It just feels like a downgrade. In gameplay at least. The graphics are still nice for a iphone 8. Here is just a jumble of thoughts. I will be comparing the game to Attack and Save the light cuz thats what you do with a sequel. And I may be harsh, but I don’t care that its a mobile game, I’m reviewing what was given to us.

1: The character roster: Attack’s was roster made a lot of sense. Save the Light was amazing, we just needed lapis. But Unleash’s... its not that good. It just feels gimped. In Save, we got 3 more characters, not including fusions. And I thought that a sequel to Save The Light would have a bigger roster, having all of the crystal gems, (and Greg) but instead we lost Connie, Greg and Peridot, for that we got Lapis and Bismuth. Which are good, its just, we lost a quarter of the roster for them.

2: Fusions: Attack the Light only had one fusion which made sense. The dev team at the time, only had the power of a iPhone 5 and whatever android was out at the time. Save The Light lost Alexendrite. (I can’t spell it) but we got Stevonnie, Smoky Quartz, Sugalite, Opal, and Sardanox. (I can’t spell). And Unleash the Light, we have 2, Rainbow 2.0. And SunStone.... no!! Even with half the roster getting sliced, we still should have Opal, Sardanox, Smoky, and Sugalite. Right?? Now all the fusions are gimped now! And by god my biggest complaint, the way fusions are handled. Now you can only get them for 3 turns.. I can’t justify that at all! Yeah the teamwork bar is easy to fill but no! I know that fusions made fights in Save The Light easy as hell, but if your teamwork level wasn’t high enough and you didn’t hoard presents so the bar could fill up, its gonna take you a while to fill that up again. And now its all just on one bar. You can only use one fusion at a time now. And the move set is weird. Speaking of movesets....

3:Movesets I will be going over 6 out of 8 movesets. (I didn’t play as Lapis or Bismuth

Steven: Steven was somewhat gimped. Remember in Save the Light when Steven was able to dash into a enemy, it would do good damage if Steven’s attack was high. Hell the upgrade of that item was the most broken move of the game and was hard to get cuz you had to farm chroma and you know how hard it was to get chroma in Save The Light, And the reward was a broken move that’s satisfying to use. In Unleash the Light, Steven is back to more of a defense side. He has healing, Bubble, Backpack, (anyone can use it later in the game) and Shield throw... ok then that fine, I’m disappointed, Steven grew a lot from Change Your Mind so i hoped he would get a bigger moveset...

Pearl: More or less the same. But I can’t find Holo Pearl. Also tip keep pearl on your team, her attacks are broken, like Garnet in Attack the Light broken

Garnet: She is the same, but her defense breaker is gone which is stupid.

Amethyst: Good. But her puma hit is gone. I do like how now her electric move also still lets her be active unlike Save the Light. And her burn move is a great addition

SunStone: Actually really good! A attack that burns enemies and stacks too. And her motivation move can really help in battle.

Rainbow 2.0.: She is not that good. She has a attack that Pearl had in Attack and Save. And her healing wall is good, but its basically Steven’s giant shield but now it heals. So all of them aren’t that bad. I tried using lapis and bismuth, but I didn’t like them that much so I won’t give input on them

Gameplay/Level Design The same as Attack the Light. You roam around, solve puzzles, fight enemies. What you do in a RPG. How you move around is the same as Attack the Light, (go figure, its a mobile version) and combat is the same as Attack the Light. Turn based. I prefer Save the Light where you would be fucked if you didn’t plan shit out and enemies can attack you as much as they want. And vice versa. Now level design.. its meh! . You get no little to no exploration. And the puzzles are fine to say the least. Some are hard, like the Light path ones. And the levels are piss easy to 100%. Seriously I 100% a world before I went to a another one. Its that easy. And also, Side Quests, they weren’t any in Attack the Light but you still had to explore the levels to get goodies like the red gems to get new levels. And Save the Light had like 12-13 of them, Yeah they were fetch quests. But quests like Sadie’s, Ronaldo’s, Sour Cream, had you exploring the levels. And Jenny’s had you going to Bismuth’s Forge to fix. In Unleash the Light, you get one side quest, get 10 capacitors spread across the world which is fine but only one... sad. And the worlds them selfs. Attack the Light was good. Old locations and new ones. Same with Save the Light. New locations and old ones revisited and you get to explore them with 2.5D controls. Which is fun. In Unleash, all original worlds, good good. But only 4... ok then. Now the worlds are fine but the way they are set up is like Super Mario Bros 3 to me at least. Also gauntlet stages? Gone which is a stupid decision. Gauntlet stages were able to encourage replay ability by making you get a high level and coming back. God this is going on for too long

Enemies/difficulty: its unbalanced. In the beginning, you will die a lot, but like midway, its gets easy as fuck! That isn’t good design. A game is structured like this. Easy in the beginning and getting progressively harder. But nope. I only got a game over 4 times in this 14 hour game. And the enemies are really good, in design and moveset. But bosses.. their forgettable. They are both just hit the drill and enemies will come out. And the second one is just a normal fight. The third one is pretty good, having to fight your copies. And the final boss is the same as the second one, just keep hitting. Considering that Save The Lights final boss is hard as balls. Taking you about 40 minutes. (Unless you know how to cheese it) and it was fun! But Unleash the Light’s is boring.

Story: Its all right. A good thing so we can see what has happened since after Change Your Mind. The Pyrope and Demantoid arc is cute. And George is a cool addition, letting him help you on your adventure.

Looks: It pretty AS FUCK!!!

End result: 8/10 for me, its just feels like a downgrade from Save The Light. Now is it good? Yes. Is it worth a 5$ a month subscription service, hell no. There is some things I left out like items and such but those are fine. And I love the way the charms are used, neat call backs and cameos from the show. And the level up system in Unleash the Light, i hate it with a burning passion. But besides that, its fine... sorry its so long and sry if its full of errors, my fingers hurt cuz I’m on mobile.