Soundodger 2 is an experimental dodge-em-up music game that turns every song into a choreographed dance of bullets, lasers, and challenges to weave through in order to survive. The sequel to 2013's award-winning Soundodger+, Soundodger 2 is bigger, better, and dodgier than ever before. With an all-new selection of songs from international musicians and a fully-featured level editor to use your own music, you'll never run out of things to dodge.
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Quite a lot of fun at its best, dull and devoid of much fun at its worst.
While the point of rhythm games often is to simply build up muscle memory and the same could be said of a lot of bullet hells, there are quite a few kaizo-style "gotchas" that show up randomly throughout this game that leave me to question what the point of them even was.
The levels as a whole are meant to be what you practice as an encouragement in and of themselves, not cheap tricks like pause-draw-back-and-speed-up spam, or the screen going black only to move your cursor to a completely different spot before launching bullets at you. I really don't know why the design occasionally goes at odds with itself that way; Shibuya might be one of the most frustrating examples of this, as it's just a plain aim-at-the-player bullet hell level with next to no actual ties to its track.
Back to the positives, though, the visual effects and actual tracks in this game tend to be enjoyable and generally cool. I touched the level editor briefly and while I didn't make anything substantial I found the actual tools and process to seem really awesome from an outsider's perspective. Having level editors in games like this is absolutely great and I applaud them for making one that's both robust and able to produce really impressive results.
The track unlocks felt gradual for much of the game, which was nice as the sense of progression rarely felt too quick or too slow. The closest was the mild wall that the heart-collection unlocks provided, as they were effectively asking for a perfect score with how often hearts appear before a level is even halfway or a third of the way through. With how long a lot of the patterns and tracks are, that makes it particularly frustrating to repeat them for that reward rather than wanting to do so out of enjoyment for the music.
I didn't use powerups for the vast majority of the game, and when I did they seemed a bit unbalanced but pretty fun. The same goes for the mods. They're all just wonky additions that can make the game shitty (read: funny). Messing around with them was cool and while I'm still not a huge fan of how the powerups work I think they're silly when used in conjunction with higher-difficulty levels and mods together.
Soundodger 2's a worthy successor to the original to be sure, at least out of what I'd played of the first. I'm sad to see the janky and unremarkable autogeneration not making a return as that was a pretty funny soulful part of the original, but I don't mind it too much as a loss in return for all the great features the sequel has.
While the point of rhythm games often is to simply build up muscle memory and the same could be said of a lot of bullet hells, there are quite a few kaizo-style "gotchas" that show up randomly throughout this game that leave me to question what the point of them even was.
The levels as a whole are meant to be what you practice as an encouragement in and of themselves, not cheap tricks like pause-draw-back-and-speed-up spam, or the screen going black only to move your cursor to a completely different spot before launching bullets at you. I really don't know why the design occasionally goes at odds with itself that way; Shibuya might be one of the most frustrating examples of this, as it's just a plain aim-at-the-player bullet hell level with next to no actual ties to its track.
Back to the positives, though, the visual effects and actual tracks in this game tend to be enjoyable and generally cool. I touched the level editor briefly and while I didn't make anything substantial I found the actual tools and process to seem really awesome from an outsider's perspective. Having level editors in games like this is absolutely great and I applaud them for making one that's both robust and able to produce really impressive results.
The track unlocks felt gradual for much of the game, which was nice as the sense of progression rarely felt too quick or too slow. The closest was the mild wall that the heart-collection unlocks provided, as they were effectively asking for a perfect score with how often hearts appear before a level is even halfway or a third of the way through. With how long a lot of the patterns and tracks are, that makes it particularly frustrating to repeat them for that reward rather than wanting to do so out of enjoyment for the music.
I didn't use powerups for the vast majority of the game, and when I did they seemed a bit unbalanced but pretty fun. The same goes for the mods. They're all just wonky additions that can make the game shitty (read: funny). Messing around with them was cool and while I'm still not a huge fan of how the powerups work I think they're silly when used in conjunction with higher-difficulty levels and mods together.
Soundodger 2's a worthy successor to the original to be sure, at least out of what I'd played of the first. I'm sad to see the janky and unremarkable autogeneration not making a return as that was a pretty funny soulful part of the original, but I don't mind it too much as a loss in return for all the great features the sequel has.
Soundodger 2 is criminally underrated but at the same time has a few issues that hold it back from being perfect for me (but it's very close). The biggest of these is the way it handles game overs - if you take enough hits before your health can regenerate, then you die. Something that sounds good on paper but is nothing but frustrating when so many harder levels demand that you memorize their patterns for in some cases up to four minutes. It doesn't help that most of the power-ups meant to make completing levels easier are either overpowered or extremely situational, meaning it rarely feels right to use them.
This game's music selection and level designs rule though. Like, insanely rule. My only complaint with them is that higher difficulty levels are a genuinely insane difficulty spike from the easier ones, to the point where trying to move on is incredibly frustrating (see above). There are so many fun ideas in these levels, though, all put to great tracks which infuse the arena with pure vibes.
Soundodger 2 also has THE best level editor I've ever used, and I'm not joking. It encourages experimentation, and allows you to change everything going on in a level in a second. It makes creating levels in this game super easy as you're able to just brainstorm and barf out bullets onscreen.
Not to mention, SD2 has a great small but passionate custom levels community - so there's plenty of content beyond the base game. Mileage may vary though, and it certainly feels like a lot of it is far more difficult than the base game.
This game's music selection and level designs rule though. Like, insanely rule. My only complaint with them is that higher difficulty levels are a genuinely insane difficulty spike from the easier ones, to the point where trying to move on is incredibly frustrating (see above). There are so many fun ideas in these levels, though, all put to great tracks which infuse the arena with pure vibes.
Soundodger 2 also has THE best level editor I've ever used, and I'm not joking. It encourages experimentation, and allows you to change everything going on in a level in a second. It makes creating levels in this game super easy as you're able to just brainstorm and barf out bullets onscreen.
Not to mention, SD2 has a great small but passionate custom levels community - so there's plenty of content beyond the base game. Mileage may vary though, and it certainly feels like a lot of it is far more difficult than the base game.