more of the same, but also just more in general. having played these games back-to-back, the improvements on the gameplay in this were felt immediately. comboing mobs was so much more fluid and satisfying. there are actual air combos now, and your actions can be more easily linked by super moves on the ground and in the air. fighting and building up the hit count was an absolute blast. also, assists actually work now. for some reason they were super finicky and unresponsive in the first game, but i had no issues with that here.

unfortunately, the guard break feels kind of janky. there's no way (that i found) to work a guard break into a combo because you've gotta stop what you're doing to hold the heavy button and break the flow of combat. it's great for sending floored enemies up into the air, however. on the player side, guarding seems to be useless for the most part. might just be my unga bunga brain using offense as the best defense.

all the charm from the first game is here, including the hit or miss humor. the map is somewhat expanded on and has a few additional areas with a good number of new characters to interact with. there are now player hideouts spread across the map that let you to respawn in whatever part of the city you died in, allowing you to avoid some backtracking.

great game. had a ton of fun turning my brain off and mashing away.