Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2

A continuation of the adventure story from Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 1, and a sequel from The Space Pilgrim Saga.
one of the rpgmaker games that consider to have a good story, highly recommended.

opens up the lore a bit more and is well paced. although i don't fine it quite as good as the episodes.

Just like everyone else has said, the writing is just really well done.
This is what sets this series apart from so many others, is not the graphics, not the animation, but the writing.

These entire series is HIGHLY recommended.

Here's the play order:
-Space Pilgrim Episode I: Alpha Centauri (2015)
-Space Pilgrim Episode II: Epsilon Indi (2016)
-Space Pilgrim Episode III: Delta Pavonis (2016)
-Space Pilgrim Episode IV: Sol (2016)
-Space Pilgrim Academy (2017)
-Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 (2018)
-Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 3 (2018)
-Space Pilgrim Academy: Reunion (2019)

I believe the series is a good one. The story is solid but Year 2 still got few bugs left (of wich one outrageus in the cutscene at the opening of the prologue) and developers are gone to others projects. So I believe this could be considered a dead horse for them (as it was released years ago). So you get it as it was left back in 2020.

I would say Play the first 4 episodes of Space Pilgrim, then Sentience: The Android's Tale (as a filler as it got the same SCI-FI feeling) and then if you still into it go for the year series, just be prepared that unless you can open the game files and fix it by yourself you will find some problems here and there. It will ruin your experience? probably but If you can overlook it every time you start the game you will be fine.

Edit: As With the new update the issues got fixed and I remained impressed about how I didn't discovered this series sooner. A must have for the people who love Sci-fi and Rpg maker games

Nice game, enjoyable series. Simple yet fun adventure.

Soooome grind if you are trying to do all the achievements, which means going back and replaying. It would be nice to have a way of escaping/bypassing cut-scenes (or of saving in the middle).

(Note that I have the same review for all the games in the series. They were all pretty fun in a low-key way.)

The story continues with Gail and Maggie in Year 2. Gail continues to juggle her responsibilities as Chancellor with her own internal investigations. Maggie uncovers more details of her friends' pasts and herself. As their enemies begin to reveal themselves, their lives start to intertwine with each other closer than ever before.

Other than a couple of bugs at the beginning in 2.0, it was a smooth ride from there.

Looking forward to Year 3.

Space Pilgrim Academy Year 2 is a rather good game, with a simple gameplay and an interesting story. This is a sci-fi adventure game. You, once again control Gail and Maggie in a total of 3 Acts, which take around 4 to 7 hours of game time (getting all achievements require you to repeat certain moments in the game). This time, the story focus on discovering more about Fractus and Kathy as Gail travel around to learn more on the subject. Meanwhile with Maggie you start to have weird nightmares that seem to involve people around her. As the previous episodes, the graphics are pretty simple, most using RPG Maker RTP from Degica. The music are also mostly from various artists, but they really work out with the story of the game.
Overall I liked playing this 2nd episode of the Space Pilgrim Academy franchise. The ending stops somewhat with a cliffhanger that make you want to play the next episode ASAP. I definitely recommend this game to anyone that wants to spend a simple time (no fights in the game) with a pretty well thought universe and a rather enticing story.

Want to see an hour of the game played with voice commentary? See my video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvRTxJA8nI0

This game is the second of the Space Pilgrim Academy games, which form a sequel series to the earlier Space Pilgrim series. If you haven't played the original series I would strongly recommend playing it first. Like its predecessors the game is built using an engine intended for JRPGs, but the actual gameplay is closer to that of the classic '90s point-and-click adventures.

Covering Maggie's second year at the academy she has to deal with such diverse problems as classes, schedules, friends, classmates, and sinister terrorist conspiracies ... whilst Gale is getting into her own trouble at a diplomatic conference ...

Another installment of the Space Pilgrim Saga, even better than the last chapter, with the continued development of the characters and more detail to the political universe surrounding them. Several achievements require repeating a classroom scene many times over, up to 7 or more to get all achievements. This requires patience but I actually liked it as it helps you to remember some details about different political factions, which come up later on in the larger story about corruption across the system. Margaret's story is also developed, and those of some of the other younger characters. There is one sequence with tactical decision making which seemed like it was going to have real time combat but it didn't, so don;t worry if you are not a fan of rel time sequences. (If you are fan of real time battles then another series will probably be more fun for you).

