The time is 200 years on from when Queen Katia quelled the unrest and brought peace and harmony to all the kingdoms in the region. The Queen's runestone has been passed down from generation to generation without need of being used. Until now. The story begins with the abandonment of a young girl in an unknown village, with only what appears to be a Runestone for company. Fast-forward to the present time and the young girl in question has grown up and works with a band of thieves, her name being Tara Grimstone. Her unique skills and ability to control monsters through the use of cards is sometimes the difference between success and failure for the group. However, there is something different about her; something special. Something Tara herself does not know and will discover on the journey about to be presented before her.

The kingdom of Kendarie was once a pragmatic and opulent place, but now they have designs on taking over the whole area using an army of machines and a supply of manufactured Runestones. Whilst lacking greatly in power compared to the real thing, these fake Runestones are still good enough to control basic monsters and help conquer the neighbouring regions. As Tara is about to discover, it will be on her shoulders to keep the re-emerging threat of evil - and an old enemy - at bay.

Fans of the original game should be able to pick up where they left off, as most of the mechanics, controls and function screens have been carried over into the sequel. Tara carries a deck of cards around with her at all times, and the maximum size of the deck is 30. Within this there is free reign to choose whichever cards owned to use for battle. There are a number of different types of card, and all have their use at some point during the game. The two that will see most use are the independent creatures and weapons cards. Creatures are cast and summoned onto the battlefield where they will attack any enemy targets until either killed or recalled, whilst weapon cards are a physical attack by Tara herself upon an enemy.

There are also summons (large area damage spells), helpers (boost certain powers) and, new to the sequel, the transform card. This allows Tara to possess and use the skills of certain creatures to help navigate parts of the environment, and complete alternative goals. Also new is that many cards have dual functions and a choice to be made on which one to use when the card is cast into play.

Cards also come in 6 different alignments: fire, water, earth, wood, neutral and, new to the sequel, mechanoid. Naturally, as expected, each alignment has its strengths and weaknesses against other alignments and before tackling any stage, the game informs you of the alignment breakdown of the enemies within. This allows possible tailoring and tweaking of a deck to give more emphasis on alignments that are stronger than the enemies that will be faced. Anyone who has played a customisable card game will understand the nature of the deck building and use, and why this aspect is almost as important as the actual combat itself. Fortunately for new players, there is an extensive help system introduced for the sequel that explains almost every aspect the player needs to know and understand.

Control wise things are very much the same as before, with the stick moving Tara around, the four face buttons (A, B, X, Y) throwing one of readied cards and the R button triggering a discard of a particular card. Now the C stick controls the camera around Tara with the L button used to put it directly behind in an instant. In the first Lost Kingdoms, the L button was used for the capture throw, which is where one of the main differences between the two games comes into play. In Lost Kingdoms 2, Tara can only capture a monster to use for herself by launching a special capture card at the creature, whereas before any card could be used for the task. This makes acquiring certain monsters harder to achieve and balances the game out slightly. It was too easy from time to time to acquire a number of fairly powerful monsters, and this gameplay change put the emphasis more on winning, battling and evolving the cards owned rather than instant acquisition. One improvement also made is the discard function, any cards not required at a particular moment in time now go to the bottom of your deck instead of being "unusable" until the end of the level.

The other major gameplay change is the decision to make all the battles within the game realtime, and part of the environment being explored. Previously, battles (mostly random) were enclosed affairs within a set area, and there was no real control over when and where they were fought. Now most of the enemies are plainly visible and it is up to the player to decide whether to engage them or not. Whilst it may appear that this fundamental gameplay change makes things easier to complete, it is not necessarily true. Fewer battles means less experience for your cards (so they can't upgrade as quickly), a smaller amount of potential money, less rating when the level is completed, and less chance to acquire hard to find or rare cards as bonuses. Whilst the camera system in place is adequate for exploring the levels in general, during battle it can get a little confused and start choosing bad angles to view the action. This wasn't a problem before due to the confined nature of the engagement, but with the freedom of movement involved now, it is a minor glitch.

What has been done well are the cutscenes within the game. They utilise the graphics engine from the game itself, but actually still look better than the general visual quality on display. Lip-synching is hit properly, and the story itself expanded greatly over the original by the movies to allow for suspense and plot development. Even the voices are suitable and not out of place, although the Kendarie ruler does sound as if he is a graduate of the "Awwwfully Good School of Acting".

In-game, LK2 looks much more graphically advanced over its predecessor, but given the fairly low polygon visuals of the original, this wasn't going to be a difficult task to achieve. The character model of Tara herself is highly stylised with much attention to detail, though the skimpiness of her attire and the way she wiggles her bum slightly when running is very much par for the course in games today. Other creature models are also an improvement on before, and give more of a feel of a battleground - especially when seeing them traipse about the landscape. Skeletons bound about on their feet, hellhounds jump and dodge, lizardmen produce their swords in a flash... there is a level of graphical flashiness about most of the cards within the game when used.

The locations have also been given an increased level of detail and textures are better, with[/b] occasional interaction between environment and player. Examples being here that on some sand levels, Tara will start to sink slightly if she stops moving, and within the ice caverns the level of traction is reduced in certain places. Given that, the usual environments normally encountered within a game (such as fire, ice, desert etc) are all present and correct.

The music within the game is still of a high quality, though many of the themes and tunes are not as immediately catchy or atmospheric as the original. However, as there is more of a calming effect in general created by the suite of music, it becomes more of a background noise and does not impose itself on the player's ears. Most of the sound effects have been carried over, and apart from the obvious need to add effects for the new cards in the game, there appears to be little difference from the first game. The speech, where used (as previously mentioned in regard to the cutscenes) is impressive, with relatively few lines that feel ostentatious or out of place.

Overall, as a game, there is a lot to muse over. Much as the comparison between Burnout 1 and 2 was made, a similar line of analysis can be seen here. Although the general play mechanics are very much similar, because of the fundamental gameplay changes many strategies and, indeed, even the basic way that the game is played have very much altered. Hence there is once again a feeling of a parallel gamesplaying experience in opposition to the normal consideration that this is meant to be a sequel.

This factor is highlighted by the example of realtime mixing of the exploring aspect and the battling engine. In the original, when a battle was won, any creatures left in play were returned to deck, keeping their health the same as it was when finishing, but they were then often ready to hand immediately to throw out when the next battle started. Now, with the removal of the separate battle arenas, the creatures are left to explore with you and, as a consequence, reduce their lifespan at the same time. It is then the player's choice whether to leave them out in time for the next battle encountered, or recall them back to deck. The only problem doing this is that the card then ends up on the bottom and, if it is required again, the whole deck must be cycled through before it can be put into hand.

There is certainly more to tinker with and customise this time around. The introduction of combos, where linking two or three cards in your hand will produce a special new effect, is a novel approach, and with many new cards to try out, there is more bang for your money. Each stage is generally tougher overall to complete, though with the ability to bypass certain battles, this aspect is balanced out somewhat. With more stages to tackle, and the fact that almost all of them have some areas that can only be explored or unlocked later on from obtaining certain cards or completing certain tasks, the main game will last a few more hours than the first adventure. But it still doesn't quite feel long enough. As much time is generally taken with overall deck improvements, obtaining the entire catalogue of cards and producing a tournament worth battle deck to compete against another human player. Whilst that part is just as rewarding for the target audience of this game, it isn't so much for the general gamesplayer.

In essence, if you loved the first game, then this is a definite purchase. If not, then there is probably not much to convince otherwise.