LOL, I'm not going to go nuts... but I do have to comment on all of this
Tarma said:
I don't understand why ST2 gets so much flak, it's an awesome game! The graphics are fantastic and the animation is tops. Occasional the colour pallette looks a bit off, but by and large I think the graphics are really good.
It kind of reminds me of an early PSX game, and i mean that in a good way, as obviously the PSX is way more adept at showing pre-rendered graphics.
The animation is smooooooooth, but the rendered graphics ARE somewhat ugly. I much prefer the traditional hand-drawn artwork found in ST1. Animation is definitely better in 2nd Squad though.
The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard, and fits the game perfectly, and I love the intro
2nd Squad has some awesome music, but it's still a notch below part 1. You just can't top that funky-ass boss theme from Shock Troopers 1, you just can't. Experiencing Shock Troopers through headphones on a 6-slot MVS is what got me hooked on the game in the first place.
Yeah, the slowdown is a bit annoying, but i don't find that it's often enough to really detract too much from the gameplay.
The slowdown doesn't bother me either, it's a godsend on the last boss.
I much prefer the dodge move in ST2 to the one in ST1. I feel as if I have more control over the character.
Well, jumping in 2nd Squad has a good side and a bad side compared to rolling in part 1. The good thing about jumping is that you have full control over it and can move around whereever, it's basically free invincibility, unlike rolling which locked you in one direction. The bad thing about jumping is that it doesn't move you around any faster. Rolling in part 1 actually moved your character along faster than regular walking, so it became immensely useful for slow characters or situations where you needed to get across the screen quickly. Roll roll roll!
By the way, why the fuck did they switch the functions of the B and C buttons for the English versions? If you set the language to Japanese, the B button becomes jump and C button becomes special weapon, just like it was in Shock Troopers 1. So I usually leave it in Japanese mode on my MVS, I've seen all the Engrish quotes anyway.
"I hate to jam with ham dancers.".... what?
Sure there are more characters in ST than in 2nd Squad, but each one has something almost totally common with at least one other character, and i just don't miss the team play feature at all.
Well, constructing a well-balanced team that worked great for a route in part 1 was a lot of fun. It added a lot of variety to the game. The characters in 2nd Squad do get vastly different main shots and all that, but the problem is... two of the characters are good and well-suited for one-credit play (Leon and Toy), one is fairly bad but not useless (Lulu), and one is complete garbage and sucks in nearly every way possible except for the big boobage factor (Angel).
Why do Leon and Toy get special weapons that destroy all the bullets on the screen? I mean that's just weird.
Don't get me wrong, I still think ST is a damn fine game, although the bosses are a little unimaginative. There's not a lot i can take away from ST other than it looks a little dated now, whereas ST2 looks fresh and modern, with slightly more detail.
That is true, the bosses are generic and repeated a lot throughout the game. I guess they couldn't be bothered to make 17 unique bosses, where as 2nd Squad only has to worry about 7...
ST will never be "dated" to me because great gameplay never grows old. Period.
It's probably the soundtrack that pushes it for me
The sound in ST is excellent but I find it slightly repetitive.
What do you find to be repetitive about the sound? The only thing I can think of is that the music from the first level is recycled for the next-to-last level. But it's a great tune, so what the hell, bring it back. I love every single track of music in Shock Troopers 1 except for one dull tune that has practically nothing going on. Everything else is top-notch all the way. That perfect character select/map screen music just pumps me up so much... and the aforementioned odd yet strangely kickass boss music. Everything from that game will always stick out in my mind. 2nd Squad does have some bitchin' tunes though, my favorites are the ones from Stages 1, 4, and 5, and the boss music for the 1st and 4th bosses (OMG, recycling!!!). All of 2 and 3 are pretty.... ehh. So it just doesn't all come together as well for me.
And hey, I do admit that there are some things I love about 2nd Squad that I would have loved to see in part 1. Among them:
-rising bonus multipliers for consecutive close-range kills. Absolutely brilliant!! Too bad it becomes waaaaay too risky to play for score in this way all the time because of the retarded inflated damage... (see below)
-vehicles. Since they also award up to x6 times the regular point value, it makes using them efficiently important for score purposes too.
-a better system for handling bombs/special weapons. There are frequent pickups that will give an extra 1 or 2, which encourages use of bombs more often. It works a lot better than ST1's system in which you can only pick up 10 or 15 all at once, and they're always in designated spots in the levels, getting one from a close-range kill is incredibly freakin rare (it does happen, but almost never)
-level bonuses for life left over, bomb stock, "no miss" bonus, etc.
-the end-of-game analysis and military ranking. That's neat!
What I DON'T like about 2nd Squad compared to part 1:
-the inflated damage. One hit from pretty much anything wipes out half the lifebar. That's a bit excessive, huh? This wouldn't be that big a deal, IF......
-........life-ups weren't so uncommon. They are never given out at designated points in the level, you can ONLY get them through close-range/bomb kills. And the odds of it happening aren't too good. There are many instances in which I've gone through an entire level getting close-range kills on nearly every soldier I come across, and no life-ups ever appear. And on the rare occasion you actually get one, it's only going to restore about 20-25% of the bar. In other words, you need two or three of these rare items just to recover damage from ONE enemy attack. That's insane!
-on a related note, your lifebar getting replaced by the weapon bar when you pick up a weapon like the charge shot or boomerang is just........... weird. It's like you're pretty much invincible during this time, you can take a hit and only lose weapon energy instead of life. It's a strange system that just doesn't make sense. And of course, all life-up items you may pick up during this time are replaced by items that restore weapon bar instead. That's such a horrible feeling, picking up a secondary weapon when you have a low life bar, and then seeing you blew your chance to get a life-up because you got one that restored weapon bar instead. (and you're going to use that up eventually.)
-the decrease in characters hurts. I love Team Play in ST1, and as mentioned before the character balance is screwed, plain and simple.
-Only 7 stages total (two alternate routes that change Stages 2 and 3), compared to the 17 in ST1. Although to be fair, the levels are a bit longer and the game does take roughly the same amount of time to finish.
Those are the main things, besides the strange rendered graphics and the slightly-worse-yet-still-damn-good soundtrack. It's like I've said before, the game is still really good. But it just doesn't compare to part 1. Sorry.
