After spending the past year and a half or so playing Hotline Miami constantly, getting the secret ending and an A+ on every level, and being only three trophies away from getting the platinum trophy, I was more than ready to dive into Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, and so I was really glad to see the game for sale for $3.74 on the PlayStation Store. Despite how this game plays exactly the same as the previous one with its tight controls and brutal combat, my experience with Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was a predominantly negative one, but that doesn't mean that the game didn't get at least a few things right. For starters, the first game's striking visual style is also present in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, but the game's visuals also drew inspiration from the look and feel of VHS tapes rather than just a general synthwave aesthetic, and this added to the game's off-kilter atmosphere while still matching the game's time period. The soundtrack here was also great, and while none of the songs reached the blood-pumping heights of the first game for me, the music was still solid all around.
Among other things, one aspect of Hotline Miami that I really loved would be how its levels accommodated for a multitude of different approaches and playstyles thanks to the wide arsenal of weapons and unlockable masks, and so I was shocked to see this element get messed up so badly here in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Many of my deaths in this game came from enemies that were literally off-screen and were able to kill me instantly without giving me a chance to react, and this applies to practically every level in the game. The level design in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number forgoes the encouragement of experimentation from the first game in favor of cheap deaths and a trial-&-error loop of killing enemies in the exact same order over and over again before being sniped out of nowhere. The only viable strategy here is to lure enemies out and then killing them around a corner, and this not only makes a lot of the mechanics introduced in the new game feel obsolete in the presence of the significantly worse level design, butthe gameplay loop also got really tiresome due to every every encounter requiring the exact same approach. Even when the game tries to introduce new playstyles with characters such as the Fans or the Soldier, the gameplay still consists of poking your head out of a doorway to bait enemies into coming towards you before being randomly killed anyway, and while the first game was definitely challenging, none of its levels were anywhere near as obnoxiously difficult as Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was for me.
Although its plot wasn't really the main focus, I still really liked what the storytelling accomplished in Hotline Miami, as its themes of violence in media, nationalism, and Cold War paranoia made the already compelling story feel more meaty, and so I was disappointed to see this aspect of the game also get poorly handled here in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Although this game a much stronger focus on plot than its predecessor, that doesn't mean that it had a better story than the first game, as its loosely connected characters and constant jumps in time made the game's story feel jumbled and clunky. In terms of themes, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number didn't say anything that wasn't already expressed in the first game, except there was an increase in scenes that had no other purpose than "shock" the audience. The attempts at surrealism were also much less well-integrated than they were in Hotline Miami, although the epilogue was at least somewhat interesting (even with that lame cop-out of an ending). Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was a massive disappointment for me, and while its existence doesn't take away from my love for the original Hotline Miami, it does make me wonder why anyone would prefer the sequel over the first game.
Among other things, one aspect of Hotline Miami that I really loved would be how its levels accommodated for a multitude of different approaches and playstyles thanks to the wide arsenal of weapons and unlockable masks, and so I was shocked to see this element get messed up so badly here in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Many of my deaths in this game came from enemies that were literally off-screen and were able to kill me instantly without giving me a chance to react, and this applies to practically every level in the game. The level design in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number forgoes the encouragement of experimentation from the first game in favor of cheap deaths and a trial-&-error loop of killing enemies in the exact same order over and over again before being sniped out of nowhere. The only viable strategy here is to lure enemies out and then killing them around a corner, and this not only makes a lot of the mechanics introduced in the new game feel obsolete in the presence of the significantly worse level design, butthe gameplay loop also got really tiresome due to every every encounter requiring the exact same approach. Even when the game tries to introduce new playstyles with characters such as the Fans or the Soldier, the gameplay still consists of poking your head out of a doorway to bait enemies into coming towards you before being randomly killed anyway, and while the first game was definitely challenging, none of its levels were anywhere near as obnoxiously difficult as Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was for me.
Although its plot wasn't really the main focus, I still really liked what the storytelling accomplished in Hotline Miami, as its themes of violence in media, nationalism, and Cold War paranoia made the already compelling story feel more meaty, and so I was disappointed to see this aspect of the game also get poorly handled here in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Although this game a much stronger focus on plot than its predecessor, that doesn't mean that it had a better story than the first game, as its loosely connected characters and constant jumps in time made the game's story feel jumbled and clunky. In terms of themes, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number didn't say anything that wasn't already expressed in the first game, except there was an increase in scenes that had no other purpose than "shock" the audience. The attempts at surrealism were also much less well-integrated than they were in Hotline Miami, although the epilogue was at least somewhat interesting (even with that lame cop-out of an ending). Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was a massive disappointment for me, and while its existence doesn't take away from my love for the original Hotline Miami, it does make me wonder why anyone would prefer the sequel over the first game.