This is thoughtful science fiction with a good story line, intelligent enough that it could pass in a novel, but with the game elements combined to make it much more interactive than just a visual novel. Most of the puzzle elements are on the easy-moderate side so you probably won't get bogged down and need a walk through very often. the puzzles also aren't so easy as to be pointless. Overall this series with its simple graphics looks like it wouldn't have much to offer but is one of the best sci-fi series I've seen, with each dollar-priced chapter being a full fledged game. This one ends on two cliffhangers so you may wish to buy the next chapter along with it. I'd recommend starting from the beginning of the Space Pilgrim Saga in order to get the full back story.

The Space Pilgrim series continues to stand out from the crowd of RPG Maker games. The series mixes adventure game and visual novel mechanics to good effect, and the writing is top-notch. I highly recommend this game and all of the others in the series.

While the original Space Pilgrim games largely took place one after the other, the first two being the sole exception, the Academy games have sizable gaps between them to accommodate for each school year. This allows for events to brew between entries, giving weight to the end of each. It's also good for showing that the students are developing stronger bonds with both their classmates and teachers.

As is often the case with larger casts, Year 1 focused a lot on introducing everyone and show basic interactions. Now that the story can shift towards character development, it's really enjoyable to see how the friendships and bonds are growing. This isn't exclusive to the Academy portions of the game, either, as Gail also has to do a bit of growing this time around. How she handles the situations before her is part of what makes all of this so interesting. We also get a nice taste of how the diplomatic relations are handling within the universe of Space Pilgrim. I always appreciate it when writers are allowed to flesh out the entire setting.

Although I really enjoyed the classes in the previous game, Year 2 takes a different approach. You have two major classes, one focusing on the Galactic Union and the other on surviving a holodeck scenario. Both give us a taste of what it's like to make difficult choices and thinking from different perspectives. I kind of wish there had been a third such class. On the other hand, you have to scroll through a lot of text to repeat those two activities (mainly the set-up), so my discovering that you can hold down Z or X and advance text rapidly was heavily appreciated.

My main dislike from Year 1, that the place feels largely deserted... still kind of holds true. I do not recall ever having to go to the Train Station even once, and the Hanger was only to initiate a single event. There was really only two times where you had any reason to go exploring the school, though that could have been due to the increased focus on Gail's part of the story. I can sympathize with that situation, but it'd still be nice to see some more bustling at the school.

Despite that, however, it's still a great story and I look forwards to playing the next!

TL/DR

Overview

Graphics and Sound

Positives

Negatives

Conclusion

The honest word of Il Pallino... OR ELSE!

Ok, for the person that had bought all the games from the Space Piligrim Series and played this game for 6 hours to write a negative review sounds pretty strange, but I will try to explain my point of view. As you know, there are two types of gameplay here. At first you have to look and interact with objects and it's pretty interesting because you need to use some logic, especially when you combine them, and Studing. The last one just killed me. You know, if you had to answer some logical questions, or something about you would find out during the gameplay it's fine. But seriously, answering some historical events of the inexisting world and without mistakes to get an achievement, it's bullshit. You have two options, try to guess the right one, or watch the youtube video for the answer. If you use youtube it's the same way that if you were playing, so what's the point, watching youtube is free. So I did. I didnt return this game due to a great respect to the developer, but I wont buy anymore with such a gameplay... Sorry...

I feel like this game is proof that your faith can be rewarded. I'm a long-time fan of the Space Pilgrim series, but was very disappointed by the first installment in Spage Pilgrim Academy (read my review of Year 1 here).

To be honest, it feels like when they made this they corrected every single one of my complaints about that entry without losing any of the positives: the writing was tighter, the two storylines and in-class elements were better integrated, the trauma of the characters' pasts was dealt with head-on, and Gail was much lighter and more in character.

Bottom line: this is a great entry into the series, and I can't wait for Year 3!

