What a doooooowngrade. I can’t remember the last time I played a game where the sequel was a step down from its predecessor. For every step forward it made, it took three steps back.
Improving upon the original: the story is more important, there are characters (who don’t do much) that flesh out the cast, and difficulty has received a huge adjustment.
Helix Gun and homing missiles are no more, as guns and sub-weapons have been nerfed. Unfortunately, it seems “easiness” was replaced with an arsenal of gun types that are overall weak, many types of mines that I never used, and a new slew of sub-weapons.
Although aside from utility, each one essentially replaces the other. Why use the triple missiles when I can shoot a string of homing missiles? Why use a string of homing missiles when I can dash into bad guys and steal their energy?
Speaking of energy, the GAIA system: I kinda mildly dislike it. Sure, it’s fun to drop from a high perch and watch green particles flow into the tank, but there were a good number of times where my SP gauge went out before I could cross a gap so I just had to sit and wait. It gets worse with each SP gauge extension.
Backtracking and padding are the game’s two biggest sins. Despite utilizing several small world maps, there is NO fast travel system, meaning over an hour of your playthrough will be spent backtracking. Why fast travel wasn’t implemented is beyond me.
This game is padded about as well as a children’s pillow. So many planetoids act as filler levels to get a map to another planetoids. I don’t understand why they just cut out the filler nonsense.
Improving upon the original: the story is more important, there are characters (who don’t do much) that flesh out the cast, and difficulty has received a huge adjustment.
Helix Gun and homing missiles are no more, as guns and sub-weapons have been nerfed. Unfortunately, it seems “easiness” was replaced with an arsenal of gun types that are overall weak, many types of mines that I never used, and a new slew of sub-weapons.
Although aside from utility, each one essentially replaces the other. Why use the triple missiles when I can shoot a string of homing missiles? Why use a string of homing missiles when I can dash into bad guys and steal their energy?
Speaking of energy, the GAIA system: I kinda mildly dislike it. Sure, it’s fun to drop from a high perch and watch green particles flow into the tank, but there were a good number of times where my SP gauge went out before I could cross a gap so I just had to sit and wait. It gets worse with each SP gauge extension.
Backtracking and padding are the game’s two biggest sins. Despite utilizing several small world maps, there is NO fast travel system, meaning over an hour of your playthrough will be spent backtracking. Why fast travel wasn’t implemented is beyond me.
This game is padded about as well as a children’s pillow. So many planetoids act as filler levels to get a map to another planetoids. I don’t understand why they just cut out the filler nonsense.