Now this is more like it! With Ludosity having proven themselves to Nickelodeon, the restrictions were loosened and the budget was expanded quite a bit from the previous title. Making the campaign a roguelike was an inspired move, since it's a pretty budget-friendly way of adding a lot more variety to proceedings than we saw in the original game. There still isn't a ton of content, but what content exists is well-used.
Voice acting and character interactions, for example. In the campaign, character banter is limited to either conversations between characters of the same series or generic statements that could slot in anywhere. I wish there were more crossover moments - SpongeBob talking to Clockwork and the cast reacting to Gary are exceptions rather than the rule - but it's at least nice to have stuff like Raphael worrying about his brothers with Splinter, or Plasmius and Ember sniping at each other, or Plankton and Mrs. Puff being weirdly polite.
I also think the picks for enemy encounters give the game a lot of personality! Unsurprisingly, there's a huge SpongeBob bias, and while I wish SpongeBob didn't get TWO bosses, I'll admit that common enemies like the Bomb Pie pirates are fun pulls. Plus, you have very fun picks from other series like Garfield's food hallucinations, the Girl-Eating Plant, and... those guys from El Tigre (never saw it as a kid).
A common complaint about this game is how much of the last game's roster was cycled out. And yeah, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't miss playable Helga or CatDog, but I sorta think it's a statement on how much of an improvement this game is that the roster gets to be the focus of criticism. I appreciate as well anyway that a lot of the non-returning cast still feature in some way - either as a boss or as friendly NPCs. I would've been devastated if the #HughNation's efforts were a one-and-done matter, but still having Hugh Neutron as a highlighted extra is a worthy consolation prize.
(Speaking of rosters, I'm at a point in my life where I'm more curious to see others' roster picks in these crossover fighters than insist upon my own, but gun-to-head, if I had to pick a character I wanted to see for DLC or a theoretical sequel? Miko from Glitch Techs would be a fun pull. I also saw a fan roster that suggested Cynthia as a second Rugrats rep, which I think is absolutely brilliant)
It must also be said how much of an improvement there is to animation this time around. There's more to it than sheer aesthetics; looking at characters like Danny Phantom or Ren & Stimpy, you can really feel the team getting more comfortable with these guys and figuring out what animation principles existed in the original works, and how best to relay those principles into 3D. Occasionally you run into a weird camera angle that exposes a trick - how much characters' bodies are "cheated" out to the camera, in a way that makes a 3D render look off when viewed from the wrong angle - but I'd rather take that than have characters rigidly adhere to their models or key poses with improper use of tweening.
I've been sitting on doing a review for a bit because I've been going back and forth on achievement hunting in this game, and I wanted to hold back commentary in case I had more to say. I don't think I'm going to go for it, but I don't think that's a comment on the quality of the game itself or anything. With the first Nick All-Stars, I respected the game because, given the bare minimum budget Ludosity and Fair Play Labs had to work with, the team laser-focused on nailing the fundamentals. Those fundamentals are still here in the sequel, only now bundled in a package to properly highlight them. Very happy that the team was able to do so, and very eager to see what the DLC cycle holds for this game.
Voice acting and character interactions, for example. In the campaign, character banter is limited to either conversations between characters of the same series or generic statements that could slot in anywhere. I wish there were more crossover moments - SpongeBob talking to Clockwork and the cast reacting to Gary are exceptions rather than the rule - but it's at least nice to have stuff like Raphael worrying about his brothers with Splinter, or Plasmius and Ember sniping at each other, or Plankton and Mrs. Puff being weirdly polite.
I also think the picks for enemy encounters give the game a lot of personality! Unsurprisingly, there's a huge SpongeBob bias, and while I wish SpongeBob didn't get TWO bosses, I'll admit that common enemies like the Bomb Pie pirates are fun pulls. Plus, you have very fun picks from other series like Garfield's food hallucinations, the Girl-Eating Plant, and... those guys from El Tigre (never saw it as a kid).
A common complaint about this game is how much of the last game's roster was cycled out. And yeah, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't miss playable Helga or CatDog, but I sorta think it's a statement on how much of an improvement this game is that the roster gets to be the focus of criticism. I appreciate as well anyway that a lot of the non-returning cast still feature in some way - either as a boss or as friendly NPCs. I would've been devastated if the #HughNation's efforts were a one-and-done matter, but still having Hugh Neutron as a highlighted extra is a worthy consolation prize.
(Speaking of rosters, I'm at a point in my life where I'm more curious to see others' roster picks in these crossover fighters than insist upon my own, but gun-to-head, if I had to pick a character I wanted to see for DLC or a theoretical sequel? Miko from Glitch Techs would be a fun pull. I also saw a fan roster that suggested Cynthia as a second Rugrats rep, which I think is absolutely brilliant)
It must also be said how much of an improvement there is to animation this time around. There's more to it than sheer aesthetics; looking at characters like Danny Phantom or Ren & Stimpy, you can really feel the team getting more comfortable with these guys and figuring out what animation principles existed in the original works, and how best to relay those principles into 3D. Occasionally you run into a weird camera angle that exposes a trick - how much characters' bodies are "cheated" out to the camera, in a way that makes a 3D render look off when viewed from the wrong angle - but I'd rather take that than have characters rigidly adhere to their models or key poses with improper use of tweening.
I've been sitting on doing a review for a bit because I've been going back and forth on achievement hunting in this game, and I wanted to hold back commentary in case I had more to say. I don't think I'm going to go for it, but I don't think that's a comment on the quality of the game itself or anything. With the first Nick All-Stars, I respected the game because, given the bare minimum budget Ludosity and Fair Play Labs had to work with, the team laser-focused on nailing the fundamentals. Those fundamentals are still here in the sequel, only now bundled in a package to properly highlight them. Very happy that the team was able to do so, and very eager to see what the DLC cycle holds for this game.