Beat on slow motion mode, barely. I hated this and would have quit if not for infinite continues with 0 penalty, and using a guide. It was very similar to the 1st game, which I also disliked. Trying to play legit without dying and farming money to buy healing was a nightmare. The enemies infinitely respawned relentlessly in 1 of 2 types; fast flying little shits or shooters that can 1 hit kill you in melee. The platforming was extremely annoying with very floaty mechanics, not enough view distance below, lots of stupid jumps where the ceiling was too low and lots of slopes that forced falling. It was like the developers wanted you to take as much damage as possible. The repeated jumping when pressing the button too long was still present, and the weird directional sword attacks. It was more effective to walk or jump into enemies with the sword in default position. It did seem like sometimes hitting enemies with head or feet killed them. Getting through areas was a little more open in that you only needed to find a few special items to progress with the rest optional. Shops sold keys to get those items as well as equipment, health and lives. For some stupid reason hp only healed after eating 2 food items, with even more required when closer to max hp. This was dumb design. I hated how treasure chests did not even give enough money to offset the cost of a key. Shops also had gambling, which I abused to build up about $15k to buy some lives. Once past the wind, water the fire bosses the continues were no longer infinite so I had to lock in and save state scum the crap out of it. I did like the gear progression, the longer more effective swords and how the character visually changed with new gear. I also liked the magic spells but they were severely under ultized. You could only have 1 at a time. There was an orb that flew around killing enemies and dropping coins, some mobility ones, invincibility, and healing ones. I like the dragon spell that turned enemies into food. Mana was not infinite though. There were special spots to go to get mana, and enemies sometimes dropped it. The main goal was to find special nuke magic that allowed ranged attacks and was needed to beat each boss. Each nuke had a different firing pattern that countered 1 stationary boss but was lost afterwards. At the end you had to fight the 4 bosses as fast flying shits that circle strafed around shooting at you. It felt like playing as the Doom cyberdemon in a wide open area trying to kill the player. I eventually got into a decent rhythm after going to the bottom of the stage, jumping on a platform and shooting up right, but the character was in no way responsive enough to fight that kind of battle.

There were some good ideas here but the game design and play were not good at all. Like the 1st game they should have made it a different genre, like Zelda, Metroidvania, Ninja Gaiden or Contra. Put more focus on adventure and the shooting magic. Overall this game annoyed me more than the 1st but was not as lame as 3rd.

5.2/10