I don't even know where to begin with this one. I'm not sure how to rank it either.
Let's just start and maybe I'll figure out the score along the way.
MAJOR DISCLAIMER: Do NOT buy the Nintendo Switch version of this game. It is broken and has been broken for many years. There is an extremely odd bug after certain levels late game, when you are selecting cops for your next shift, your controls will suddenly lock up. Only down on the d pad works and the select button. This means you can't actually select your units in the way you want to. This is a very very big deal because it happens many times.
The port is prone to crashing often. And the final cherry on top, completing this game corrupts your save file. This isn't a bug, this happens consistently. I have beaten the game twice and the save file corrupted each time. So I can't even show you my file to say I beat it. It is a broken version of the game.
So with that in mind, how do I rank this title? Do I rank it as a port? Because if I am going by that logic, it's like 1 star. It's terrible.
But, in the sake of a more interesting post, I am going to omit that for the ranking. We are going to judge the game as is. Just again note that you should avoid it on Switch.
Ok so, this game goes in a really interesting direction from the first one. There were many moving parts and systems and things going on in the first game and that's magnified here.
The cutscenes overall have better presentation. In particular, there are actual animated scenes this time. These work REALLY REALLY well. The movements are somewhat unnerving and offputting, but the scenes in question are intense by design. There are heavy camera shakes, a lack of music to sell you in on the moment, and decent voice direction for the most part. There are also many moments where the game presents something really odd and seemingly random. Without giving much away, these moments really really work at throwing you off, and giving you an idea of how demented Boyd's psyche has become. He was a morally grey character in the first game caught between a bunch of conflicting positions. In this game, he is a monster. Basically of his humanity has been stripped away. It's an interesting story, one that has sporadic moments of really tense moments.
But notice how I said sporadic. Because while the presentation is better, the dialogue is even WORSE. Oh. My. God. This dialouge. I cannot stand the writing in this game. They talk about utter nonsense at all times. Cracks on the wall, toilets, strawberries. Everyone stutters and stammers and draws out the dialouge in the most stiff ways. EVERY character is written this way. And now the cutscenes are LONGER. So you have longer worse scenes than the first game. The dialouge and writing is truly horrible. The game never knows how to just get to the point and you have to sit there for up to 10 minutes wasting your time listening to these idiot cops talk about a crack in the wall.
There is a review on this page going over the character of Lilly. She is on the poster of the game and meant to be one of the main characters. I think that review is quite interesting and explores a way to look at the character I couldn't. Because she's barely in this game. I would say the overall game is about 15-20 hours? She's in roughly 2-3 hours. She has no agency or real role in this story. This somewhat makes sense because her role is trying to be a better leader. But then the story ends and she contributed basically nothing to anything that happened. If you had removed the character from the story, I feel that nothing would have been lost, which is a big problem to have in your story. I like Lilly fine, she's probably the only likeable character in the game. But at the very least, even if you disagree with my take on the character, have her at least be in the game for more than 5% of the experience.
So overall, the story is shown in a better format but the story itself is just awful in every way. So once again, we have to lean on the gameplay to save us.
Thankfully, I once again enjoy the game very much. And there are many new additions that spice things up. Your roster of cops is more streamlined and everyone has individual quirks for the entire game. So for example, one cop smells really really bad and some officers won't work with him. Theres a woman who won't work with men at a lower rank than her own. There's a guy who amusingly will not carry a Baton and lose his loyalty to you if you give it to him too many times. Loyalty can be swayed for your officers. They'll disobey you if they aren't loyal and do things on their own. But it's easy enough to get them back on your side.
The game maintains the same format of sending your dudes out to solve issues. But now each cop has stats for each ability. Their strength, stamina, negotiation skills, etc. so now when you are presented with a problem, and one of the options is "chase the suspect" you want a fast cop selected to do that. Or if you want to talk down a criminal you get someone with high negotiation. This makes you consider who to send out in pairs. It gets even more complex when you factor in having items on each officer. Now you need to decide who's going to carry the stun gun or baton. Usually, these make encounters a lot easier and avoid causalities. The system is very simple but I actually like it a lot, it helps to further add identity to each officer as they become whatever role you want them to be.
