More ambition, on all fronts. That doesn’t mean better - I really liked the more loadout style weapons system (loved Alex and Ash for example, as well as playing as the guy who didn’t like to kill and discharged all guns) but I don’t think it worked as well as the simple, addictive mask collecting in HLM1. As others have said, some levels are too big and open ended, leading to deaths from off-screen.

And to be fair, I wasn’t paying that much attention to the dialogue, but I really didn’t know what the hell was happening in the story. I roughly knew the role of each character but the jumping between time periods and everything, I couldn’t keep track. Despite that it felt like an evolution of the first game with a lot of love put into it.

Oh and I thought the soundtrack was a big step up as well, just better in general.

Um dos melhores jogos que eu já joguei

Podem me chamar de maluco mas eu comecei jogando pelo segundo jogo (maior erro que eu já cometi) e apesar disso a minha experiencia foi muito incrível, Hotline Miami 2 é com certeza um jogo que eu nunca vou esquecer, a sua gameplay frenética, exageradamente violenta e também MUITO injusta é algo que faz parte e funciona bem com o jogo, a historia é muito confusa e bagunçada eu só consegui entender ela vendo vídeos no Youtube, mas quando você entende ela você percebe o quão boa e incrível ela é, inclusive ela me deixou muito curioso pra jogar o primeiro jogo. Mas de qualquer forma é 100 mil vezes melhor você começar pelo primeiro jogo NÃO joga o 2 primeiro escuta o que eu to falando

Hotline Miami 2 took what we loved from the previous game and made it 10x better. I highly recommend people to play this after the first game!

[OST]

OST in this game feels more energetic than the original game, every character has their own sets of OST. A positive note that I should add is that you won't feel annoyed/tired from the same OST repeating if you died in a level for so many times, I had this problem when I played the first one, but here it's very good to listen to. I sometimes just get myself killed because I pay more attention to my ears than the screen, just shows how good of OST this game have.

[Gameplay & Characters]

All characters have their own set of weapons, their own twist to how they finish the level. They change your strategy each character you play with. Example The Fans...you can pick one of them and play with, but there's a catch. A character from The Fans can't pick up guns he can only rely on his fists, other you'll need to play with two (ducks), other you'll just spawn with two Uzi--s. There's Beard from the first game, now as a playable character, he gets sets of weapons to choose from and then go fight the enemies, you can say it can be very reckless unlike most of the other characters, or you can play him strategically, whichever you want. There's Evan who can't pick up weapons (guns or any lethal killing melee weapons) and he doesn't kill, only knocks them out (you can let them die too if they're knocked out).

[Level design & Visuals]

The visuals in this game are very good, and not the boring visuals that was in the first game. Level Design is good, they improved a little than how it used to be in the original game.

[Story]

Here you can at least figure out the story...Kind of? meh I tried to understand all of it, but I just gave up to be honest.

[Negative thoughts of the game]

Same thing from the first game, sometimes the game gets irritating and stupid, sometimes you're able to just punch all enemies at once (close radius), but sometimes one person lives. When you try to melee a dog, it's a 50/50 chance either you get the timing right or just get fucked.


Game's good...

Hotline Miami 2 is not as good as its predecessor. The level design is noticeably worse than the first Hotline Miami; levels are far less readable and much larger, containing far too many points in which enemies can kill you from off-screen - the cardinal sin of action game design. The end result is that the player is conditioned to approach levels at a slower, far more methodical pace, using doorways as choke points to clear out a room before moving on, rinse, repeat until the chapter is cleared. In HM1, where levels are tighter, more constrained, and dense with enemies, I was powering through like a tornado of violence, clearing rooms in seconds and maintaining massive combos while using a variety of melee and ranged weapons. HM1 feels like driving a sports car at the absolute limit, as you're constantly toeing the line of failure in the pursuit of even more performance. In comparison, HM2 feels like driving an old car on its last legs, strategically managing every turn and intersection to avoid breaking down before you reach your destination.

So yeah, HM2 isn't as Capital G Good as the first game. It is, however, a far more interesting work.

This is an ambitious, sprawling double album versus the the tight, razor-sharp debut that is HM1. HM2's narrative is far more reflexive - on its predecessor, on it's own status as a sequel, on the success of it's creators and the struggles of game development, on violence, the media, sensationalism, the military industrial complex, mental health, and love. It is a frequently confusing, often bloated work that is reaching out to express everything that is on its mind, cohesion and coherency be damned. It doesn't quite know what it wants to say, but it can't hold it in any longer. It is a clear labour of love, a deeply nihilistic passion project, a misunderstood masterpiece that would only ever work as a video game but is unfortunately kind of a bummer to play. It's like a cross between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Pathologic.

It's like The Last of Us 2 if it weren't written by Zionists.