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.