21 reviews liked by verezap
I feel really, really bad by doing this. Look, I love the first game, it's probably my favorite indie game of all time, but this? What the hell, Dennaton?
I find Hotline Miami 2 to be a very unenjoyable experience, and the main reason for that has to be the level design. This game basically consists of ridiculously open football field sized buildings made entirely out of glass that are packed with dogs, fat dudes, and gun-wielding enemies that react to you in a nanosecond and kill you off-screen. This game is fucking hard, but not in a good, fun way like the first game. It's hard in a frustrating, bullshitty way.
In Hotline Miami 1, when you died, 90% of the time it was totally your fault. This time around though, 90% of your deaths are due to the god awful level design or to some cheap glitch. Hope you like doing nothing but using guns to try and snipe off-screen enemies two miles away while constantly holding shift for the entirety of the game, something that contrasts greatly with how you could almost exclusively use melee weapons to complete most levels in Hotline Miami 1 (with the exception of quickly picking up a gun to kill fat guys or enemies in inaccessible areas). The fact is, there are less ways to get through each level compared to HM1 since the level design often forces you to play in a specific way only. The game barely ever allows for creative strategies. The first game encouraged you to be reckless, it told you it was okay to fail, but this game forces you to be slow and methodical, which just feels like the antithesis to what Hotline Miami should be about. Something else that contributes to the levels being poorly designed is readability, which can often be abysmal. Sometimes it's very hard to differentiate between what you can be shot through and what is proper cover. Honestly, most stages feel like they were ripped out of some hardmode fangame: they're poorly designed and unfairly hard.
On the technical side of things, this game is an absolute mess. Hotline Miami 1 wasn't exactly polished but, in my experience, I've encountered far more glitches with this game that often got me killed, and the fact that a single floor in HM2 can take several minutes to get through just makes dying to a cheap glitch MUCH more frustrating than when it happened in the first game. The enemies react more like robots than ever, like how common it is for them to witness dozens of their buddies dying right in front of them and not react at all, as well as hearing gunshots going off right beside them and not get alerted. There are some "special" enemies like the dogs and the prisoners that run at a supersonic speed to try to strangle you that can just materialize through doors, and if you are even near a door when one of them is chasing you have absolutely zero chances of surviving. Also, HM2 has a lot of input lag by default because turning VSync off in-game doesn't work, you're gonna have to do it manually through your graphics card's control panel. Wish I knew this earlier, because I played through the entire game (INCLUDING HARD MODE) with that horrible input lag at first.
The game carries something that was a minor annoyance in the first game and turns it into a major one: there's no way to know what weapon you'll get from a pile of guns. Since the best strategy to kill enemies in this fucking game is to show yourself for a second to lure them to a corner, you'll just end up with dozens of weapons stacked on top of each other, and then you'll try to pick up one of them to kill that fat guy that is running towards you and you'll just die horribly because you picked up a gun with no bullets or a melee weapon.
Another thing that heavily frustrates me is how you are now unable to get points by knocking enemies down, unlike the first game. It's absolutely infuriating to accidentally knock over a large group of enemies now, since HM2 has excruciatingly long animations for executions and no way to cancel them, so knocking enemies over can easily make you lose you combo or even get you killed. Thanks to this mechanic I never even try to go for highscores here, which is something I loved doing in HM1.
And then there's hard mode. I'm willing to believe this is just a sick practical joke implemented by Dennaton to laugh at our faces. It's pretty much impossible to finish the game on it without cheaply dying at least a couple hundred times. Forcing myself to beat Hotline Miami 2 on hard mode was one of the worst experiences of my life, not even joking. I got no gratification or feeling of accomplishment from it, just a feeling of "thank god that's over."
Now, some people might appeal to the braindead """argument""" of "you're just bad at the game" while ignoring all of my points entirely. My dude, just check my Steam stats for both this game and the first. I got all the achievements, which means I finished the game on hard mode, and I'm able to get an S ranking on most stages with relative ease, so these opinions are coming from someone who's very experienced with both Hotline Miami games and probably much better than you are. I don't wanna come off as being arrogant here, but some people are just unbelievably dense and can't provide a single counter-point to refute me outside of that.
One thing I feel like could have been done to improve the game quite a bit would be the implementation of a system where, after you beat the level for the first time using the character that's supposed to be there for the story, you could choose any other character when you play that level again, like in the LEGO games. Maybe let you play as Jacket (with all the original masks) and maybe even Biker. From a story perspective that wouldn't make sense of course, but why should that matter? Fun/replayability/variety should be the priority here.
