I think this is another example of how amazing the PlayStation 2 was for the time. The PS2 was not only a commercial success but provided a much needed spark for what would become a market bursting at the seams with deeply ambitious projects, full of wonder and whimsy, only limited by hardware limitations and occasional executive meddling. The fact a game from 2002 was able to have such an engaging combat system alongside beautiful world design and hours upon hours of side content is something I didn’t expect, but here we are!!

still extremely flawed despite the touch-up, unfortunately. the prospect of farming for healing items is very questionable to me and i’d say a good chunk of this game is pretty difficult without any sort of guidance. the bosses are laughably easy except for two, flamelurker and maneater. there are some absolutely dickish and unfair enemy placements, particularly the fight against the black phantom on the staircase leading to the maneater fight. all in all, the game still has some wrinkles despite the welcomed refinements. the sound design is spectacular and the game looks absolutely beautiful. many people criticize this game and compare it to the visual fidelity of the original but if having shittier graphics means i can at least play a more polished , easily accessible version of a now decade-old game , i don’t care that much. it was a fun experience but extremely inconsistent and sometimes unfair.

who had the wise idea of taking a roguelike, the game genre essentially made for people who like listening to podcasts and music while they do other things, and absolutely stuffing it with dialogue. dialogue everywhere. you walk one step and a smug british twat will spit at you and dispense a cloying little one liner or smarmy quip before dissipating. you'll clear a room and another british twat will make a comment to you. you'll blink and someone will have something to say. this game tries to solve the fundamental issue of roguelikes, the repetition, with something new to spice up every run, but it still didn't work cuz this game was boring as hell and i didn't even finish it. SAD!

disclaimer do not try and convince me to like this game it will not work im sorry

i actually would say i really enjoy this game and i'd even say it's better than most roguelikes. unlike other roguelikes which cram you into this weird, eternal melting nightmare where the days repeat over and over and you're forced to confront yourself as you plow through sisyphean tasks and see the hours slowly drain from your life, rogue legacy 2 provides a slight remedy in the form of a stat-tree meaning that at the end of every run, you can put your money towards a specific trait and thus increase your chances of winning a run. other roguelikes will force you to play the same shit over and over until you git gud , but with rogue legacy 2 you're given a little speck of hope in the form of what might be an otherwise meaningless progression system that does in fact get you pretty addicted to the game. if it had not been for this progression system, i would've thrown the game out and never look at it again. i'm a simple guy, i see numbers go up and stats skyrocket and the little chemicals in my brain start dancing. it's the task of building up a huge collection of gold and then spending almost all of it on one stat and repeating it over and over. it's the closest thing to gambling!!! not only that but the competent combat system and enthralling art design made the experience a more palatable one compared to the likes of slay the spire which will flash its skirt with the same thirty amalgamations of burnt overly airbrushed Scary Monster Type 3B until you feel your grip on reality slip away. the screen will shake every time you drive your blade through some poor skeleton and it felt so fucking good. the vibrating controller did wonders.
the game tries to have a story and lore but anyone who plays a roguelike to be touched by a tightly woven epic full of romance and drama is insane. i admit that i skipped through all of it and i don't really think the creators were that pressed to tell it anyways because it'd be told through the form of diary entries dumped in random places and i laugh at the thought of someone, in the middle of their long run, sitting down to read the frenzied ramblings of some vague Figure Not To Be Named, Only To Be Theorized About who will drop little pieces of lore here and there and then vaguely refer to themselves to spice things up. the game is fun but for its worth, aka a gambling machine, i don't think it has much more value than that. it didn't move me. it wasn't a deeply arresting existentialist piece on the horrors of aging, although IMAGINE a roguelike like that!!!!! it was a good little timesink and it was way better than the first game goodbye!

pretty good; only complaint is that it only gets fun after you’ve actually mastered the game which can take quite awhile. the final boss is absolutely fantastic though. this game is extremely difficult even on normal, which was supposedly fixed in this edition i was playing. the story was quite compelling and it had many peak kino moments. did it emotionally resonate w me as much as others! probably not, it’s an old game and i’m just now playing it. but it’s such a step up from dmc 1 it’s astounding. capcom knew what they were doing.

As much as I'd like to finish this game, the PC port sucks shit on newer devices. A lot of weird slow-down and janky framerate issues which shouldn't be an issue for a game that is 17-years-old and counting. I want to continue playing but I have to stop playing every 3 months because the slowdown and frame rate is unbearable. I'll probably wait until I get a new computer, who knows. Anyways, for what I like, I really enjoy the atmosphere and the fact it's a classic Silent Hill experience. Heather is funny as hell and this has my favorite OST from the entire trilogy--yes, I said trilogy. I'm probably going to give it another jab if I can figure out what's wrong with it. I hate having a laptop. I hate being human.