Let's talk about the biggest change here, the tactical missions. Some crimes are way too big for just a handful of cops to handle normally. So what results is some planning during normal gameplay followed by full on levels where you control a party of cops in a turn based RPG style combat system. They did something pretty clever here, which is incorporating the stats you have during normal patrols, like high shooting or speed, and made it apply to this mode as well by making each stat represent unique abilities and attacks you can equip onto your officers. High speed, for example lets you travel further on the board. Intelligence lets you lockpick doors or windows. I actually really love this system because it is double layered and works in totally different aspects of the game. And once again it helps to promote variety for your officers. One can be an expert shooter while the other can sneak around and try to arrest everyone. These sections can get really, really intense. The odds are almost always stacked against you and a single bad shot can really mess up your officer. I like the presentation on these a lot and they really add a layer to the game I enjoy.
Finally I must mention this criminally overlooked soundtrack by Kevin Penkin. I always liked the first games OST but this soundtrack is a knockout. The variety first of all is spot on. There's fast paced hip hop and techno club music. There are heavy rock songs, with quiet tracks thrown in. The music in the tactical missions is extremely unnerving and tension filled. Not only do the tracks compliment the scenarios well, but on their own they are great pieces of music that I listen to actively.
The game has the same problems of repition as last time. And it has so many more frustrating moments. While I love the tactical battles, they can drag on for way too long. And there's no checkpoint in any of them. So if you die, you have to start all the way back from the beginning. It is also frustrating doing the routines and sending out patrols and that one jerk of a cop will just refuse to go out on a call when you really need them to.
That covers most of how I feel about this game. There are moments that I think are genuinely fantastic. Incredible even. I love
So much about this game. But wow, that story is so god awful. And wow is it frustrating to play.
I think this game and the first one are equal to me, for different reasons. I'm gonna give it a hesitant recommendation.
If you only have a Switch, don't bother.
Let's just start and maybe I'll figure out the score along the way.
MAJOR DISCLAIMER: Do NOT buy the Nintendo Switch version of this game. It is broken and has been broken for many years. There is an extremely odd bug after certain levels late game, when you are selecting cops for your next shift, your controls will suddenly lock up. Only down on the d pad works and the select button. This means you can't actually select your units in the way you want to. This is a very very big deal because it happens many times.
The port is prone to crashing often. And the final cherry on top, completing this game corrupts your save file. This isn't a bug, this happens consistently. I have beaten the game twice and the save file corrupted each time. So I can't even show you my file to say I beat it. It is a broken version of the game.
So with that in mind, how do I rank this title? Do I rank it as a port? Because if I am going by that logic, it's like 1 star. It's terrible.
But, in the sake of a more interesting post, I am going to omit that for the ranking. We are going to judge the game as is. Just again note that you should avoid it on Switch.
Ok so, this game goes in a really interesting direction from the first one. There were many moving parts and systems and things going on in the first game and that's magnified here.
The cutscenes overall have better presentation. In particular, there are actual animated scenes this time. These work REALLY REALLY well. The movements are somewhat unnerving and offputting, but the scenes in question are intense by design. There are heavy camera shakes, a lack of music to sell you in on the moment, and decent voice direction for the most part. There are also many moments where the game presents something really odd and seemingly random. Without giving much away, these moments really really work at throwing you off, and giving you an idea of how demented Boyd's psyche has become. He was a morally grey character in the first game caught between a bunch of conflicting positions. In this game, he is a monster. Basically of his humanity has been stripped away. It's an interesting story, one that has sporadic moments of really tense moments.
But notice how I said sporadic. Because while the presentation is better, the dialogue is even WORSE. Oh. My. God. This dialouge. I cannot stand the writing in this game. They talk about utter nonsense at all times. Cracks on the wall, toilets, strawberries. Everyone stutters and stammers and draws out the dialouge in the most stiff ways. EVERY character is written this way. And now the cutscenes are LONGER. So you have longer worse scenes than the first game. The dialouge and writing is truly horrible. The game never knows how to just get to the point and you have to sit there for up to 10 minutes wasting your time listening to these idiot cops talk about a crack in the wall.