Now, for some actual positives. The soundtrack is absolutely incredible, as expected. Go and listen to Roller Mobster, The Way Home, Le Perv, In The Face of Evil, Bloodline... Hell, just listen to the entire damn thing. Graphics also look fantastic. Very stylized like the first game while managing to look much smoother and being able to pack much more detail into every level. Only problem is, that detail can sometimes make enemies harder to see, and there were times when I died to an enemy that was behind foliage or something like that, but again, that's more of a problem with the level design than anything else. Animations are also pretty good and generally smoother than the first game. And finally, I actually think they did a pretty good job with writing an interesting story, deepening the lore, and tying everything together with the first game, but (without spoiling anything) the ending just felt like a lazy cop-out.
So, in conclusion, if you're a HUGE fan of Hotline Miami 1 you might want to grab this for the story, but if you're just looking for some reckless, fast-paced and fun gameplay you're better off playing through the first game again.
I find Hotline Miami 2 to be a very unenjoyable experience, and the main reason for that has to be the level design. This game basically consists of ridiculously open football field sized buildings made entirely out of glass that are packed with dogs, fat dudes, and gun-wielding enemies that react to you in a nanosecond and kill you off-screen. This game is fucking hard, but not in a good, fun way like the first game. It's hard in a frustrating, bullshitty way.
In Hotline Miami 1, when you died, 90% of the time it was totally your fault. This time around though, 90% of your deaths are due to the god awful level design or to some cheap glitch. Hope you like doing nothing but using guns to try and snipe off-screen enemies two miles away while constantly holding shift for the entirety of the game, something that contrasts greatly with how you could almost exclusively use melee weapons to complete most levels in Hotline Miami 1 (with the exception of quickly picking up a gun to kill fat guys or enemies in inaccessible areas). The fact is, there are less ways to get through each level compared to HM1 since the level design often forces you to play in a specific way only. The game barely ever allows for creative strategies. The first game encouraged you to be reckless, it told you it was okay to fail, but this game forces you to be slow and methodical, which just feels like the antithesis to what Hotline Miami should be about. Something else that contributes to the levels being poorly designed is readability, which can often be abysmal. Sometimes it's very hard to differentiate between what you can be shot through and what is proper cover. Honestly, most stages feel like they were ripped out of some hardmode fangame: they're poorly designed and unfairly hard.
On the technical side of things, this game is an absolute mess. Hotline Miami 1 wasn't exactly polished but, in my experience, I've encountered far more glitches with this game that often got me killed, and the fact that a single floor in HM2 can take several minutes to get through just makes dying to a cheap glitch MUCH more frustrating than when it happened in the first game. The enemies react more like robots than ever, like how common it is for them to witness dozens of their buddies dying right in front of them and not react at all, as well as hearing gunshots going off right beside them and not get alerted. There are some "special" enemies like the dogs and the prisoners that run at a supersonic speed to try to strangle you that can just materialize through doors, and if you are even near a door when one of them is chasing you have absolutely zero chances of surviving. Also, HM2 has a lot of input lag by default because turning VSync off in-game doesn't work, you're gonna have to do it manually through your graphics card's control panel. Wish I knew this earlier, because I played through the entire game (INCLUDING HARD MODE) with that horrible input lag at first.
The game carries something that was a minor annoyance in the first game and turns it into a major one: there's no way to know what weapon you'll get from a pile of guns. Since the best strategy to kill enemies in this fucking game is to show yourself for a second to lure them to a corner, you'll just end up with dozens of weapons stacked on top of each other, and then you'll try to pick up one of them to kill that fat guy that is running towards you and you'll just die horribly because you picked up a gun with no bullets or a melee weapon.
Another thing that heavily frustrates me is how you are now unable to get points by knocking enemies down, unlike the first game. It's absolutely infuriating to accidentally knock over a large group of enemies now, since HM2 has excruciatingly long animations for executions and no way to cancel them, so knocking enemies over can easily make you lose you combo or even get you killed. Thanks to this mechanic I never even try to go for highscores here, which is something I loved doing in HM1.
And then there's hard mode. I'm willing to believe this is just a sick practical joke implemented by Dennaton to laugh at our faces. It's pretty much impossible to finish the game on it without cheaply dying at least a couple hundred times. Forcing myself to beat Hotline Miami 2 on hard mode was one of the worst experiences of my life, not even joking. I got no gratification or feeling of accomplishment from it, just a feeling of "thank god that's over."
Now, some people might appeal to the braindead """argument""" of "you're just bad at the game" while ignoring all of my points entirely. My dude, just check my Steam stats for both this game and the first. I got all the achievements, which means I finished the game on hard mode, and I'm able to get an S ranking on most stages with relative ease, so these opinions are coming from someone who's very experienced with both Hotline Miami games and probably much better than you are. I don't wanna come off as being arrogant here, but some people are just unbelievably dense and can't provide a single counter-point to refute me outside of that.
