Rise Eterna 2 Review

A Fire Emblem-inspired sequel that sharpens its combat, not its story

Rise Eterna 2 is a grid-based tactical RPG from Forever Entertainment, Makee Games, and Ricci Cedric Design, set a few years after the original Rise Eterna and following Jacht, a devoted Athracian soldier caught in a war between two rival families and a vengeful third force. Across 24 missions spanning a range of biomes, the game leans heavily on the structural conventions of Fire Emblem-style strategy RPGs -- terrain-affected combat, a recruitment and party-organisation system, and grid-based tactical encounters -- while aiming to refine rather than reinvent what the first Rise Eterna established. Following a Steam Next Fest demo appearance in February 2025 and a clean, on-schedule announcement-to-launch cycle, the game released on 9 October 2025 at NZ$28.99. Its review sample, a modest 23 reviews at the time of writing, sits at Mixed -- a score reflecting real, specific improvements over its predecessor running into equally real frustrations with story depth and difficulty tuning.

Combat refinement is where the positive side of the sample concentrates its praise, and reviewers are specific about what's changed. One writes that the sequel is "much better than the first," highlighting that "now everyone counterattacks" and that companion support "makes a huge difference in battles," concluding that the larger, more dynamic battlefield presentation "really feels like a proper Fire Emblem battle." Another calls it "a lot of fun" as "an uncomplicated, straightforward strategy game," while cautioning that it doesn't offer a ton of tactical depth for players seeking a more complex system. A third reviewer frames the game as one that "aims to refine the ideas of its predecessor while leaning heavily into the traditions of classic strategy RPGs," singling out its grid-based combat and streamlined progression as functional even if not groundbreaking. The crafting and recruitment systems draw specific praise too, with one reviewer noting that capturing and recruiting enemy units "makes perfect sense" within the game's broader loop, and another highlighting the deliberate absence of a traditional leveling system as a way to freely rotate any character into the party without falling-behind anxiety.

Where the sample turns more critical is story and onboarding. Multiple reviewers independently describe the narrative as thin: one calls the writing "sparse and disjointed" despite enjoying the battles and character designs, while another states flatly that "the story is pretty bad," adding that while they can forgive weak writing in a tactical RPG, this one is "poorly written" rather than merely minimal. Onboarding draws similarly pointed criticism from at least one detailed negative review, which notes that "the tutorial barely explains anything" and that most mechanics are "directly copied from the recent Fire Emblem series," leaving newcomers without prior genre experience to largely fend for themselves. That same reviewer, while self-identifying as a big fan of tactical RPGs going in, ultimately found the game "a bit too rough around the edges to recommend right now."

Difficulty and pacing produce the sample's most concrete complaints. Several reviewers describe the game as simply too easy, even at its hardest setting, with one writing that combat on the intended difficulty became "a no brainer for everything" reducible to moving units forward and attacking without much further thought. That ease sits awkwardly against a specific, detailed report of invisible sniper-type enemies capable of one-shotting a unit on a first encounter with no warning -- a design choice the reviewer describes as breaking trust in an otherwise readable combat system, especially once they discovered a defensive item combination that made their protagonist effectively unkillable soon after. A further recurring complaint concerns dead time: more than one reviewer notes the absence of widescreen support and the inability to skip watching the enemy's turn animations, both of which compound the sense of a game whose pacing hasn't been as carefully tuned as its combat mechanics.

Value framing splits along similar lines to the rest of the sample. At NZ$28.99 for a campaign several reviewers estimate at around 10 hours, more than one reviewer explicitly recommends waiting for a discount rather than buying at full price, with one summarising their overall impression bluntly as "we have Fire Emblem at home too" before still rating the experience a passable 5 out of 10 for the price. Others frame the price more generously given the genuine mechanical improvements over the first game, positioning Rise Eterna 2 as a reasonable pickup specifically for players who already enjoyed the original and want more of its refined, if still comparatively simple, tactical combat.

Presentation draws a smaller but consistent thread of comment across the sample, largely favourable. Multiple reviewers describe the character portraits and unit designs as a step up from the first game, with figures on both the overworld map and in battle described as "bigger and much more beautiful," lending encounters more visual weight than the original's comparatively modest presentation. That improvement extends to the game's sense of scale during battle sequences, where reviewers who praised the counterattack system also credit the larger unit sprites and terrain variety for making individual encounters feel more consequential. It's a smaller point of consensus than the combat or story discussion, but it recurs often enough across otherwise mixed reviews to suggest the studio's visual refinements landed more cleanly than its writing or onboarding did.

Verdict

Rise Eterna 2 delivers real, specific improvements over its predecessor's tactical combat -- universal counterattacks, bigger battles, and a deeper recruitment system all draw genuine praise from its Mixed review sample. But a sparse, poorly received story, a thin tutorial that leans on players already knowing Fire Emblem conventions, an inconsistently tuned difficulty curve, and missing quality-of-life features like widescreen support and turn-skipping keep this from being an easy recommendation at full price. For fans of the original looking for more of the same with sharper mechanics, there's a solid tactical RPG here; for newcomers to the series or genre, it's worth waiting for a sale.