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Though the game is touted as a roguelike, it is only so by heritage. There is little inside of the game that will hearken back to the great roguelikes of the genre’s colorful history. Rogue itself was one of the very earliest PC games, and the genre it created continues on in a mostly wonderful tradition. Sadly, Izuna 2 does not have the soul that makes the genre so enjoyable.
One of the main features of roguelikes is that when the player dies, they lose everything except the lessons taught through play. I admit it is a hard pill to swallow, but without it, there’s not much left but a husk. Death is treated this way because the avatar of the player is not important, but the player is. These games are meticulously balanced and rebalanced to make sure that, within most circumstances, the player has the ability to complete the entire game in one session.
Depending on the game, these sessions can range from a couple hours to several days. The point isn’t that you die and lose all equipment and levels, it is that you have learned a valuable lesson for the next time you travel into a dungeon. Intense moments are common when a player will have to stop and strategize on how to proceed. Dozens of options – between movement and item use – will cause the player to second-guess all their choices. This is what makes a roguelike interesting and fun to play.
Izuna 2 throws these considerations out the window. In the process, it also tosses out many of the things that make for a good roguelike, with balance being the big one.
Since it is very difficult for most players to accept that they may have spent the last hour accomplishing nothing besides the experience of having played, many developers attempt to relieve this by removing the death penalty. Izuna allows you to keep your levels and experience, while stripping you of equipment and money upon death. This opens the Pandora’s Box of problems with the game.
The result is a mess. The removal of this key point forces the developers to build areas with level progression in mind. This hurts things twofold: first, it makes it impossible to finish Izuna 2 on a single run, and it punishes the player whose cunning and skill have brought them into an area they aren’t properly leveled for.
The ability to play as multiple characters is the more interesting bullet point on the back of the box. When you can play as these new characters, they all start at level 1. Like a butterfly creating ripples on a pond halfway across the world, the balance of the levels has been dismissed in exchange for predetermined difficulties, and this makes it impossible to use any of said characters until you’ve taken them all back to the very first cave and grinded all the way back up to the point where Izuna is. This puts an immediate halt on momentum, and forces the player to return all the way to the beginning if they want access to any of these new features. The worst thing about all this is that, about halfway through, many of the new characters you unlock are gods of the region. I find it exceptionally weak that they start at levels 1 as well
I couldn’t stomach that and gave up without playing the catch-up game. Luckily there is another use for those timesink characters: the combo attack. When entering a dungeon, the player must select two characters. They can be switched out at any time, though if you haven’t leveled up your partner, be prepared to die in one hit. In a bind, you can use your partner to attack enemies.
So, this sounds awesome because you really don’t even need to level them up in order to get some use out of them, right? Wrong. The amount of damage you deal is based on the characters’ levels, and many of the characters (possibly in an attempt to balance the game) will take damage from the, uhhh, strain of working together. Seeing the butterfly wings flapping again, the result is that the lower level character ends up taking too much damage from this, usually reducing them to half health.
That doesn’t make these attacks worthless; it just makes them much more limited in their usefulness. I mostly used the combo attack when I was in a room filled with enemies, which tends to happen more frequently than not. Rooms filled with enemies used to be called a Monster House: a special breed of challenge that required most players to be exceptionally resourceful. Most levels in Izuna 2 end up becoming monster houses whether you wanted them to be or not.
Since I didn’t develop the game I can’t say why this is, but I suspect that the AI was sloppily programmed. The usual scenario is that the player will start in a room that has a small number of monsters, or none. After arriving on the floor some sort of radar triggers on every single other enemy on the same floor and they create a conga line of terror headed straight for the unsuspecting player.
After vanquishing the first couple of enemies, an average player will begin to collect the items. That is not the best route for survival, though. As stated, every other creature on the floor is currently headed right for you. The only thing between you and them is a matter of time. I recommend heading straight for a hallway and killing time until they all show up, leaving you to only be attacked from two directions rather than eight. More to the point, I don’t recommend getting yourself into the situation of playing the game in the first place.
The disparity between the level of the enemies and the level of the character will frequently create an impasse. If you aren’t of a high enough level, nothing will get you through a dungeon. This results in a brick wall of difficulty that can only be surpassed by constant repetition. Thankfully, the levels are randomly generated so you don’t have to go through the exact same level dozens of times. If at first you don’t succeed, beat your shoulder against the wall until it falls over. Okay, so that’s not how the cliché goes, but it’s appropriate in this case…and just as painful.
Also, if you haven’t played the first Izuna title, don’t worry; you’re not missing anything. Don’t let the game bully you into thinking that you missed important plot points, as it attempts many times to remind you to purchase the first title. The first game is very much like this sequel, though more broken mechanically and with a lot less to do. Still, in one key way, the first Izuna is a better game because it doesn’t treat the player like a young boy in early stages of puberty.
Sure, there’s a market for that kind of thing: the smut market. Well, I’m being harsh but this game offends my sensibilities on so many levels that I don’t know where to begin. I think it started with the relentless and tasteless use of breast size to identify characters.
“We’re looking for Shino’s sister.”
You’d think that’s all anyone looks at in the game. In the first game, the writers were playful about the subject, and nowhere near as brazen in tone. Now a conversation doesn’t go by without the mention of breasts, or how horny one of the supporting male characters are. Outside of the exceptionally perverse DS owners, there aren’t going to be many fans of this kind of discussion. This game often borders on being offensive. I hate to think what would happen if someone sent this game to a women’s rights group. Overall: 5.5/10 Still interested?
Izuna 2: Return of the Unemployed Ninja is one step forward and two steps back. Everything that the game adds in an attempt to compensate for a stiff challenge is marred by the basic functions that have been removed. Without all of the fundamental features of a proper roguelike, Izuna is just a standard eastern RPG without the benefit of decent level design. If you were hoping for a good roguelike from this title, just pick up Shiren the Wanderer DS (and if you already have, play it some more). If an eastern RPG was what you had in mind, just pick up Final Fantasy 4 DS. Izuna 2 falls off the tightrope it’s walking between the two genres. © Copyright 1999-2005 by EntDepot.com |
