Love Too Easily 2: Summer Pocha Review

The story begins with you acquiring a rooftop food tent (aka Pocha) because a friend tricked you into signing a form. After some loan sharks make their intentions clear, your only option is to try and make it work. So you move into a building that only has female residents, which allows for romantic encounters. The main story is not heavy but it is shaped nicely around the Pocha. And the primary antagonist is surprisingly well-acted and hilarious, especially in the finale.

Five love interests help the Pocha succeed and each has a distinct personality. Your best customer and romance writer, Anna, brings chaotic energy and heart. Part-timer, Sol, is playful but works hard. Quiet high-school crush, Sarang, has a million-dollar smile and helps run the place. Band member, Nana, communicates deeply with her eyes and creates a jingle. And streamer, Ga-in, uses her body to bring customers. All actresses are awesome, but especially JiWon Shin as Anna (from the KPOP band Berry Good), Seul Yang as Sarang, and DaHa Eun as Nana.

Each love interest has four endings, including two good ones. There is heavy emotion at the 11th hour for a few of them, which is awesome and memorable. Unlocking all endings requires specific values for affection and three character traits: Intelligence, Empathy, and Action. Affection is gained via choices and gifting between chapters. Traits are increased in a training menu between chapters. However, each character only has two stat checks, including the finale, so it feels a little underused.

Conversations are different. Actresses were filmed on green-screen and placed on static backgrounds. Dialogue options appear and you merely select them in sequence. Sometimes you can click on characters; if you click their eyes, they might wink back. This is a basic emulation of body language, but it is cool and adds personality.

Still, the exchanges needed branching paths or more interactions. There are advantages to the green-screen—plus the live audio is nice—but the static background does stand out, due to perspective inconsistencies and because the video quality is poor. Video bitrate is insanely low and the resolution needed a bump. Subtitles add an ugly black vignette too.

The game takes a fraction under 3 hours to complete. Respectable branching paths see the characters split into two groups at story points, so over 6 hours to see everything. This is not bad value in isolation, but Chinese titles are much cheaper. If you get all achievements, a decent chunk of extra content is unlocked. While the video quality is a big stumbling block, it does not negate the great emotion and personality found within Love Too Easily 2.