In absolute awe of the nearly raw, undercooked nature of this game. It's weird, it's ambitious, it fails on multiple fronts. It's an RPG Maker game before RPG Maker existed, a borderline avant-garde experiment from a time when you had to call a factory and physically manufacture cartridges to get a game on the shelf.

More than anything: the combat. It's different, that's for sure. It's easy to see what they were going for, the positioning, unit facing, action delays. And… most of it doesn't matter? Combat is trivial until the final chapter, moderately challenging at best from then on. Status effects are plentiful but largely irrelevant, action timing is so very odd. Sometimes opening a menu allows another character to go, sometimes a unit will take 7 active turns to unleash an underwhelming move. Opponents need to spend time to reorient, but you do not, despite the numerous enemy moves that change your facing. You have a plethora of abilities on each character, most of them meaningless. The non-linear nature means everything before the finale is the exact same difficulty. Everything is just… there. A pile of ideas.

So it's a good thing the rest works. Yasunori Mitsuda's Yoko Shimomura's boss theme rips right out of the speakers, gets you hyped every time even though you know you're in virtually no danger. Every character has their own musical identity, each era is sonically unique. The themes slowly reveal themselves, the plot hook setting in as the chapters move on. The different genres have different mechanics, the dialogue has different fonts. Different artists for every scenario, different takes on the same message, an ending that pulls it all together. You see the credits no less than nine separate times, and they never let you skip them, treating each as a proper endroll.

It's uneven, a mess, and a reminder that Squaresoft's RPGs were almost always full of the same odd choices and missteps. More so here, but it's easy to point out in almost every title of theirs from the era. They took risks and then polished the results, the flaws harder to see in the resultant sheen.

This game is a piece of art. I don't think I've ever played any survival horror game as unique as it. I pretty much like everything about it. Amazing visuals and art, great spine-chilling soundtrack, and a very intriguing but also nightmarish story that reminded me at times of the works of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezu. There was really only one aspect of the game i didn't particularly care for, and it was the puzzles. The puzzles are just way too hard and obtuse, but I actually admire the Project Siren team for having the guts to make them that way. The whole timeloop/stage-select mechanic was extremely confusing at first, but I grew to enjoy it. The british voiceover was also quite off-putting, but after a while I found it to be a bit charming. Siren will probably be a game I'll revisit down the line, as it has easily become one of my favorites.

the most violently mediocre indie rpg ive played in a while. as everyone else says the visuals are very strong, the combat is okay (i hate turn based combat and only started to burn out on this system around the 9 hour mark, which is HIGH praise from me), but the story is so soulless that i shelved the game out of sheer boredom with the paint-by-numbers narrative.

it even has some fun stuff. the town with the tavern where everyone lives in denial of their grim fate and you aren't allowed to speak the truth is an interesting premise for a thematic exploration of living in denial of ugly truths, but you spend like 5 total minutes in that space. the pirate that breaks the 4th wall constantly isn't awful in theory, but she and the rest of them are all so irritating with their dumb poses and catchphrases that its impossible to like them. every single character is so generic that its not physically possible to feel a single emotion in response to anything they do.

sucks that the games weakest element is so weak that it makes the rest of the experience a genuine slog

It's good, actually.

I'm someone that got really disappointed, frustrated and baffled with Wolfenstein II, and even though this game is still not what I wanted, I was able to really enjoy it for what it is.

Playing with my bestie, and even doing some offline play, there was a good amount of fun to be had. The level design was handled by Arkane and as such we have very open ended, but not outright open world, levels, with lots of shortcuts, items to find and different encounters to get into.

Most of the game will be spent doing side content instead of the 5 story missions at hand, but I really didn't mind cause that's where the strenght is this time instead of the story. The gunplay is nearly identical to Wolfenstein II except now placed in levels that aren't frustratingly small or unfair, and while you can't dual wield as many guns, the upgrade system (which isn't actually grindy) can make any gun very reliable, especially the machinepistol and shotgun, so that it isn't missed at all.

The RPG mechanics in this game aren't actually that deep. Some enemies will not scale to your level from below so you need to get some level ups before getting to certain encounters, but you always have the option of finding an alternative route or taking them down with some more challenge. Leveling up actually doesn't take much effort, and even just running around shooting anything will net you some good XP. The guns are upgraded with currency you find or get from completing missions and you get more than enough to have a decent arsenal in the first couple of hours. What's most important is getting your skill points and weapon upgrade coins spent, you don't even have to think too much about it, just look at what you like and get it. As long as you actually upgrade whatever, enemies will not become bullet sponges and the game actually remains fairly balanced.

Something very worth noting is that everything scales for each player independently, both on their level and difficulty setting, so asides from those few encounters with enemies that have set levels, playing with someone that's not on your same level will not drag you down, this feature is actually extremely well implemented and I'm surprised it's never mentioned.

The big thing where this game fails in comparison to other Wolfenstein games as of late is story, but really not due to "cringy" protagonists (I really thought they were fine, and way less annoying than any real teenager I'm likely to find), but simply due to it being a very straightforward and short plot. That's really my only big complaint, the story could have been better, but it's not nearly as terrible as Wolfenstein II's (seriously, THAT should be your example of tone inconsistency making things hard to take seriously).

