Max Payne 2 is a good time, although I do feel like it doesn't really stand up to it's predecessor which will always be a classic.

The biggest shortcoming is probably that Max Payne 2 doesn't take you to as many interesting places. The first game had Max in dirty slums, intercepting an ongoing bank robbery, going to seedy hotels, secret underground laboratories, demonic cult controlled night clubs. Max Payne 2 just lacks that variety and while there is stuff that is nicely done I just don't find the locations overall to be as memorable. It's a good deal shorter as well which makes the problem stand out even more. The levels aren't even badly designed or anything - it's just the variety and where they are set rather than the layout.

The story is not as crazy as the first game for sure, but it's rather interesting from a thematic and character standpoint. Max as this detective who doesn't really fit in anymore at the force after everything he has been through is great. He feels more at home being in massive firefights now rather than being tied to a desk.

On an even more positive note, the gameplay is glorious. Remedy understood the power of Bullet Time and there have been a lot of changes to make it more accessible and useful. Combat is made more fast-paced in general. Everything feels very snappy and satisfying. I feel like a badass in an action movie every step of the way. The only slightly negative aspect is perhaps that the arsenal of weapons becomes available to you very quickly and there is never really a lack of ammo to force the player to switch up tactics.

This all causes a bit of a dilemma in me because technically it succeeds at what an action game is supposed to be most competent at - the action. It's just that having a varied experience and a satisfying journey ended up being really important to me and I feel like this aspect could have been improved on while keeping the gameplay and grounded nature of the story intact.

So yeah - it's a good game, but it could have been amazing.

This would have probably been miserable to play regardless, but doing it right after FF1 made it even worse.

I do acknowledge that a lot of ambition went into making this game, but while some of the core ideas were solid, most of the execution felt quite poor and led to almost constant frustration throughout the runtime. I guess this sometimes comes with the territory when you try to experiment and offer something completely different.

Like many others my biggest gripe was likely the progression. Maybe not even so much the mechanics of how it worked, but rather the way it constantly made me feel. The game sells the progression as what is essentially ultimate freedom - the more you use a certain ability the more it levels up and all equipment can be used without limitations. It should feel very natural, but instead it caused an almost constant feeling of dissonance for me. I felt a need to always use abilities I did not need in my current encounters just so I could level them up for future battles where I actually needed them. This made everything feel very hollow for me. There's so much choice with cool magic, but realistically you need to pick 2-3 favourites because unless you spend the time casting something constantly it will be relatively useless.

In addition to this many of your characters stat upgrades are somewhat random. If you get hit enough your health may increase a little after the fight. Same with dodges, MP and probably a few more things. The added randomness and removal of actual levels ended up almost completely removing my excitement at seeing my characters progress.

Naturally not loving both ability progression and stat progression meant that combat started feeling incredibly hollow after a while. Which brings me to the next point. There's so damn much of it. There is a random encounter approximately every 4-5 steps you take. In addition to that the dungeons in this game are about twice as long and filled with maze like dead ends and confusing stairs. Two things that absolutely do not work together. I would have liked to explore the maze, but there's a constant feeling of being penalised with 10 random encounters any time you take a detour.

Since progression seems to be the keyword for my little rant here I'll also add that map progression took a massive dive in this game. In Final Fantasy sections of the world map were unlocked in clever ways to guide the player more naturally and offer a sense of being on an adventure. For the most part this is gone in FF2 and the majority of the world map is open from the very start which removed a lot of the sense of wonder I had while playing the first game.

I have more gripes, but I figure I've already ranted enough about my experience and probably come across more negative than the game perhaps deserves. The biggest praise I can give this game is definitely the music. Nobuo Uematsu is a genius and listening to the iconic soundtrack made everything a little more bearable. It also looks amazing and I love all the sprite designs. The story - while not being perfect - strives to be a little darker which was interesting to see. It's still not something I want to judge too harshly in these early games which is a whole conversation of it's own, but they are getting closer to crafting a proper narrative. FF2 also introduced a lot of series staples like the Chocobos so it was cool as a fan of the franchise. It might even have more iconic elements than the first game as far as the identity of the series is concerned. I just wish that I had enjoyed the actual gameplay more.

Apart from TT fleshing out the hubs more than previously this LEGO game is a downgrade in every single aspect. Basing half the game on the worst movie is already a detriment, but the game itself isn't all that great as well.

Some baffling design decisions like making the vehicle missions (that everyone has complained about in every single LEGO game) even worse somehow. Traditional longer levels that included both puzzles and combat are now split into short ones that do one or the other which severely hurts the combat focused ones. Combat in LEGO games is there to give a touch of variety in between the puzzles or when you are moving along the level, but being dropped into an arena just to fight waves of enemies multiple times throughout the game is just boring. In addition every big section of the game is followed by a completely made up giant bosses that are all very similar and repetitive. This stands out esp. strongly because the adventure focused puzzle missions already have minibosses that are better every single time. Each of the 6 mission sets also follows a very rigid structure of 2 Puzzle levels (which are mostly great, but still worse than in previous games), 1 Brawl (boring), 1 Vehicle Mission (Bad) and 1 Big Boss (bad). It just becomes incredibly formulaic.

In the end the small glimpses of stuff done well like the traditional LEGO humor just don't do enough to make the game enjoyable.

I quite liked this at first, but the lack of content just got to me after some time. There's an endless amount of game modes and a lot of focus has been put into making each one a viable alternative to the traditional 6v6 gameplay, but I think they went a bit too far with it to the point where the actual core multiplayer experience doesn't have enough meat on it.

I will check back in some time to see if anything has changed on that front and I did have a fun time - it's just not going to be all that memorable.