One thing I feel like could have been done to improve the game quite a bit would be the implementation of a system where, after you beat the level for the first time using the character that's supposed to be there for the story, you could choose any other character when you play that level again, like in the LEGO games. Maybe let you play as Jacket (with all the original masks) and maybe even Biker. From a story perspective that wouldn't make sense of course, but why should that matter? Fun/replayability/variety should be the priority here.
Now, for some actual positives. The soundtrack is absolutely incredible, as expected. Go and listen to Roller Mobster, The Way Home, Le Perv, In The Face of Evil, Bloodline... Hell, just listen to the entire damn thing. Graphics also look fantastic. Very stylized like the first game while managing to look much smoother and being able to pack much more detail into every level. Only problem is, that detail can sometimes make enemies harder to see, and there were times when I died to an enemy that was behind foliage or something like that, but again, that's more of a problem with the level design than anything else. Animations are also pretty good and generally smoother than the first game. And finally, I actually think they did a pretty good job with writing an interesting story, deepening the lore, and tying everything together with the first game, but (without spoiling anything) the ending just felt like a lazy cop-out.
So, in conclusion, if you're a HUGE fan of Hotline Miami 1 you might want to grab this for the story, but if you're just looking for some reckless, fast-paced and fun gameplay you're better off playing through the first game again.
Panel de Pon
1995
Never forget. At any time, the Panel de Pon ruling class will silence you, they will eradicate your voice, they will render you unable to speak or express yourself, lest you be brought to a quick and malicious end.
Rise, humble laborer, ever-steady soldier of the working class. Build the brick walls that will shield you against those in power. Stage the Tetris Attacks that will levitate your disenfranchisement, and construct the foundation of a Puzzle League of your own.
In the face of evolution, do not hinder yourself by the restrictions of old, the classical repainting of history. Do not limit yourself to the predecessors of old; rise to the challenge of new experiences, lest you be cast aside by the waves of time.
Rise, humble laborer, ever-steady soldier of the working class. Build the brick walls that will shield you against those in power. Stage the Tetris Attacks that will levitate your disenfranchisement, and construct the foundation of a Puzzle League of your own.
In the face of evolution, do not hinder yourself by the restrictions of old, the classical repainting of history. Do not limit yourself to the predecessors of old; rise to the challenge of new experiences, lest you be cast aside by the waves of time.
Panel de Pon
1995
if you played TETRIS ATTACK instead of PANEPON you have been played for an ABSOLUTE FOOL and i shall impress upon you the DEPTH OF YOUR FOLLY
TETRIS ATTACK is for PAWNS and BABIES, UNDERSTUDIES and BIT PLAYERS dancing to the tune of a MADMAN, PERVERSE AND EVIL, the landscape of PEAK 90'S ANIME AESTHETIC EXPUNGED and LEAVENED with LIES by THE FALSE IDOL, YOSHI
will you remain PREY TO HIS AMBITIONS? remain ENSLAVED to a SHAMBLING SHADE OF PERFECTION?
REAL ONES will answer NO
REAL ONES will play PANEPON
TETRIS ATTACK is for PAWNS and BABIES, UNDERSTUDIES and BIT PLAYERS dancing to the tune of a MADMAN, PERVERSE AND EVIL, the landscape of PEAK 90'S ANIME AESTHETIC EXPUNGED and LEAVENED with LIES by THE FALSE IDOL, YOSHI
will you remain PREY TO HIS AMBITIONS? remain ENSLAVED to a SHAMBLING SHADE OF PERFECTION?
REAL ONES will answer NO
REAL ONES will play PANEPON
Star Fox 2
2017
Star Fox sempre me pareceu uma série meio parada no tempo. O que nasceu como uma experiência típica de arcade no pleno auge do SNES logo na geração seguinte sofreria um reboot que de tão similar à obra original poderia se passar por remake. Após um breve período de experimentalismo na sexta geração de consoles (algo completamente acidental, ocasionado através da infeliz canibalização de Dinosaur Planet), a série passou por um longo hiato para então receber um remake do reboot e, então, um reboot do reboot - reboot tão mal recebido que talvez a série ganhe um reboot do reboot do reboot no futuro.
