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[Fantastapotamus]

I hated it. Turned the adrenalin pumping run-and-melee HM1 into a "lure enemies behind a corner or get shot from off-screen" shitfest

 

[Jangowuzhere]

An absolutely amazing game, the ending blew me away and I don't understand the hate. It clearly builds upon the difficulty of the first game, and if you play properly you won't get blind-sided by enemies or miss them off screen, you can move the camera independent of the character to an extent.

Can you explain to me what is so mindblowing about the ending? It basically just takes all the story threads that it has been building for the past few hours and just throws them in the dump.

What was the point?

 

[Atilac]

Can you explain to me what is so mindblowing about the ending? It basically just takes all the story threads that it has been building for the past few hours and just throws them in the dump.

What was the point?

You mean how it occurred? Came out of nowhere while simultaneously stopping at the right moment? The music, the presentation, the artistry of it all? Experiencing that ending is one of my favorite gaming moments.

 

[Audioboxer]

I finally got the 3 disc vinyl (it was out of print for a while) along with a game code, and I still haven't played it. I'm a terrible person

 

[Captain Rage Quit 69]

I gotta disagree heavily with those who say it's worse than Hotline Miami 1. It was a lot harder with a different focus, but I really appreciated that. I enjoyed mastering the baiting options in attempts to clear stages as smoothly as I could, and I appreciated the game's storytelling as it went on. The last few levels in particular, while I said my fair share of expletives playing them, were far more memorable than the first game's last levels to me.

Playing it on vita was a mistake though, imo the game plays far better with keyboard/mouse but that's just me.

 

[Jangowuzhere]

You mean how it occurred? Came out of nowhere while simultaneously stopping at the right moment? The music, the presentation, the artistry of it all? Experiencing that ending is one of my favorite gaming moments.

It's a cool moment in the game, but that being the way the game ends? I thought it was very disappointing. I expected more game beyond that, and a least a half decent conclusion to what was happening in the plot. Not just

Spoiler

everyone gets nuked, that's it.

 

[Atilac]

It's a cool moment in the game, but that being the way the game ends? I thought it was very disappointing. I expected more game beyond that, and a least a half decent conclusion to what was happening in the plot. Not just

Spoiler

everyone gets nuked, that's it.

It's a matter of style overwhelming substance, which is actually rare for me. It was crazy fighting those four bosses while your character was high af.

 

[Hedonism Bot]

I agree with you OP, I think the sequel was weirder, more creative and more in control of its direction than the first. And also much, much harder. Ultimately it doesn't take away from the first game for those that didn't like it, and it adds something for those that did like it. It coexists as another product next to HM1 very well.

 

[Permanently A]

Going back to HM1 after HM2 is a revelatory experience. Loved both games, I think HM2 is slightly better if only for the great pacing and variety of the gameplay.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I really liked the sequel, though I found it kinda depressing, for whatever reason. I dunno. It's a weird, disorienting experience. The soundtrack is out of control good.

The game does force you to look around a lot more than the first game did, and there's way more of an emphasis on guns than melee weapons, but I really didn't have an issue with any of that. Pretty rad game, and I like that there's some real differences between it and the first game.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Ah I forgot to mention the largest downside for Hm2 is that it is embarrassingly glitchy.

Who remembers getting to the top floor of the skyscraper level on hard and then having the game hard crash because there's a 50% chance the game will lock up if you chainsaw execute someone while shooting at the same time?

Brilliant

 

[ScOULaris]

Ah I forgot to mention the largest downside for Hm2 is that it is embarrassingly glitchy.

Who remembers getting to the top floor of the skyscraper level on hard and then having the game hard crash because there's a 50% chance the game will lock up if you chainsaw execute someone while shooting at the same time?

Brilliant

Glitches are definitely unfortunate, but to be fair the first game was even worse in that regard. ESPECIALLY at launch. It took a number of patches before HM1 resembled a properly functioning game.

On another note, I just finished my Vita playthrough of HM2 and absolutely loved it. That story is just too good. I'm really impressed with how distinctive the personalities for each character are by virtue of their dialogue and individual story arcs. Dennaton deserves praise for their writing and plotting in these games.

Also, I'm actually proficient at the game on Vita now. I'm replaying levels and routinely getting A and A+ ranks despite struggling with the controls early on. Once you've gotten good you really can flow through the levels smoothly HM1-style. The only difference is you generally need to make use of melee and guns in equal measure as opposed to going melee-only in Hotline 1. It makes for more challenging and dynamic action in my opinion, and that's why the first game feels comparably tame and easy whenever I revisit it post-HM2.

I fully understand liking HM1 more than HM2. It does feel more cohesive and flexible as a whole, but I will always feel the need to defend HM2's quality in the face of harsh criticism.

 

[s_mirage]

Yeah, HM1 is a better game. The army missions are just fatiguing; large levels with lots of hiding around corners, and you have to avoid wasting ammo if the reload point isn't clear since you aren't allowed to pick up dropped guns.

 

[Blueingreen]

Hotline Miami 2 is almost an entirely different game to the first, the larger levels and focus on guns derided the element of impulsive player urgency that made Hotline Miami 1 so exhillirating to play as such the game plays much slower and methodical than the first.

The problem is the game rarely rewards that kind of play, skill and strategy its completely disregarded as the levels are simply far too big with a jumbled mess of enemy varients and ludicrous design that the game lacks consitence and flow to the point where success in later levels genuinley boils down to luck, 90 percent of my deaths were a shotgun blast off screen which was infuriating.

