With there being a constant influx of new games hitting the market as of late, it becomes increasingly more difficult to target a specific audience. Often times, developers will try to step outside of their comfort zone in order to create a title that combines various genres to bring forth a fresh new experience for players. This of course is a great direction to take new titles since it does encourage players to try out new methods of play, while still enjoying the genre they favor most. This brings us to G. Rev Ltd. and their 2D bullet hell fighter titled Senko no Ronde 2, which meshes together two distinct genres and allows for versatile play whether it be alone or with others online.

Those who played the original Senko no Ronde DUO back on the XBOX 360 will certainly find the follow up to be enticing and a little more entertaining. The fast paced and frantic gameplay still remains intact, with a little more features tacked on to create a better experience. If you’re a fan of the bullet hell genre, then you’ll most certainly find Senko no Ronde 2 to be worth it, while fans of mechs and fighting may also find intrigue with the action packed gameplay. Those who are new to both genres however will need to get used to all of the intricate movesets and details which pertain to the overall flow of the game, but with enough patience and practice it may prove to be an exciting experience. The question however is does Senko no Ronde 2 live up to its predecessor, or does it fail to achieve long term appeal with its audience? Check out our gameplay section to find out.

You can imagine that with any unique title, there will be a lot of confusion coming into it all, especially if you’re totally new. Fortunately with Senko no Ronde 2, it does take you through a detailed breakdown of the game and gives players a chance to get better accustomed. The controls aren’t too overwhelming and in a way it reminded us of Touhou Genso Rondo for some reason, but instead of cute magical girls, they’re replaced with powerful mecha all of whom come with their respective abilities. The premise of the game is to avoid as much damage from your opponent by weaving and dodging around an array of bullets, and dishing out whatever you can in order to take the opposing side down. A lot of bullets will fly on screen especially when both players start going crazy and using their special attacks along with the B.O.S.S. mode, which transforms the player’s mecha into a much more powerful one and unleashes an enormous array of attacks to pulverise the opponent.

Before we go more into the frantic online battles let’s look at the other modes available. We’ll start off with the story mode which actually is the original story from Senko no Ronde DUO so if you didn’t get a chance to play DUO’s story, now’s the best time to do so. For those who’ve dabbled with the original the story becomes more of refresher than anything else, since there really isn’t anything new attached to it. Offline battles are a treat if you have a friend or two over and want to duke it out with each other, but other than that there’s really nothing much else. One thing we really enjoyed was the voice acting, which is used very well throughout the game and gives the game more life. Pair that with a pretty cool soundtrack by Yasuhisa 'Yack.' Watanabe and you have a pretty thrilling experience. Online is really where most of your time will be spent because once you’ve tackled the tutorial section and have fully grasped the movement and special moves, you’ll most likely want to test out your skills versus other players.

The other modes tend to become bland since they all lack replay value, but online play surely makes up for it since there’s a variety of players to pick and choose from. In spite of there being online however, Senko no Ronde 2 still suffers from some visual issues that can cause some framerate drops when too much is happening on screen. It’s also worth mentioning that while everything looks colorful and vibrant when a lot is happening, the character models are very bland and look a lot like they’ve come out of a PlayStation 2 game. The animations are very stiff and then often affects gameplay especially when trying to dash around your opponent to go in for a melee attack. This is where the issue of trying to be too unique can become a downfall because while Senko no Ronde 2 offers an appealing style, it’s lack of direction with regards to a story along with stiff animations in battle make that fighting bullet-hell mash up a problem. If they had stuck with the bullet hell structure more than trying to implement fighting features, then perhaps the game would certainly have more appeal, but due to the odd pairing of these very opposite genres they don’t create a nice harmony. You can spend a great deal of time just mashing away and leveling up, but after a few hours all of that excitement starts to wane and you move onto something else. That’s the main issue with Senko no Ronde 2, it has potential but it doesn’t capitalize in one major area to encourage you to play more.

So while Senko no Ronde 2 tries to reel in fans of the series with its familiar gameplay, new players may not find the game to have that much long term value. You can only blast through so many opponents before you grow bored and move onto something a little more challenging. Had the game focused its attention on creating perhaps a very challenging arcade mode that’s strictly bullet-hell similar to that of say Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun, it would’ve certainly carried more weight and made you stick around longer. Throwing in that fighting game aspect really threw us off because the mechanics just weren’t fluid enough which only made up close and personal battles more annoying than they should be. We do respect G.rev Ltd. for trying to create a new platform for players to try out because truthfully, we do need more newfangled content to really tickle our senses. It’s just with Senko no Ronde 2, that content only lasts for so long before it crashes and burns.

We hope you enjoyed our review and found it to be insightful. With so many games to choose from it can be hard at times to really stand out on your own, but we always give credit where it’s due so shout outs once again to Degica Games and G.rev Ltd. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date on all the latest gaming and anime news, and hit us up on Twitch to know when we go live with more games! Show us some love and leave your comments down below and until next time, this is NualphaJPN signing out.

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