Well... I'm slightly late to this one, but I went ahead and bought it on Friday and spent a good few hours with it over the weekend. I completed chapter 7 when I turned off (the ice world boss who breathes fire and explodes), so I think that puts me at the half way mark.
Firstly, the combat is incredibly good. Hearing people compare this to NG1 makes me scratch my head, since I don't think they're too similar other than from a basic control standpoint. I had a quick play with my retail copy to make sure it wasn't just my memory, but there are some fundamental differences in the way the game's played, its pace, and of course the "style" that makes the sequel quite a bit different. In my mind, I'm adoring the sequel, and put it ahead of the original.
The recharging health system is a great idea. If you haven't played it, the way it works is you basically have a part of your health bar that won't recharge after each battle. The non-recharging part grows the more you are hit... so you're encouraged to take a minimal beating, but you're not punished with a tiny health bar if you manage to clear out an area by the skin of your teeth. This game would be
impossible without it, since some (standard, non-boss) baddies can easily take out 1/3 to 1/2 of your health bar in a couple of hits.
Visually, it's another Team Ninja game. I appreciate it for what it is, but it's by no means the best of what has been played on my 360. I had some friends over last night that saw a guy I live with having a go at the first level and they were pretty blown away, though I don't think they're of the B3D persuasion
I wouldn't have been able to tell it was scaled unless Quaz pointed it out, either, which is nice. I felt the same with CoD4, actually, whereas Halo did look low res, so there you go.
My only bad experience to date was the start of level 6 (?), where you're doing a huge jumping puzzle section. I fell off at the very last jump and had to start over at the start :/ Terrible design.
Other than that, the game is a huge bucket of fun... I'm playing on the "easy" difficultly for this run-through, so it's not frustrating, but by no means easy. Watching the enemies fall to bits as I slice them up is huge fun, and the amount of stuff happening on screen is pretty crazy. Seeing four limbs fly up, while the ninjas start hobbling over to me never gets old, as sadistic as that may sound.
I definitely am having more fun here than I did with DMC4, though that was very enjoyable too. I feel that NG2 (like the first) is an example of a game that rewards your increasing level of skill more so than most games... in DMC, I felt like I was largely improving due to buying new moves or weapon upgrades, rather than getting vastly better over the course of the game - but the enjoyment came there from the over-the-top moves that just look down-right absurd. DMC4 is a different game by nature, of course, and I'm very happy at being able to buy and enjoy both of these gems.
So, to questions...
What weapons are you guys recommending? I'm on the scythe at the moment since that seems to make people lose their limbs very quickly. I was using the staff up until that point, though I'd love to try the double swords, since they look really cool.
If I start on the next difficultly, do I keep my upgraded weapons? I loved that in DMC4, so as a noob/un-hardcore player I got my toes wet but still had something to come back to without losing all my hair. Having to restart NG2 with the "lowly" dragon sword on the default difficulty would not be pretty.
Cheers
