A-Men 2 is a game that suffers from murky instructions, ho-hum graphics and a difficulty curve so steep you may as well just jump off a cliff. It’d be a whole other matter if the game gradually introduced mechanics in a clever and subtle way, which sadly is not something A-Men 2 does well.
I'm by no means fresh to this genre, either. I played Lost Vikings 1 and 2 extensively on the SNES back in the day, and Crush 3D was one of my PSP titles as well. Where A-Men 2 suffers in comparison is it doesn't have nearly the amount of polish of the titles it tries to pay homage to. The controls are awful. I'm not going to dance around the fact that they’re just flat out terrible. The jumping feels incredibly floaty, which is immediately frustrating. Outside of the tutorial levels, it took multiple efforts to even make simple jumps. Combine that with the game’s sheer difficulty -- a lot of which can be blamed on the fact the game explains things very poorly -- and making it to the end will be a near Herculean feat.
Another mechanic I'm not really a fan of in games like these is fall damage. They are present in the titles I have mentioned, but they are forgiving in the way they dole it out. You can add this to the list of things that A-Men 2 decides to go against conventions in a confusing way. Another questionable design decision I came across is that most of your characters “abilities” are pickups strewn about the level. A-Men 2 also features the ability to grind up in-game currency in order to purchase extra items/ammo for your units which totally destroys what little balance the game had.
The graphics and music come off with a somewhat cheery presentation and it explains a few mechanics to you. The music is largely upbeat, but loops continually so turns to monotony at best and grating at worst.
I imagine I could put up with the game all around if the parts were a bit tighter, but for the most part this is a floaty, annoying game that has balance issues. If you were a fan of the first A-Men then it’s more of the same, but for newcomers I’d advise you to just steer clear. A-Men 2 is a game that ultimately fails to follow through on its execution.
- Scott Sullivan
The Good:
- Somewhat pleasing presentation
- Interesting ideas on paper
The Bad:
- Insanely difficult
- Poorly designed
- In-game currency destroys balance
- Grating music and nasally voice acting is borderline infuriating.
Score: 4.0 / 10
