Review #537: Nightmare Creatures II

 A nightmarish sequel nobody wanted.

Wallace is one ugly freak. I love it.

 Nightmare Creatures was a mediocre game that I think nobody wanted a sequel to. Heck, even when I was younger and enjoyed it quite a deal more I didn't even wish for a sequel. But it didn't matter, Nightmare Creatures II was made, and for every step forward it takes a stumble backwards.

 You're Wallace, a disfigured, bandaged freak that was abducted while young by Adam Crowley, who for one reason or another revived, and experimented upon. And sometime before getting abducted it seems he was also part of 'The Circle', whatever that was. What little story there is doesn't make much sense, but credit where credit is due: Character design is fantastic, Wallace stands out among other protagonists because of how ugly he is, while the rest of the monsters are no slouches either, looking very creepy and nasty.

Remember these guys? Of course they had to return!

 The game is made up of two different components: Combat and exploration, which will inevitably remind people of Spawn the Eternal, which is not good. Exploration can be reduced to running around dull-looking levels, searching for key items(Dynamite, Keys, Pliers) and then the barrier on which to use them. There're a few scary platforming sections too, scary because it feels as if you can't trust Wallace jump arc, but I never died to a bottomless pit. There're a few sparse Save Points peppered throughout every stage to make your life easier, although a few more of these would've been welcome. Thankfully, the dumb 'adrenaline' mechanic is gone in this game.

 Eventually you'll run into monsters and Wallace will enter combat mode. Square is a horizontal slash and X is a vertical slash. Remember how many combos Nadia and Ignatius had in the first game? Wallace has... less than either of them. XX ,Square Square, X Square Square and Square X X are the only combos in the game. Weapon upgrades are gone too, but you can find items to help Wallace in combat, like a fiery axe or explore gun ammo. There're new fatalities to kill enemies faster, but... they are cute at first, but overstay their welcome pretty fast. There's a single fatality type for each enemy time, so they grow repetitive, and they are so slow that you'll just want to move on. Plus, the game repositions Wallace and the enemy when you execute this... which can potentially ruin your game. On stage 2 a fatality got me through an invisible wall, which got me stuck and forced me to reset the game.

Bosses are strangely static in this game.

 Despite how boring and clunky everything in the game is, its biggest setback is its unfair difficulty level, even on the lowest difficulty setting. You start out with 5 continues and no way to get more. You'll lose most of them figuring out that you have to wait until the big yellow monster growls before you can hurt him or to wait for the knife-beast to lick his knife else he will break your combo, and then you'll lose the rest of your continues trying to dodge attacks in cramped environments with crappy camera angles you can't rotate. Combos feel somewhat unresponsive, sometimes Wallace takes too long to enter combat mode and monsters are boring to engage.... it's not a fun game.

 It's also buggy, the item wheel got stuck twice on my playthrough, forcing me to restart the game. Then there was also that time I got through an invisible barrier... Don't even let me get started on how finicky the game is to decide when Wallace will climb a wall, turns out sometimes you simply must jump, or press Square, on juuuust the right angle.

Dismembering foes doesn't feel half as great as it did in the previous game.

 Sloppy, buggy, boring... the game has a fantastic art-direction, and looks great... but falls apart on anything that matters. If you liked Nightmare Creatures you might want to give this one a look since you're already used to mediocrity, everyone else just avoid it.
 3.0 out of 10