This is the third time I have bought this game: clearly I am biased. Do I like Zombie games: meh, they are fine. Am I into biker culture: flat no. But you put the two together, with an unrepentantly bitter protagonist, and I can't get enough of it ... Which is also my only major complaint: there is not enough of it, and with no DLC after 2 years + Sony rejecting the pitch for a sequel; there never will be. with that said, take your time with this game so that you can make it last & do not rush to clear out every hoard nest (it causes them to not respawn & that greatly diminishes a lot of the game's charm ... something that probably should have been ironed out before launch, but it isn't game breaking).
... still a few areas where I wish it held up to my nostalgia. lot easier than the original (I could never finish it on normal, despite maxing out the pandora box in Panser Dragoon II) so I appreciate that I was able to finally complete the game, but there are still a lot of areas where I wish the camera functioned better (some times it will zoom in till you can't see your dragon, with lots of random highs and lows of responsiveness) and there are levels were the frame rate chugs because it isn't optimized well. But I can't deny that this remake was a labor of love that stayed true to the original in spirit, despite being 100% new assets.
This game is an RPG, not a corridor shooter like the first one (just so everyone knows), but still the same Wang of the first game. The world and art are awesome, game plays like silk, and outside of a few clipping issues with NPC models: no bugs or glitches. R7 265 (x2) + AMD Athlon X4 860k CPU + 16bg RAM: game runs 60fps on High-ish @ 1440p (some slow down here and there due to typical PhysX jack assery all AMD users are used to seeing, but it is limited, and I say "High-ish" because I turn off a lot of post processing like Bloom, DOF, and Motion blur out of preference) ... some people were worried that they would not be able to run it well, but if you could run the first one then you should be able to run this one too. Honest criticisms from a die hard fan of the first Shadow Warrior: No Hoji, and the game suffers for it (there is a replacement, but they kind of suck), plus the overall writing and dialogue is not as good as the first time around and so far there has only been one "Wang-Liner" that made me laugh (the first game had me laughing every god damn time Wang opened his mouth). On top of that the over all game design seems like they couldn't decide if they wanted to make Hard Reset 2 or Shadow Warrior 2, but then SW won out because it was a stronger brand. they fix some stuff that they first game was lacking, broke some stuff that the first game did flawlessly, but it is still an awesome game even though it is not the same type of game as its predecessor. Final verdict from me: some rough edges, but still probably going to end up as one of the best games to come out this year ... I am also a raving fan boy for the first game and called it the best game I had played in a decade, so your own mileage may vary on that.
stop treating it like it is, this game is a stand alone release so bitching about it not being included with the first game is like bitching about Fallout 2 not being sold together with Fallout 1. you don't like the price, then don't buy it: simple as that. now can we please get some reviews based on the actual game and have these bullshit ones removed? (including this one.)
i love this game! it's flawed, got some pretty stupid parts, and I'm not entirely sure it can be beaten without using cheat codes ..... but damn is it fun! why is it the flawed gems that i want to play endlessly? This ain't half-life or heavy rain, don't expect intellectual depth from a game that has you eating the still beating hearts or your enemies as health packs, and shame on you if you needed me to enlighten you to that fact! GUNS AKIMBO! now go shoot the moon with a rail gun! (On technical merit this game rates a 2 or 3, but for game play it rates a 5, thus 4 as a happy medium.)