Jogar Star Fox 2 me faz pensar que talvez seria melhor dizer que a série está perdida no tempo, em vez de parada. Nessa sequência cancelada que ficou quase duas décadas na geladeira vemos vários elementos originais e interessantes já poderiam estar sendo utilizados e desenvolvidos pela série há muito tempo: um sistema de estratégia em tempo semi-real, um mapa menos linear e mais dinâmico, mais tipos de missões e até um senso de urgência embutido no dano que Corneria recebe se você demora demais numa missão ou combate. Curiosamente, essas adições não fazem o jogo perder seu espírito de arcade. Pelo contrário, sua curta duração e a forma como a pontuação se integra com os novos sistemas é até um incentivo para você jogar repetidas vezes em busca de scores cada vez maiores.
O que seria de Star Fox se a franquia tivesse dado prosseguimento às ideias de sua sequência abortada em vez de repetir a primeira aventura da Raposa Estelar de novo mais uma vez one more time?
Jogar Star Fox 2 me faz pensar que talvez seria melhor dizer que a série está perdida no tempo, em vez de parada. Nessa sequência cancelada que ficou quase duas décadas na geladeira vemos vários elementos originais e interessantes já poderiam estar sendo utilizados e desenvolvidos pela série há muito tempo: um sistema de estratégia em tempo semi-real, um mapa menos linear e mais dinâmico, mais tipos de missões e até um senso de urgência embutido no dano que Corneria recebe se você demora demais numa missão ou combate. Curiosamente, essas adições não fazem o jogo perder seu espírito de arcade. Pelo contrário, sua curta duração e a forma como a pontuação se integra com os novos sistemas é até um incentivo para você jogar repetidas vezes em busca de scores cada vez maiores.
O que seria de Star Fox se a franquia tivesse dado prosseguimento às ideias de sua sequência abortada em vez de repetir a primeira aventura da Raposa Estelar de novo mais uma vez one more time?
Earthworm Jim
1994
10 níveis de dor e sofrimento. Ok, não é pra tanto, até me diverti em alguns níveis (como Down the Tubes e For Pete's Sake) e a estética audio-visual é realmente muito boa. Mas, no geral, é o famoso caso de "dificuldade do jeito errado": os controles são bem ruizinhos, os chefes apelões e o level design construído para te sacanear. Valeu a experiência, mas não me vejo jogando de novo.
Jak 3
2004
I can't name any other character who deserves pussy less than Daxter.
Rayman Legends
2013
Uma das fases tem toda a ação sincronizada com um cover 8-bits em versão mariachi de Eye of the Tiger. Se isso não é perfeição de level design, eu não sei o que é.
ff7 but good
it's actually called "Super Mario Bros. 2" in japan
My most fond memory of this game is one of my friends in high school coming to my house and saying something along the lines of "BROOOOOOOO I've heard of this new CRAZY game where some CRAZY stuff happens" and I was like sure man. So I took my laptop to his house after installing this on Steam and we played through it for a bit getting pretty bored because nothing was happening. After a bit of mashing through dialogue his brother came into the room and said "What the fuck is this gay shit you're playing <f-slur>" and then promptly left. We stopped reading after that. I treasure this memory dearly.
Onto the actual game I only went back and read this now because it would be the 69th VN I've read and I thought that'd be funny. The VN itself like kinda sucks hard though, the characters are nothing and the dialogue is mind numbingly boring, if this was any longer than 4 hours(?) it'd probably be a 1/10. The entire game really just feels like waiting for the <crazy parts> to happen and even when the <crazy parts> do start to happen it's still not all that interesting as you're really just reading the same (mostly unskippable) dialogue and occasionally one of the characters says some shit like "I FUCK DOGS" in creepypasta text with some weird glitch stuff happening. Aside from some exceptions the <crazy parts> also just feel like cheap creepypasta scares too. It was pretty funny when all the characters starting saying fuck tho I chuckled. Overall not good.
Tldr read You and Me and Her, it's like this but it has fun with the concept and uses it in a way that doesn't feel like cheap horror. It also has dialogue that's actually good alongside very fun characters (I love Aoi).
Onto the actual game I only went back and read this now because it would be the 69th VN I've read and I thought that'd be funny. The VN itself like kinda sucks hard though, the characters are nothing and the dialogue is mind numbingly boring, if this was any longer than 4 hours(?) it'd probably be a 1/10. The entire game really just feels like waiting for the <crazy parts> to happen and even when the <crazy parts> do start to happen it's still not all that interesting as you're really just reading the same (mostly unskippable) dialogue and occasionally one of the characters says some shit like "I FUCK DOGS" in creepypasta text with some weird glitch stuff happening. Aside from some exceptions the <crazy parts> also just feel like cheap creepypasta scares too. It was pretty funny when all the characters starting saying fuck tho I chuckled. Overall not good.
Tldr read You and Me and Her, it's like this but it has fun with the concept and uses it in a way that doesn't feel like cheap horror. It also has dialogue that's actually good alongside very fun characters (I love Aoi).