I'm not sure how to feel about River City Girls 2 at the moment. I can see my opinion of it rising with time and patches, but currently I rate it slightly lower than the first game. But it's still very good!
For pros, I much appreciate the new characters and expanded starting roster, giving you many more options out the gate. Online Co-op is a huge get obviously, and it runs well in any version of the game, save some connectivity issues on Switch at times. The recruit system has been overhauled and it much more useful, allowing you to have two at once and pull any recruit you've gotten from the hideouts in the game. The new combat moves are fun to use and open up a bunch of new options for stringing attacks together, and the greater enemy variety encourages exploring more effective kill options.
On the downside, there's quite a few recycled areas in this game. The game is longer and more content packed, which is good and bad, as the game has noticeably worse pacing than the first game. Additionally, many objectives revolve around back tracking through areas, which is annoying since it's repetitive and plays badly with the game's longer loading times. Bosses are more unique and varied, but also have slower attack patterns that you have to wait out until you can whale on them again, which I'm not a fan of. Finally, the game also has some noticeable bugs, but this will probably lessen with time and patches so I don't hold it too much against the game.
Ultimately, it's kind of the opposite of what you'd expect. I'd imagine someone who never played the first game would enjoy this a lot more as it would come across as much fresher. I still had great fun with it though, and I plan to fully complete it and do New Game+ playthroughs so it certainly did enough right. I'd especially recommend it if you have friends to play with as co op is very fun.
NOTE: I played this on the PC version, which currently has a Beta patch correcting the game's frame rate problems. I'd highly recommend this version if it's viable for you, deduct half a star off this review for the console versions until the patch goes live.
For pros, I much appreciate the new characters and expanded starting roster, giving you many more options out the gate. Online Co-op is a huge get obviously, and it runs well in any version of the game, save some connectivity issues on Switch at times. The recruit system has been overhauled and it much more useful, allowing you to have two at once and pull any recruit you've gotten from the hideouts in the game. The new combat moves are fun to use and open up a bunch of new options for stringing attacks together, and the greater enemy variety encourages exploring more effective kill options.
On the downside, there's quite a few recycled areas in this game. The game is longer and more content packed, which is good and bad, as the game has noticeably worse pacing than the first game. Additionally, many objectives revolve around back tracking through areas, which is annoying since it's repetitive and plays badly with the game's longer loading times. Bosses are more unique and varied, but also have slower attack patterns that you have to wait out until you can whale on them again, which I'm not a fan of. Finally, the game also has some noticeable bugs, but this will probably lessen with time and patches so I don't hold it too much against the game.
Ultimately, it's kind of the opposite of what you'd expect. I'd imagine someone who never played the first game would enjoy this a lot more as it would come across as much fresher. I still had great fun with it though, and I plan to fully complete it and do New Game+ playthroughs so it certainly did enough right. I'd especially recommend it if you have friends to play with as co op is very fun.
NOTE: I played this on the PC version, which currently has a Beta patch correcting the game's frame rate problems. I'd highly recommend this version if it's viable for you, deduct half a star off this review for the console versions until the patch goes live.