Played Co-op. Not the improvement on the first game I was hoping for. RCG1, while not nearly some kind of original or inventive masterpiece, at least was still charming to me when it first got released. But I still had some issues with it, mostly relating to combat. And with the increased pricetag of RCG2, I was hoping for a much improved game, but that did not end up being the case. The novelty has worn off and I actually had a worse experience with this game than I had with RCG1.

Besides a few balancing adjustments (for example, not losing half your money upon death), there aren't any new additions to the game that added any value to my experience. Mostly it comes down to me that for a beat-em-up, the combat is just not good.

While there is a tiny bit more variety in the enemy AI compared to the first, you still approach and deal with every enemy the exact same way. You can just punch-punch-heavy any enemy and it will knock them down without any risk. Don't face them during their wake-up animation, and just stand below or behind them and do the combo again. Outside of bosses I never changed my playstyle, because this simple combo will just always work.

Bosses are the most significant downgrade compared to the first game. They love wasting your time with overly long attacks/animations where you avoid their attacks and can't hit them. After you've beaten the second boss, the game never gets any more difficult. Even the final boss we beat on our first try, and I was sure another phase was about to happen but instead the credits started scrolling by.

And there are a few more other issues i have, including:
- Basic movement has inertia.
- Throws are useless. You can only do them when enemies are dizzy, and they don't give i-frames.
- Enemies feel like they take much longer to kill compared to most other beat-em-up or belt scroller. And since they aren't really a threat it mostly ends up being boring.
- Enemies will just walk into your attacks, instead of trying to actually break your combo.

I'll keep it at that for the beat-em-up part of my review. They've expanded the RPG side some more. The map feels like it's a lot bigger, and more interconnected. With new sidequests and NPCs that will help you fight in exchange for some money. I ended up never using these much, since they weren't neccisary, but it does add more charm to the game.

The presentation for the game is mostly on par with RCG1. I prefer the OST of the original, but the sprites and other visuals are still pretty nice. Personally I wish the artstyle was more consistent across gameplay and UI, but I understand this is now the 'modern' look people have come to expect from retro-inspired indie games.

The writing is really not my cup of tea. The humor they're trying to go for feels really predictable, cliché and obnoxious. And the main characters feel like they're more settling in their own stereotype than they were in RCG1. Kyoko is now just an complete idiot in this game, and Misako is significantly more hot-headed.


Having said of all that, the new additions like new playable characters, minigames, and some sidequests don't really do it for me. The moment-to-moment experience is just too dull. It's not like if they made RCG3 with more content, and RCG4 with even more content, that eventually I'd give it a 5 star rating. It's not like I'd ever consider some boring Ubisoft sandbox to be a 5/5 because it has a lot of content™. And same here.

My favorite out of the original triology, and probably out of the whole franchise. The only one I've yet to play is the second british spin-off that everyone on this website loves apparently. Although I didn't like the first one much, I do want to play it sooner rather than later.

Probably why I enjoy this one so much is the incredible pacing. No investigation of court sections feels overly long. With even the final case only taking me around 4-5hrs first time I played it.

I think this game is also the funniest out of the entire series. Pretty much all the characters are fantastic. With special shoutout to the prosecutors. Don't wanna start spoiling, but the prosecutor from the final case is still the only one I found legitimately intimidating from all the ones I've seen so far.

I've had mixed feelings on the bonus case over the years, and while I don't think it's perfect, I think I've come around to liking it. Especially as it moves forward I end up liking it more and more.

I have to confess to not be a big fan of the original Daioujou. It lacks a lot of the style and appeal the original DDP had for me. Very muted and boring colors, enemies and especially bosses look like glorified trashcans, and it lacks a lot of the imagination found in bullet patterns you see in other Ikeda games like Ketsui and Progear. Even though I'm sure it has more mechanics, it feels dumbed down and especially Black Label with its even longer combo timer doesn't keep me on the edge of my seat like Donpachi and DDP always do.

So someone looked at this and has a brilliant idea. What if we make this game again, on lower quality hardware, and put animes in it. Voila, Saidaioujou. But if I just left it at that, I'm afraid I'd give off an impression that's too positive for what this game actually feels like to play.

This game is unique in that it's the only Ikeda game that just feels really shit to play moment-by-moment. Despite the bullet count only going up from game to game. The hitbox is made bigger, and it just feels worse overall. It's hard to put my finger on it, but deaths often feel unfair to me in a way that doesn't happen in other Cave titles.

The visuals? The whole game looks similar and flat. SDOJ is going for this blue futuristic look with everything having the default Photoshop outer glow effect. Every stage looks the same to me. And the worst crime a shmup can commit? Bad explosion graphics.

The music and sounds? The crunchiest. Part of this is because of the cv1k hardware, but even other cv1k titles like Futari sound better than this. Usually developers get better at this the more familiar they get with the hardware, but somehow this is a big downgrade from Cave's previous titles. It might actually be the worst I've ever heard a game sound.

Scoring? That's fucked up too. Because it's basically impossible to break the chain if you know what you're doing, the goal now is to get that chain number as high as possible. And on stage 3 & 5, you can get the overflow glitch, where if the combo goes up high enough, you get a shitton of points for each additional hit. The world record replay doesn't even have 'splits' for the other stages and focuses on getting the overflow as fast as possible. So the one part I still like about Daioujou has been reduced even further in this game.

So while I personally thought this was a huge disappointment, if you're just here for the bullet patterns and you have an above average tolerance for the animes, it still plays like any other Ikeda game and if that's all your care about, give it a try for sure. But for me I don't think I'll ever play this again, while I can play literally any other Cave title.