5 Games That Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

5 Games that Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2 was all sorts of revolutionary for the series. It built upon the first game by adding a slew of new interesting features, including the zapping system. This feature let players see both sides of the story, letting you experience the story again from another perspective.

Whether you played Leon and Claire first, you could experience what the other person went through after clearing the first scenario. Claire A and Leon B filled the gaps from your initial playthrough, introducing a new villain and mixing things up to keep you on your toes.

More importantly, the zapping system also carried over some of the choices from your first playthrough. If you were a bit too greedy during your first run, you might find yourself lacking firepower or extra storage space during the B scenarios.

Moreover, several enemies might come back stronger than ever if you missed a certain step or failed to kill them the first time. Your choices will eventually come back to bite you, for better or worse.

The zapping system is a unique spin on the whole new game+ system, making Resident Evil 2 one of the best games to implement the feature. Unfortunately, we won’t be using it in the upcoming remake.

5 Games that Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

Chrono Trigger

If there’s one game that really hit the nail on the head with new game+, it’s Chrono Trigger. One could say that it’s even the pioneer of new game+, offering plenty of different choices and outcomes with the use of its time-traveling system.

When starting a new game, you can bring over all of your skills, equipment, and levels that make it much easier to discover some of the other options and choices you’ve missed during your first run. Sure, you can essentially clear most of the endings in your first playthrough, but not without hours of leveling beforehand.

Coming back fully charged let’s you experience the story seamlessly, letting you fully appreciate the multiple endings the game has to offer. Moreover, you can only obtain the best items in the game by doing repeat playthroughs, since some of the items are locked out by some of the choices you make.

5 Games that Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

Chrono Cross

With Chrono Trigger becoming such a huge success, Square Enix followed up with another amazing game: Chrono Cross. While the game trades in time traveling for parallel worlds, it still makes use of the multiple endings.

Using new game+, players can get access to items they can use to defeat the final boss at any given moment in the game. Doing this lets players access different endings by defeating the Time Devourer during different points on their journey.

Apart from the endings, starting a new game+ mode gives you the chance to recruit the other party members you might have missed on your first run. The game boasts a whopping 45 characters that you probably won’t be able to recruit on your initial playthrough.

The new game+ mode also allows you to swap out the main character with another party member, giving you access to more team compositions. Couple all of these changes with a few extra bosses and the ability to slow and speed up time, and you have yourself a game with hours of content.

5 Games that Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

The Tales Of Series

Another game franchise that makes brilliant work of this feature is the Tales Of series. While most new game+ modes let you carry everything over in your next playthrough, things work a bit differently here.

The Tales Of series uses a mechanic called the Grade Shop that pulls up whenever you finish the game. From the Grade Shop, you have an option of bringing over some of your stats, items, titles, and experience along with choosing whether you want additional EXP or Gald on your next run.

The main catch here is that each of these options requires Grade, which is the currency for the grade shop. You’ll have to buy which stats you want to carry over, or if you actually want to carry over anything at all.

Grades are earned by winning battles and your performance during fights. The Grade Shop not only makes for a great way to kick off your new game+ but also encourages players to fight more strategically and aggressively.

5 Games that Actually Made an Effort With New Game+ Mode

Dark Souls 2

If your first run wasn’t hard enough, Dark Souls 2 has a new game+ mode that comes with a tougher challenge. Upon clearing the game, you can start it again on an even harder difficulty that rewards you with a few more souls after defeating enemies.

The thing is, however, that enemies can dish out up to four times their base damage while their health usually doubles. Moreover, some of these enemies are scattered around different areas, so you might find yourself getting ambushed when you least expect it.

Whenever you complete a new game+, you have the option of doing it again, thus stacking difficulty. The difficulty increase stops at new game+10, so if you’re up for the challenge, there’s plenty of replayability here.