I won't talk about gameplay in this review as there isn't much to say about it. You walk left or right and sometimes you press space, that's it. What I wanted to talk about is what kind of game this is, and why it is it's own worst enemy. What this game really is is a mood piece, it's about telling stories of fleeting moments of everyday life. And in that regard, it does a very good job. It creates this nostalgic, almost melancholy feeling. It's hard to really describe, as I think it very much depends on if the person playing the game is the type that can appriciate very slow story telling, and the types of stories that doesn't really have a "point" or a grand finale. All I can say in that regard is that I think it's a story best enjoyed if you are the type of person that enjoys the type of film a director like Terrance Malik makes (especially his later work). Stories that are about vague allusions towards feelings, mood. About being in a place and time. About existing in the world. However, here we come to the part of the game that I disliked intenstly. And that was the god-awful, car commercial, mallcore tier soundtrack. This soundtrack ruined most of this game for me. Music is such a subjective thing and there are only so many words I can use to describe it, but aside from the occasional instrumental this soundtrack was trash. Overly breathy singing. Lyrics that beat you over the head about how you should feel, lyrics that sometimes would be cringe-inducing in their sappyness. What I think this game would benefit from would be a mode that has no music, only ambient sound. The sound of footsteps, the wind, the sounds of the city and so on. There are a few scenes in this game like that, but the majority is taken up by music and singing that you would hear in a vapid motivational video on instagram. It's that bad. I want to like this game but it decides it rather wants to ruin it self with some of the worst music I have heard. Wasted potential.
I've finished the game and these are my thoughts, so lets get to the point. The game is pretty bad. There are many issues, game breaking bugs that ruin the pace of the game (enemies getting stuck in doors, enemies that spin around in place, crashing) Unlike the first game that kept things unclear (in a good, interesting way) and ambiguous, the second games throws that out the window and explains all so many of the things that happened in the first game, completely ruining it. It's alright in its own right, but taking it into context, it falls short. The biggest issue is the level design however. Levels are WAY to big (and no, shift doesn't help) Enemies constantly shoot you through the many, many glass walls pretty much every level is filled with. There are way to many enemies. Enemy placement is all over the place. There are no longer weapons laying around so you have to relay on enemy weapon drops. There's a bigger focus on guns. Some levels are straight up cover shooters and you're forced to use guns pretty much all the time. Some may argue that this makes the game "harder" and it requires more "skill" well, that's not true. The first game was as hard as you made it, if you just wanted to get through the game then it wasn't very hard, but if you wanted to get A+ on all chapters, then it was a challenge. This game is a poorly designed mess. All-in-all, i really wanted to like this game, but i can't. There are good aspects. The soundtrack is once again amazing. The esthetic is still there and as mentioned, the story is interesting in its own right. But because the level design is a total mess, it's probably one of the least well designed games i've seen, it falls short, reeeaalllyyy short. Wait for a sale.
Let's not screw around and get to the point. The very reason the first Hotline Miami was so good is due to its simplicity. It's straight forward, put on a mask, go in, kill everyone, go out. This combined with a neon induced art style, beautifully crafted pixel graphics, a soundtrack to die for and a ambiguous storyline is what made it so good. Hotline Miami 2 still has some of these elements. The graphics, the music, the art style, it's all there, what it lacks however, is a story that keeps things interesting while not being to much in your face about it and, of course, the direct approach to gameplay. Hotline Miami 2 goes for a bigger plot and more complex gameplay. These things aren't necessarily bad, but in the context of Hotline Miami and the mentioned reasons for it being so great, it doesn't really work. Instead of like the first game where you had Jacket, the only playable character who had a large selection of masks to choose from (always go for Zack!) Miami 2 changes this to instead have several different characters that have unique abilities. One can perform a roll to dodge bullets, another can dual-wield (and also reload) two SMGs etc. Instead of like the first game, where the masks where mearly modifiers to what you can do, you now have characters with one or maybe two masks that can do a certain thing. It's an interesting concept that can be entertaining but sadly, i needlessly complicates things and leads to the game feeling suprisingly repetative. On top of that, the levels are now much bigger, has more enemies and takes longer to complete. Once again, this may sound good on paper, but in terms of gameplay, it leads to one being killed by enemies off screen, one getting stuck on different props and the change of the time system, which now keeps counting once you're done with level, instead of resetting everytime you die, means that you lose the perfect score attack system of the first game where flexability and time management where key to success. It leads to a game that at times feels like a covershooter (there's a much bigger focus on firearms this time around) Once again, it goes against the very focus of Hotline Miami and leads to a game that feels needlessly complicated, more is indeed less. To sum this up, contrary to what it seems like in this review, i like Hotline Miami 2, i think it's a good game, better then most, but in comparision to the first game, it falls short, then again, the first game is hard to beat. Also this review is a copy pasta of my review on steam, sue me.
...but still pretty damn good. While i would never it call "The best game/rpg ever" (no game deserves that title) it is not bad at all. The game has all around a good story that manages to have a personality of its own in a genre that's filled with cliche' ridden D&D or Tolkien wannabes. It feels different in that most of the enviroments feels like something you'd seen in a reallstic medieval game but with stuff like magic, dwarfs and elfs on top. It doesn't have those fantastical enviroments more common in the genre and games like Dragon Age and TES. It's something different and it's a nice change of scenery (although this doesn't mean that there's none of that in the..) The atmosphere is tight throughout the game and it feels like the Noir of fantasy games with the ever-present rain and mentioned dark tone. Gameplay wise, this is were i think the game falls short. The way it works is that when you face and enemy, you click once and you start slashing away at em', after about 6 hits (can exactly remember the amount) you can click again and you'll start slashing away some more but this time faster and with slightly more (the animation stays the same though, just sped up) then, at the third time of doing this, you'll do a... "combo breaker" and this is usually the final blow to the whatever poor thing that desided to attack you. On top of this rather tedious click-fest, you got three different fighting styles, Heavy, fast and group style. I'll respect your intelligence and let you figure out how they work. You also got different magical powers called signs. The first one you get, called Aard. Is basically the force, it can knock smaller enemies back and stun bigger fellas' With all of thism you might wonder how combat can be boring. And the problem is enemy and weapon variation. You'll mostly fight these little monster things called drowners and these goblin fellas called, well, goblins. There are variants of these with different names but they always stay the same. There are more enemy types , like ghosts and scary ladies that float about, but these fight in pretty much the same style like eachother and doesn't really require any deeper tactics then slicing away like mad. As for weapons, you get two swords in the beginning of the game, a steel one for humans and animals, and a silver one for spooky ghosts and other different ocult things. The problem is that there is never any reason to change swords for the rest of the game. The first swords are the only ones that can have stat improving runes slapped onto them and the VERY few swords in the game that can be used togheter with the combat styles, if a sword or axe or something else doesn't support the different styles, you're stuck with the ordinary slice, making combat harder. Anothere problem is that there is to much walking around. The game is split up in to smaller HUB areas that can be reached by a map. These areas, while seeming large at first, are quickly explored. The problem is that the game's story lingers in these areas for to long so you'll be forced to run about all over the same hill and plain while you do different side and main quests It becomes pretty dull fast. All in all. Good game but a bit overrated.
