Rengoku II: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N., developed by Hudson and published by Konami, is a sterile robot wasteland for adolescents tired of Pokemon. For as negative as that sounds, I mean it in the nicest possible way. The game is designed around battling androids and collecting parts in a labyrinth of nondescript and mildly themed rooms. It takes place inside a giant tower, which was designed for the sole purpose of endless gladiatorial combat. I imagine that there are at least a few people out there who love this particular kind of genre-piece of gaming: the combat-based dungeon hack. What a strange creature this genre is, whose main point is to battle endlessly so that you can gain items and experience which will allow you to fight better and faster… endlessly. The narrative of the game takes the premise of the genre itself and converts it into what can only be considered a self-motivating situation.

As the player, you control a battle robot model A.D.A.M. (Autonomous Dueling Armed Machines), a lump of metal who is just starting to remember his past and purpose. Each of the eight floors of this battle tower will contain a boss who will shed a little light on A.D.A.M’s past. When they are defeated, mildly overwrought cut-scenes reveal slightly more history and purpose. Unfortunately, for quite a while, none of the story seems to make any sense. This leads me to believe that it exists for the singular purpose of making a statement about the monotony of either the game or possibly the genre itself.  

While trying to get to the top of the tower and unlocking your past, you will fight countless androids which are all trying to kill you. Most of these battles are exceptionally simple if not tedious even from the start. While battling the robots will net you experience, which adds into weapon and character statistics, the real reason to fight is to gain weapons and items which enemies drop after defeat. As one of the largest selling points of the game, there are over 300 different weapons which you can pick up and use to customize A.D.A.M.

The best part about the items and their customization is how they react with different body parts. Many of the weapons work with more than just one part of A.D.A.M’s body, which is broken up into L. Arm, R. Arm, Head, Torso, and Legs. Equipping a pistol or hammer as your head can look funny, and lead to some interesting attacks, but ultimately the more silly ones tend to not create the most balanced of androids. Other items can drastically alter your attack, ranging from slower strikes to turning yourself into a homing missile because of a head attack.

Combat is tied pretty directly to the body parts. The square and circle buttons are for the arms, triangle is for the head, and the cross button for the torso. In the tutorial very early on, you are informed that the best way to defeat enemies is through the combo system. This may in fact be true, but I couldn’t really say. In order to design an A.D.A.M. which can combo well, he will frequently be underpowered by using weak quick attacks. The more powerful and highly explosive weapons will usually have long lead-in times or move the A.D.A.M. into a different location/position so that it’s hard to time a follow-up attack.

Weapons and items range widely in rarity. With some of the more common ones, you’ll quickly find out that they are next to useless and start selling them off quickly. Unfortunately, the thrill of gaining rare items from bosses is stolen within just a short time when regular enemies on higher floors begin to drop the same items or have ones that are even more powerful. I’m not sure how many I ended up with by the end of the game but I know that I didn’t see some of the more rare items.

The formula for Rengoku II follows the Pokemon “gotta catch ‘em all” ethos, but replaces Pokemon with weapons. While a smart move to capture a more masculine audience, the game lacks the motivating factor for wanting to “catch ‘em all”. The thrill of collecting, changing, and customizing your character doesn’t last very long as a result. In order to change items and replenish ammo, you will need to go to the terminal for each floor. They are conveniently located at the beginning of each floor and as you progress further into the dungeon…sorry, tower…you will unlock teleports which will get you right back to the start.  However, they don’t work the other way around, requiring you to hoof it all the way back to where you left off.

Even death ties into the game’s potential statement about the genre’s endless battling. If you die before you can make it back to a terminal, the game will start you on floor zero and you will drop all equipped items and weapons where you died. The curse of A.D.A.M is that he is required to fight even past death: what a terrible night for a curse.

The game really isn’t all that bad, though. It does many things right for a portable title, and it passes the mass-transit test. The game is easy to pick up in the middle of a floor, even if you haven’t played the game in a few days, and only want to mindlessly hack/shoot/punch at some things on the way to work or school. The structure, while boring and uninspired, also works well for short pickups while out and on the go. The floors are basically simple square and rectangular rooms connected by hallways. After finishing a room and moving into a hall, you’re at the perfect place to put the PSP into hibernation and pick it up at any point in the future and not be lost.

Overall: 6/10
Rengoku II: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. isn’t bad, but I can’t say it’s good either. I was honestly expecting it to be much worse after my short experience with the first game. Running around and mindlessly killing some generic robots has its high points, but quickly becomes boring. Most of the things in the game are completely forgettable, such as music and environments, but at least they aren’t offensive. At times, I found myself actually enjoying the game, but mostly I just turned off my brain and fought for the hopes of finding out what some people like about this genre.