There is a review on this page going over the character of Lilly. She is on the poster of the game and meant to be one of the main characters. I think that review is quite interesting and explores a way to look at the character I couldn't. Because she's barely in this game. I would say the overall game is about 15-20 hours? She's in roughly 2-3 hours. She has no agency or real role in this story. This somewhat makes sense because her role is trying to be a better leader. But then the story ends and she contributed basically nothing to anything that happened. If you had removed the character from the story, I feel that nothing would have been lost, which is a big problem to have in your story. I like Lilly fine, she's probably the only likeable character in the game. But at the very least, even if you disagree with my take on the character, have her at least be in the game for more than 5% of the experience.
So overall, the story is shown in a better format but the story itself is just awful in every way. So once again, we have to lean on the gameplay to save us.
Thankfully, I once again enjoy the game very much. And there are many new additions that spice things up. Your roster of cops is more streamlined and everyone has individual quirks for the entire game. So for example, one cop smells really really bad and some officers won't work with him. Theres a woman who won't work with men at a lower rank than her own. There's a guy who amusingly will not carry a Baton and lose his loyalty to you if you give it to him too many times. Loyalty can be swayed for your officers. They'll disobey you if they aren't loyal and do things on their own. But it's easy enough to get them back on your side.
The game maintains the same format of sending your dudes out to solve issues. But now each cop has stats for each ability. Their strength, stamina, negotiation skills, etc. so now when you are presented with a problem, and one of the options is "chase the suspect" you want a fast cop selected to do that. Or if you want to talk down a criminal you get someone with high negotiation. This makes you consider who to send out in pairs. It gets even more complex when you factor in having items on each officer. Now you need to decide who's going to carry the stun gun or baton. Usually, these make encounters a lot easier and avoid causalities. The system is very simple but I actually like it a lot, it helps to further add identity to each officer as they become whatever role you want them to be.
Let's talk about the biggest change here, the tactical missions. Some crimes are way too big for just a handful of cops to handle normally. So what results is some planning during normal gameplay followed by full on levels where you control a party of cops in a turn based RPG style combat system. They did something pretty clever here, which is incorporating the stats you have during normal patrols, like high shooting or speed, and made it apply to this mode as well by making each stat represent unique abilities and attacks you can equip onto your officers. High speed, for example lets you travel further on the board. Intelligence lets you lockpick doors or windows. I actually really love this system because it is double layered and works in totally different aspects of the game. And once again it helps to promote variety for your officers. One can be an expert shooter while the other can sneak around and try to arrest everyone. These sections can get really, really intense. The odds are almost always stacked against you and a single bad shot can really mess up your officer. I like the presentation on these a lot and they really add a layer to the game I enjoy.
Finally I must mention this criminally overlooked soundtrack by Kevin Penkin. I always liked the first games OST but this soundtrack is a knockout. The variety first of all is spot on. There's fast paced hip hop and techno club music. There are heavy rock songs, with quiet tracks thrown in. The music in the tactical missions is extremely unnerving and tension filled. Not only do the tracks compliment the scenarios well, but on their own they are great pieces of music that I listen to actively.
The game has the same problems of repition as last time. And it has so many more frustrating moments. While I love the tactical battles, they can drag on for way too long. And there's no checkpoint in any of them. So if you die, you have to start all the way back from the beginning. It is also frustrating doing the routines and sending out patrols and that one jerk of a cop will just refuse to go out on a call when you really need them to.
That covers most of how I feel about this game. There are moments that I think are genuinely fantastic. Incredible even. I love
So much about this game. But wow, that story is so god awful. And wow is it frustrating to play.
I think this game and the first one are equal to me, for different reasons. I'm gonna give it a hesitant recommendation.
If you only have a Switch, don't bother.