Seven Knights II Preview – The Seven Heroes of Gacha

After the success of Seven Knights, developer Netmarble announced a sequel titled Seven Knights II. This mobile open-world game continues the saga of the series by fast-forwarding 20 years after the previous game’s conclusion. It also offers a fresh new story with new characters and, of course, plenty of fan service.

I had the opportunity to try out the game, and here are my thoughts. Please note that since the title is still in development, everything discussed in this preview is subject to change.

For this preview, I only managed to progress through a handful of chapters from the First Act, and despite the rather clichéd story, it still offered a decent tale. Those who already enjoyed the style of the prior title’s narrative will probably find it engaging. The cutscenes, however, could still use some work, as not only is the audio completely different from what is written in the subtitles, but there are numerous discrepancies present, including misgendering.

For instance, in one of the cutscenes, one of the characters says: “She is our last hope,” but the subtitles say, “He is our last hope.” Considering the aforementioned point that this is a sequel, Seven Knights II doesn’t do a good job connecting the dots.

As you progress through the story, you’ll earn Rubies, which can be used in the Shop for…wait for it…you guessed it! The Summoning system. I’ll be fair with you guys: The developer, Netmarble, and gacha go hand-in-hand. I’m pretty sure a quick Google search is all you need to know that information. Due to their history, I was certainly not surprised to see that Seven Knights II features a summoning system.

By spending Rubies, you can summon characters who join your party. Summoning certain groups of characters will also grant a permanent Codex Buff. This will give stat increases to your party, depending on which group you manage to assemble. So, for example, if you got Casper, Shay, and Scott, you would get the Codex Buff of the “Troubleshooter Guild,” which increases attack and max health.

Other features include the ability to tune the graphic settings to your liking, though it will automatically configure them depending on your phone’s specs. Further, even with a Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, I was unable to push to the Highest settings without my phone becoming as hot as lava. Still, it must also be stated that storage requirements are steep, needing almost 6 GB with no way to reduce the installation size.

I suppose that is to be expected, though, since there are little to no 2D graphics. It’s purely Unreal Engine 3D. While the game downloads your required files, you can play a silly minigame to kill time, or you can leave it in the background.

In short, Seven Knights II is just your standard open-world adventure game. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it unless you play the prequel. While it does make sense that a sequel would cater to original fans, I still feel like this game could manage to be more approachable to players who happen to stumble on it in the app store.

In the mobile market, the idea is to welcome as many players as possible, and Seven Knights II sadly does the opposite, leaving players that never experienced the prequel in the dark. Still, I certainly hope the feedback Netmarble takes with the recent previews helps them fine-tune the game.