Still every now and then there are momments of sheer brilliance where everthing just..."clicks" and the game actually trancsends the visceral mayhem of its predecessor coupled with an incredible style and a thrlling soundtrack I still find myself visiting Hotiline Miami 2 more than the first because of the momments of brilliance.

But seriously the soundtrack is immense, the Roller Mobster level was an absolute highlight.

 

[ArtHands]

I like the first game but not so much for the second. The story went on too long so i ended up skipping the cutscenes all the way.

 

[Cikay]

I agree, that's how every sequel should be.

 

[Vintage]

How much did it sell? I remember HM1 being a hit, but HM2 came and passed very quickly.

 

[Magicpaint]

The original was such a trip. Loved playing through with all the frustration and getting good scores by gitting gud. For some reason I saw videos of the sequel and never bothered trying it. I think the things mentioned here are what I sensed about it...the open levels, the doubling down on gun fights etc.

 

[Sinatar]

How much did it sell? I remember HM1 being a hit, but HM2 came and passed very quickly.

On PC it sold about 1/2 as much as the first. No idea about console sales.

 

[Craymen Edge]

I think Hotline Miami 2 is a pretty good game and I liked it a lot, but a lot people's complaints are definitely legitimate. Off-screen enemies really annoyed me on a couple of occasions.

It's good, but doesn't reach the heights of the first game in my opinion.

 

[What did he mean by this?]

Wow I actually beat this game and didnt even remember doing so. Every score is a C-. It's that bad huh

 

[careless mango]

<snip>

 

[Banana Aeon]

HM1 is a masterpiece in design. The game flows extremely well and almost every level is crafted around your character.

On the flipside, HM2 is a mess. It tries too hard to be hard, introducing massive amounts of utter bullshit, open levels that never meshed well with HM's gameplay, bad gimmicks, and overemphasized gunplay, which slowed the pacing down to a crawl. The story is also a complete mess.

 

[Omerta]

HM1 is up there with my favourite games of all time, I'd love to be able to play the second game but Australia

 

[U-R]

HM2 takes every good bit about HM1 and punches it in the face until it stops moving. And somehow, it doesn't even get a combo bonus for it.

 

[Jack Videogames]

I'm in Chapter 5 and I've played 20+h. It's not that I like the game a lot - in fact, it's sort of the opposite, even though I loved HM1.

It's just that there are two sort of levels: levels where you can simply snipe everyone by abusing the terrible AI ("Oh, there's someone with a gun round the corner! Let's rush there so we can be gunned down!") and bullshit levels where the game expects you to play in a certain way if you want to survive more than 2 seconds. I'm TERRIBLE at the latter. I've spent more than 1/4 of those 20h stuck in "Casualties", "Dead Ahead" and "Death Wish".

When it works, it's great ("Death Wish", for example, is absurdly climatic if you do everything right) but when it doesn't, you feel powerless. To compare it with a relatively recent hard game, Bloodborne never makes you feel powerless - it might feel like it's cheating, or like it's trolling you, but it always gives you a chance to fight back. HM2, on the other side, railroads you: either you do what the devs want you to do or you die.

 

[Greddleok]

I've played so many hours of the 1st. Completed it across 3 different systems. The second...meh. Too many long corridors where someone comes out of no where. The first one you could see when shit was going out of control and react accordingly, in 2, you just get killed by a shot from miles away.

It's like the creators didn't really understand what was good about HM1 (Cut).

 

[Snagret]

They so thoroughly butchered the frenetic pacing of the combat from the original, I was so sick of actually playing the game by the time I got to the end of it. Inching forward and sniping enemies at the edge of your screen, only to be sent back to the checkpoint by a stray bullet from god knows where felt like it was happening dozens of times per level. It was suffocating being forced to complete each mission in such a specific way.

It's a shame too, because I feel like everything around it is just as good or better than the original. The story is absolutely bonkers, the music is better, they push the visual style of the series even further. But the momentum through the game is so stop-and-go-and-stop-again because of the way it plays.

Making the levels longer with more open spaces occupied by enemies who mostly have guns, and essentially picking up where the first game left off in terms of difficulty curve was a huge mistake. It seems like they didn't really know how to make the game more challenging than the first, so they just made it unfair and frustrating. As someone coming into the sequel having not played the first in years (like they should've expected many people would) it felt really off.

 

[oni-link]

These responses make me sad. I wish there was a bigger fanbase for the second game on GAF.

I'm not discounting people's criticisms, however. I just want more people with whom I can gush over the game and discuss its successes.

I really enjoyed the game as well, it was a proper sequel. It didn't just offer more of the same. People seem to have wanted Hotline 2 to have been a level pack for 1, with more of the small indoor levels

The sequel did put more emphasis on guns, and some of the larger levels can come off as unfair (being shot across the room from someone you can't see) but at least that differentiates the second game from the first

The 2nd game, as many have already said, starts off as hard as the end of the first. It's meant to be a challenge and it's meant to force the player to adapt from how they played the first game

That said, it's perfectly understandable that some people (well, a lot of people) prefer the first game

I think I like them both equally

 

[Mafro]

Great game but HM1 was way better. I think the only thing 2 does better than the first is the narrative and the soundtrack which got me into synthwave music.

HM1 is the only game I've bothered getting a platinum on, it's that good.

 

[InfernoNR]

Agree 100%. Loved Hotline Miami 2. Felt like the first level in HM2 was the direct step to take after beating HM1 in difficulty level. Had the same experience of going back and finding HM1 to be much easier. I need to replay these games. One of my favorite series to come out in the past few years

 

[Icyflamez96]

I didn't beat it. I found the plot interesting as I was going through. Level design just wasn't as fun though.