0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Azito 2

      

Azito 2 is a resource management and strategy game developed by Astec 21 and is the second entry in the series. Unlike the previous entry in the series it would not be independently developed by Astec 21 with the company purchases by Banpresto sometime between the release of the first and second game. Like the first game in the series it would only release in Japan, with the game coming out on the 15^th of October 1998

The player takes on the role of a commander of a secret underground research facility, this facility develops weapons in the form of mechs which are used to defend the base from underground and above ground attacks while it is being constructed.

The player does not launch their own attacks on enemy bases but rather waits for them to attack building up their defensive forces, these mech soldiers attributes are chosen by the player with the help of specialized staff that work in the base as a result a variety of weapons can be developed.

A few changes from the first game the player is now able to choose which side to fight on with Justice or Evil while largely the game remains unchanged depending on which side you choose each side does have the option to develop either a gigantic hero on the Justice side of the war, or a giant monster if you are fighting on the side of evil.

When developing a weapon it has a concept rank, by developing the weapon a second time this concept rank will go up there are a total of three ranks for a weapon initial type, improved type and strongest type. In addition to the weapons having different levels so do the doctors who develop them with professor being the highest followed by assistant professor and assistant the more skilled the doctor the more superior the weapon will be. (I believe this information to be correct however I did translate it from a Japanese web page so I can’t guarantee the accuracy)

This being a Japanese exclusive release critic reviews for this game are impossible to find, so at this point we would normally head over to GameFAQs for their user data, however even this is non existent other than 2 users own the game and nothing more.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, the same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com so we head over to Amazon.com in the hope of finding at least a few copies of the game.

We find significantly more than a few copies of the game with a healthy supply of new and used copies on the market, and the first used copy on offer is a very good quality copy which is priced up at $18.87, this copy also comes with free shipping as well.

This is the cheapest you will get a used copy of Azito 2, from here the prices steadily rise up to a current maximum of around $33 to $34. Moving on to the new copies of the game and like the first entry in the Azito series they are quite pricey, not as bad as the first game but a new copy from Amazon.com will set you back a minimum of $108.94, this copy also comes with free shipping.

A good number of the new copies currently on offer are priced around this price point give a few dollars, prices to continue to rise though with the majority topping out at around the $120 mark, but a couple do go higher than this with the current high for Azito 2 sitting at $143.95.

Written by

P J Gibbon