I guess I should mention the microtransactions too, and I'll just say, they're so easy to forget while you're just playing and are never in your face. Very few select items are tied to it, none of them relevant to progression. CAPCOM has been doing way worse on their singeplayer games for years, so if they can do that I just find this case very inoffensive.

I quite enjoyed playing this, both with a friend and alone, and certainly think it's worth at least a run on especially with how cheap it usually goes for on sales now. I think people are too harsh on it because it's not Wolfenstein III, but it's at least way more consistent than II with decent level design, an actual final boss, and characters that aren't pissing on New Order with their writing. I actually hope Wolfenstein III adopts the more open ended design and considers a lighter tone like found here if they're still gonna go with what II was doing. Either way, please chill, this game wasn't made to replace Wolfenstein III and it's not the future of the series like many wanted to assume it was just to be angrier at it.

Theoretically, this game has aged about as well as a carton of milk that's also 20 years old. The voice acting - sans a stellar performance from Charles Martinet - is mostly typical of the time, being hilariously hokey. Overall, the graphics look bland, the controls and camera are quite clunky, and you could argue that the game either holds your hand or leaves you a fish out of water.

And yet, the story and writing are so batshit in the most brilliant way, and there's a massive "a-ha!" factor that plays into puzzles and plot elements you can figure out on your own. There's a satisfaction to exploring around and talking to people, and realizing "oh yeah, this plays into something happening elsewhere!" Not to mention, even if you screw up and run out of time, you have the power of knowing what to do more efficiently and the foresight of letting you skip cutscenes you've already seen. I did "have" to look at a walkthrough two times, but both times with a reaction of "of course, I should've thought of that earlier!" Puzzles in this game are insane, but not in the moon logic sense - within this game's rules, solutions always make complete sense.

Also, while I do think the graphics lack color, there are some really cool effects and animations for the time, such as weather, clothing textures, and particularly, certain time periods utilizing "filters". 1902 has a monochrome overlay, the 1580s look sepia, yet all the while, Eike is in full-color. It's really cool.

It's a game that could totally use a massive polishing-up, but none of its flaws really make me want to walk away. It has this strange energy that makes me adore it, make me want a movie, even a remake. As long as they can get Charles back, that is.

I got this game hoping it to be a like ps2 era character adventure platformer. It indeed was, but I found it extremely sauceless. Nothing really drew me in, just a bland pixar wannabe. The whole mechanic of throwing your pikmin dudes and then pulsing just feels off to me, i know other games you would just have to shoot an arrow or magic bolt or something. Anyways I saw you could get a mask and I thought you could get masks to put on for different powers, but no, it gave me detective vision. I then immediately quit and refunded.

im jus gon copy and paste my steam review

also ive played thru dis game like 10 times im pretty sure so take my fuckin word for it

a misunderstood masterpiece
kane and lynch 2 was released in a time where games like uncharted, army of two, and gears of war were the standard for third person shooters at the time. games where you played as a quippy asshole who kills a million guys but youre still good and likeable

kane and lynch 2 did not follow dis

in kane and lynch 2 you play as da most disgustin, repulsive men who hate each other, doin ugly horrible things, ruinin eachothers lives, and as a result dats what da game is. its disgustin and repulsive, da camera shakes when you run, it looks like an MPEG video, when you get shot da screen depixelizes, you SHOULDNT aim down your sights, da guns are deliberately inaccurate, Lynch is yellin constantly from PTSD and his schizophrenia, Kane is pissed off at Lynch and at his life, and ultimately doesnt care about anyone but himself. dis is usually where people (people who even like this game) say dis game is "deliberately bad" but dat doesnt apply here and anyone who says it does is a moron

theres a scene about midway thru da game, after Kane and Lynch escape torture and are runnin around China naked with cuts all over them bleedin everywhere where they stop in an underground mall, and Lynch starts havin a breakdown. you cant feel bad for him, you cant, and Kane starts talkin to him about how he "needs" Lynch to go thru with dis deal from Glazer with him, "one last deal," so he can "get out the game," and as fucked Lynch is even he realizes how selfish Kane truly is. but who else does Lynch have to rely on? get some clothes on

when i first played kane and lynch 2 it was on PS3 with my homie veronica, it was on sale for $3 and i played it on my old 90s HP monitor, we got to da helicopter setpiece, where you hijack a helicopter and start unloadin machine guns indiscriminately on offices in a huge tower
due to my monitor bein so old, it has speakers, and when things get too loud, it clips like HELL, and starts makin dat sound like when your earbuds are screwin up but way louder and basically perpetually. i wish everyone could experience dat part dis way

another thing people either completely ignore or misunderstand how huge of a design choice it is, is da fact the game is based off graphic liveleak videos
dats WHY da camera is like that, dats WHY da game is so short, dats WHY da gameplay is chaotic, dats WHY da story is so sparse and told in inbetween shootouts and loadin screens with shots of shanghai, dats WHY da entire game is how it is. its a design choice dat runs so deep into the game yet no one realizes it, for whatever reason

i wanna credit my homie veronica for showin me dis game, and for part of how i initially describe da game in dis review
id recommend everyone should go back to dis game, after almost a whole decade of retrospect, and how ambitious it is, i think it deserves it