super sleepy type, while Tequilla is the sexy seductress. They spend most of they’re time in the Alchemy lab doing magic experiements which usually just blow-up in Kazuya’s face. She/they are also accompanied by Mimolette, a cat-head-type familiar thing which is responsible for giving out the alcohol when needed.
Kahlua/Tequilla is easily my favorite character in the game, and gets close to even beating Chitose, my favorite from the series. Oh also any Melancholy of Suzumia Haruhi fans should be happy to know that Harhui’s VA is the voice for both Kahlua and Tequilla, and she does both extremely well.
Anise An(forgot the rest): Pilot of RA-05 Relic Raider. She claims to be a treasure hunter, but everyone sees her as just another space pirate. Shes kind of forced to join the Rune Angels due to her financial situation. 
Anyway Anise is your typical boyish-style girl and even speaks with “ore” which you don’t see too often.
System:
GAII like the previous games, is primarily a story/adventure/dating whatever you prefer style game. However unlike the 3 previous games that all used the same engine, GAII has a completely new engine and interface, and it is far improved over the old ones. Now it can actually show up to three character sprites on the screen and the game can shake them around like paper dolls, and gives them little mood bubbles and other nice touches. This may not sound like much, but it adds a lot to the game.
Just about everything in the game has been redone to perfection. The Luxiore map for free-roaming times is now 3d wire-frame and is much nicer looking then the old style, and its a lot smoother to navigate as you can have it “auto-target” each girl.
The battle system is the same basic idea as before, except it too has been far improved. Now all the kanji text boxes are gone, and its a lot more logical since you just click on the map view. For example click an Angel, then click on an enemy and she will attack that enemy. Click an empty space, and its the “move” command. Click on the Luxiore and its the “supply” command. Its simply a lot faster to navigate and speeds up the fast paced battles even more. Also you can set limits on thier HP and Energy so that they will actully disengage and get themselves healed automatically when they hit their percentage limits as opposed to doing it all manually.
An interesting new feature to the battles is the combining. At the start of every battle, Kazuya will get to choose who he combines with for that mission, not only does this help boost a girls feelings and stats, it also gives you as the player the ability to enter manual shooting mode for whomever you are attached to. Its nothing complicated, but you can strip a capital ship of its gun turrets one at a time, and is a nice extra feature to make the battles even more fun.
Also if you activate a girl’s Hyper Weapon when in manual shooting mode and if she likes you enough, she will get a special cut-in added to the attack that looks quite nice indeed.
Battles are again for the most part really easy, but there is a special Extra Battle in the Score Attack Mode, that I simply can not beat yet so theres at least one good challenge if you want one.
Battle graphics look even better then GA:EL. One very nice feature is that the Rune Angels actually transform between flight and shooting modes (think X-Wings from Star Wars). The transformations are simple, but seeing some movement is still nice when compared the the pure solid models used in the last 3 games. Also since this is was developed for the PS2 and is not a PC port, the slowdown that plauged the previous games is non-existant. The icky loading issues from PS2 GA:EL is also gone completely too.
Story wise, well theres not much of an actual plot, but come on, its Galaxy Angel, and its all about the silly fun and final relationship other then a well written plot. GA:EL was really the only game to even have a real plot, and it was so obvious from the start that it actually hurt the game in my opinion.
Speaking of silly, this game is hillarious, simply drop-dead funny. Many times I seriously dropped the controller because I was laughing way too hard and had to catch my breath.
GAII has a LOT to see and do. Not only are there the 5 girls to pursue, but even the extra crew on the Luxiore are a total riot and I found myself wanting to see ALL the optional scenes. You even get to choose who Tact actually ended up with, and a few certain scenes will change accordingly. Speaking of the Moon Angels, they will all show up throught the game at one point or the other.
Well I think thats enough about this wonderful game. All I want to say is that the end of the game is friggen amazing and even if my house had been on fire I still would have sat until there until its completion. I have not had so much fun with any type of game in a LONG time. And I’m already going down Lily’s path and still enjoying the hell out of it. Oh and Kazuya is even 100% voiced so even his lines are easy to understand for those of us who can’t read kanji all that well.
What can I say, I honestly wasn’t expecting much but got the best game I’ve played all year. The LE includes a very nice full-color artbook, drama cd, and a set of 2 flags all in a nice double-box. I spent the full 95 bucks on this thing and I’m loving it all.