This was an unusually tricky instalment in the series. Like the rest of the Space Pilgrim games, this is a light sci-fi yarn with fun characters and snappy dialog. The story starts going deeper this time around, but i found some of the puzzles a little frustrating. Twice i got completely stuck, and even when i found what to do it felt like the only way to figure it out was to click on everyone and everything. I am no stranger to adventure games, but modern ones (including the rest of this series) tend to provide a few more hints to keep the pacing tight. Still, despite those patches of boredom, the story was fun and i'm keen to see what happens in the next episode.

Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 is a nice adventure game on the RPG Maker format.
It's a sequel to the 1st chapter Space Pilgrim Academy (which was the sequel to a previous excellent and fantastic serie named Space Pilgrim Saga)
Though it’s better to have played the 1st episode (and preferably the whole previous saga) to be acquainted with the storyline and the now legendary characters of the Space Pilgrim Saga, Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 can still be enjoyable for itself, even without knowing those previous episodes. But it’s far better when you know the whole story from its very beginning.
Space Pilgrim Academy "new" serie is truly faithful to the Space Pilgrim saga spirit, the humor of the saga and, to some extent, its philosophical questioning about humanity, brotherhood and ethics (honesty is a redundant subject, as well as forgiveness, compassion and other moral values).

For those who yet don't know the background: the saga is futuristic. It depicts a sight of what has become mankind in the XXIIIrd century (or so), disseminated in far away galaxies. As in the previous episode and in the previous serie, politics, foreign affairs, corruption and terrorism still are forming the background of the storyline. However, Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 also focuses on A.I. from a psychological angle as well as philosophically speaking. Those parts of the story are based on both the orphans’ past (Maggie Dale and Kenrick Morse), both sharing the same sort of tragic youth experience of losing their parents. The way they remember that sad period of their life (and thus how they end up creating some sort of connection between them) can somehow be quite moving.

From a certain point of view it's very relevant as a prospective projection of our own world, despite the presence of science-fiction, AI, spaceships and so on..
Conversations feel more than realistic, they really seem to be natural and quite spontaneous.

Some famous characters from the previous episode and serie are back, notably the main adult characters Gail and Sabina, but also the cadets Maggie, Diane, Kenrick and all their friends from the Space Pilgrim Academy previous opus.
In this new chapter you'll alternatively play as Maggie and as Gail.

The storyline of this chapter continues to be deeply interesting and the game ends with some humoristic notes, a lot of sadness and above all a great suspense.. leaving the player waiting for the next episode .. !


Unfortunately, like in (too) many other adventure games, I reckon the Space Pilgrim new titles tend to get easier and simpler.. I didn't encounter any tiny bit of a difficulty all the way in both chapters of the Space Pilgrim Academy serie.
Getting the non story-related achievements wasn’t very hard too.
I already had this feeling towards the Space Pilgrim Academy last opus in comparison with the previous Space Pilgrim saga. I believe the previous serie to be more challenging, at least as far as the gameplay difficulty is concerned.
In other words, the same way Space Pilgrim Academy 1st episode was, Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 is less funny and challenging then the 4 episodes of the Space Pilgrim Saga.
That tendency really is a pity and for that I am disappointed.

That being said, I still recommend Space Pilgrim Academy: Year 2 because I definitely think a great and rare effort is put in the script, the whole story and the overall spirit.
Besides, the game lifetime is quite fair, especially considering the (low) price.


A tip to achievement hunters : Remember to save before entering any class room of the academy since in each class there is an achievement to unlock. It’s easy to make a mistake on your first attempt, so try to save at least before each class !

This series continues to be one of my favourite indie games on Steam. There's a ton of worldbuilding and political intrigue packed into the story. The puzzles actually require a bit of thinking, but never feel unfair. Also, you can pet the ship's cat.

It might be Win 10 or something on my side but 2 complete freeze of this game within the first Minutes make it impossible to play even if I save regular.
For year 1 it was at last 15 Minutes I could play in one go but with year 2 its not even 5 minutes.

The continuing adventures of Gail Pilgrim and Margaret Dale as you work to unravel the mysteries behind the events of Year 1. By the way, how many years are there in a typical Academy course? Just have a... feeling...

Anyway, if you liked the rest of the Gail Pilgrim Saga, and don't mind a few (or more) callbacks to the original Space Pilgrim Saga, this is a game you will enjoy.

You probably should consider buying the Saga bundle, just for the sake of your wallet... not that the games are all that expensive.