Recent reviews by Simna ibn Sind

I can forgive it for what I consider a shallow story that ignores its potential for mature content and is riddled with deus ex machina and ludo-narrative dissonance; maybe I'm not the target demographic here. I could even overlook the technical flaws/glitches that kept popping up in the graphics and cutscenes throughout the game(some kinda endearing and some reeked of laziness), but those are all kinda just frosting on the cake. The cake that's made of:

Reused Content.

This is "reused content the game". Almost all areas are from FC. Enemies are very often palette swaps. There are some nice new music tracks but many are also just from FC. New special moves learned are almost all just stat-boosted versions of the same moves from FC even having the same names.

Other than that, there are numerous places where the game makes you run around for no good reason. It all just ends up costing time. There are spots where you can irreversibly miss a sidequest for not checking and re-checking job boards which, in itself, isn't a problem except that the first game never did that and lead you to believe you wouldn't need to in this game AND there are spots where you can irreversibly fail a sidequest because the parameters for them are not clearly stated. There are also some issues with the "Information" ability not giving proper descriptions of enemies as well as general lazy UI design that redundantly shows buffs and debuffs separately for the same stats. The stacking effects of some spells/items are not clearly(or at all) described.

Another issue that I think stands out is the majorly obnoxious party/equipment system. There are point throughout the game where characters become required party members and parts where the game allows you to form your party as you choose, but there is no quick access to equipment/spells to facilitate this. Every time the party is changed and you want to use items on another character you must first put the character you don't want into your party, remove equipment, remove spells, repeat for any other character you need items from, then change party to the characters you will use and re-equip. And you must do it every time the party changes.

On the plus side: Some of the music is decent, the little messages in the opened chests are nice, and the game can be conveniently played entirely with one hand(mouse).

The first game, for me, was just kinda a "meh" experience, but I could see its potential attractiveness. This game feels like they wanted to sell one game for the price of 2.

Trying to have a good time. Would probably have a good time, but the game is very laggy and skippy on my machine despite my machine exceeding the system recommendations. I know its just a promotional goof-off, but I like Devolver's goof-offs and I hope I can play this at some point.

Excellent game! Some technical differences from the GC version, but overall a great looking graphical upgrade while staying true to the experience. Also some nice additional control options. Same great super-deep story and Lynchian story-telling. If you enjoy Miike Takashi, David Lynch, or SWERY then you'll be right at home unravelling this puzzle!

Great game, great music and great way to fill in details and expand on the fantastic story of Hotline Miami. I even find many of the glitches endearing(but that's more about me than the game) although I do find a particular glitch where enemies will get caught on walls and become intangible to be at least a bit annoying. The only fault I find in this game outside of the aforementioned bug is that the excellent story and music and visuals might go unseen by the many many people who would appreciate them greatly, but would find Hotline Miami 2 too difficult to play let alone complete. I am one of the people who appreciate both those things and the high-speed gameplay. I certainly wouldnt want the game made easier overall, but an easy mode option would give many more people access to the amazingness that is Hotline Miami 2.

If anyone from Dennaton happens to read this: An easy mode would be cool, but a full-length, live-action Hotline Miami movie would be neat too. ^_^