Shock Troopers 2nd Squad is a downgrade in almost every aspect that made it’s predecessor so legendary.
An aspect of which i’m neutral about is the fact that they decided to put only 4 characters instead of 8, and to made them more unique in terms of functionality. For sure, they are a lot less charismatic than some of their predecessors. This time you can pick between gym bro Gordon Freeman, a blonde with bigger boobs than the blonde from the first game, a petit e-girl, and the laser guy no one cares about.
Probably the most interesting addition is the inclusion of vehicles in a very Metal Slug fashion, but sadly it’s not a really good implementation, i couldn’t last 30 seconds on any of them because of how janky they were.
Besides that, pixel art is less appealing (they went for a more “cartoony” fashion this time), music is cringey at times, sound design (specially voice-acting or whatever they use as human voices) is simply terrible. And they almost completely scrapped one of the key aspects of the original Shock Troopers, which is the option of choosing which route to take.
This game feels almost like a shoot em up in many sections, specially in boss fights, which tend to be a bullet hell mess. Not really my cup of tea. And as a design choice, i’m not sure if i should qualify it as a misconception (the fact that is a top-down game doesn’t make it a Shoot em’up) or simply a risky/polarizing decision.
Now, the truth is that 2nd Squad is not a bad game at all. The problem of this game is living under the shadow of such a perfect title like Shock Troopers. If you never played the original you’ll probably enjoy this game a lot, because you won’t feel biased at all. But still, i have to say that if you already enjoyed the first title, you should play this one too, because at some point is more of the same, which is not a bad thing at all considering how short Shock Troopers was.
It’s kinda sad that we could never see this becoming a bigger franchise.
An aspect of which i’m neutral about is the fact that they decided to put only 4 characters instead of 8, and to made them more unique in terms of functionality. For sure, they are a lot less charismatic than some of their predecessors. This time you can pick between gym bro Gordon Freeman, a blonde with bigger boobs than the blonde from the first game, a petit e-girl, and the laser guy no one cares about.
Probably the most interesting addition is the inclusion of vehicles in a very Metal Slug fashion, but sadly it’s not a really good implementation, i couldn’t last 30 seconds on any of them because of how janky they were.
Besides that, pixel art is less appealing (they went for a more “cartoony” fashion this time), music is cringey at times, sound design (specially voice-acting or whatever they use as human voices) is simply terrible. And they almost completely scrapped one of the key aspects of the original Shock Troopers, which is the option of choosing which route to take.
This game feels almost like a shoot em up in many sections, specially in boss fights, which tend to be a bullet hell mess. Not really my cup of tea. And as a design choice, i’m not sure if i should qualify it as a misconception (the fact that is a top-down game doesn’t make it a Shoot em’up) or simply a risky/polarizing decision.
Now, the truth is that 2nd Squad is not a bad game at all. The problem of this game is living under the shadow of such a perfect title like Shock Troopers. If you never played the original you’ll probably enjoy this game a lot, because you won’t feel biased at all. But still, i have to say that if you already enjoyed the first title, you should play this one too, because at some point is more of the same, which is not a bad thing at all considering how short Shock Troopers was.
It’s kinda sad that we could never see this becoming a bigger franchise.