My Playtime: 17.2h (finished the game)

WORLD END ECONOMICA episode.02 is the second part of the WORLD END ECONOMICA trilogy, telling the story of Hal after what happened in the first series. It is a visual novel about the stock market and growing up.

Pros:
- A nice story about hope with a little fantasy added in

Cons:
- The story ends in a cliffhanger
- Sometimes the translation is a bit off

Specs
Steam Deck: AMD Zen 2 4c/8t 2.4-3.5GHz, 16 GB RAM, 8 AMD RDNA 2 CUs

Yes.
If you know a bit about investing and plan to buy all 3 games, buy it on a sale.

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WORLD END ECONOMICA episode.02 uses anime-looking visuals. Even though the story happens on the lunar surface, the background still looks similar to current-day Earth with a little twist. It kinda fits the story narrative, though, and it doesn't look weird at all.

As someone who hasn't played the first game, I didn't get some references on the story. The game gave a recap of what happened several times, but I still felt like I was missing out on something, especially when it tried to vaguely explain events that happened in the past. I'm not sure if it starts right after the first part ends, but the story starts a few years after the main event in the first part.

The story was slow-paced at the beginning, to the point that I dozed off several times. Sometimes I even overslept. As someone who doesn't like slice-of-life visual novels, there are just too many mundane, day-to-day events that I don't find interesting and meaningful for the story. In fact, the main event won't even start until you are halfway to the story.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1334851668

In addition to the slow pacing, the story drags on. It seems to enjoy adding some lengthy dialogues before the main event. Sometimes, they even throw the same recap from the first part over and over whenever they have the chance. On the times that it didn't, I found that most dialogues were too boring. It was the reason why I slept a lot.

If you are here to learn about investing, don't. It might teach you about some terms, but that's all there is to it. The story is best enjoyed if you are more experienced and familiar with those terms since some parts of the story will use those terms as part of their plan. Sometimes, I didn't even understand some of what the characters said, probably because of this.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932227663

Some translations can be a bit off. Most of the time, it's just simple stuff like wrong pronouns. However, sometimes the game will explain things that can be hard to understand to some people, and the bad translation can make it hard to comprehend.

That being said, the story starts to pick up near the end. I can't say it was that interesting, but I was hooked up a bit. There was tension and you can see how far determination and luck can go. Honestly, I was bummed out that the ending wasn't catchy because it was preparing for the finale, but I kinda like the character's growth shown in the end.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1614878926

Gameplay
The game is playable on Steam Deck but with some limitations: you need to use the touchscreen to access some menus and the page up and down in the backlog wasn't pleasant to use. Sometimes, it works as you expect, sometimes it will scroll too fast, to the point that you'll miss the dialogue that you want to read.

As a visual novel, it has most features that the game in this genre has:  a backlog to read older dialogues, skip and auto mode for your reading convenience, and others. The issue is that I don't know how to use them in Steam Deck. There isn't a tutorial for the controls and you can't change the keybinding. Luckily, it wasn't hard to figure out the basic controls.

Length and Replayability
I finished the game in 17.2h. Since the story is linear and doesn't have multiple endings, you don't have to replay the game at all.

To be honest, I found WORLD END ECONOMICA episode.02 to be mediocre. It might be because I didn't know much about investing and played the game expecting to be taught that, or it might be because I didn't play the first game, or both. However, some things are clear: the pacing is slow and the story tends to drag on. That being said, it tries to fix the former in the finale, and I enjoyed it a bit at that. However, since the story ends on a cliffhanger and how it seems to be connected with the other two games, I recommend buying it only if you plan to get the trilogy but do it on a sale because of the issues I mentioned above.