When Richard MacIntyre, the hero of the first Hiōden, became old, he retired from his duties, intending to spend the rest of his days in a secluded location together with the dryad Beatrix. But one day, the old king meets a little girl and gives her a present – a ring that Beatrix gave him long time ago. Fast-forward to present time: Marcfeand, a young man with a mysterious past and even more mysterious intentions, deliberately gets himself accused of a crime and is thrown into prison. But there, he meets Millray, a young girl with magic powers, who was wrongly imprisoned. Changing his plans, Marcfeand helps the girl to escape from her cell – but the guards are alarmed, and soon the two unlikely heroes have to fight for their lives. Shortly thereafter the two young people discover that they can re-animate and command monsters – which is the same curse the old king Richard MacIntyre was afflicted with… Like its predecessor, Hiōden 2 is a mixture of RPG and real-time strategy. The player commands one or more teams at the same time. The battles are mostly automatic, with preparation having more weight that the actual commands during battles. There is an option to “stop the clock” and adjust the strategy. Most of the gameplay involves exploring the maze-like isometric location with the player’s teams, fighting enemies on the way, gathering treasure, and solving (mostly very simple) puzzles to advance to the next area. RPG element comes in form of character levels. The windows-based interface from the previous game returns, with slight adjustments (point-and-click navigation through the main area instead of clicking on arrow keys; more comfortable menu with items displayed next to the character’s portrait, etc.).
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