Sanae Toumaden X2 Reviews

The first 10 minutes were already peak. If you like Megaman X, you will enjoy this game

When writing my review for Sanae Toumaden X, I had no idea that a Sanae Toumaden X2 had already released. So I made sure to pick this game up and I hoped that this would be the sequel that would improve upon the flaws of the original. After playing and beating it, I feel like I treated the first game too harshly and I would go as far as to say that this game is bad. Sanae's physics in this game are worse in this game. Sanae moves slower when dashing, and it is made worse because of the levels in this game. The level design in this game is pretty bad, as a good chunk of stages consist of straight lines where you are just dashing whether that would be parts of or the whole stage. For some reason, this game decides to incorporate aspects from Mega Man X5 and X6, and this includes the bad aspects of those games. Perfect examples include Clownpiece's stage going like Infinity Mijinion's stage where it is a straight line with a giant mech firing projectiles from the background, Orin's stage basically being Blaze Heatnix's stage with how many times you fight the giant wheel, and [spoiler] ???? Space 01 where it is mostly instant kill lasers just like in Zero Space Stage 1 [/spoiler]. Boss fights are a little better compared to the first game, with the only exception being Misumaru where she was just a carbon copy of Ground Scaravich. The Momiji fight is completely pointless and only wastes your time. The Kappa Cannon system is a better system compared to the Enigma Cannon and Space Shuttle from Mega Man X5, since you do not lose anything if the shot misses and almost nothing changes outside of the slightly different ending (I know there is at least two endings based on this system, so if there's any more, I would appreciate if you told me in the comments). It is honestly a shame that this game is not good because I see some good aspects of this game. The story is not bad and gives a reason for why you are fighting against the various bosses. The upgrades you get are not bad, the techniques are also good as well as being different from its inspiration, and the music & art remains consistently good from the first game. Some of the bosses in this game are pretty good. Fujiwara no Mokou is a good instance of referencing other material with how her boss fight uses moves based on Kyo Kusanagi and her rematch uses moves based on K', major characters from the King of Fighters series, though I do wish both fights were combines into one; I also noticed that Byakuren uses moves based on Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting, I do not understand the connection so if anyone understands, I would like to know in the comments. The [spoiler]Red Shadow boss in ???? Space 02 is a nice nod to Zero (even if it is barely legally distinct and the same thing goes for the final boss) and it is a nice touch that Awakened Zero is the shadow if the cannon misses. The final boss is also much better, feeling like a challenge and both phases have good patterns [/spoiler]. One last thing is that the aspect ratio of this game is better; something I forgot to mention in my review of the first game was the aspect ratio being in 4:3 and it looked really bad in windowed fullscreen/fullscreen. This game goes for an almost 16:9 aspect ratio and looks better when playing the game. Sanae Toumaden X2 is a disappointing sequel that ends up as a step-down from the first game. I would consider this game better than Mega Man X5 and X6, but this game is not good even with the positives I highlighted. I fear that whenever the seamlessly inevitable Sanae Toumaden X3 comes out, it will end up either as average as the first game, bad as the second game, or worse than both. Overall, i would not recommend playing this game.

Anyways, beat this game a while back, and... valiant effort for sure, but it sure leaves a ton to be desired. It's essentially Mega Man X5 (for those who love that game's structure), with level ideas mostly based off of Mega Man X6, and just like X6... the level design here isn't good at all. Levels can either be frustrating or straight-up boring. The controls are still not that great either. Sanae feels overweight with how stiff the controls feel. I'd go on about the music, but there was probably a budget when that was considered, so I'm letting that off the hook. The last game had similar issues, but it felt like a small project at the time attempting to bring the coolest shrine maiden into one of the coolest platformer series ever. I dunno if I can give this game an excuse, especially since it does very little to address the issues of the last game (arguably doubling down on them in some cases). I am a massive Mega Man X & Sanae Kochiya fan, so I was already gonna like Sanae Toumaden X2 before even purchasing it. But for anyone else who isn't a shill like me (which is probably most of you reading this), get this on sale if you're at all interested. Hopefully, if a 3rd game is ever considered, I'd hope these issues are addressed by then.

Really fun Mega Man X-like! It has a lot of references to the series in general, but especially to X5 and X6. Very entertaining to see how those elements are implemented, and I'd recommend this to any fan of the X series. I hope we get an X3!

Now that i have a good computer and can finally play the game, if you are down for some jank, these games are peak, having said that theres a non zero chat its full of stolen music, though it is possible they asked for permission, but it does have a lot of plagiarism in the form of copy pasted level sections from castlevania sotn and some megaman games, and straight up ripped and edited sprites

Right off the bat, Hijiri's stage is modeled after Squid Adler's (Volt Kraken) stage from X5. If you know anything about this, you know that it is pain and suffering. However, much like X5, you don't actually need to do the stage, as you can just get to the final stages via a story event. So this game, it's largely based off of X5 and X6, with all the pitfalls that come with those games. It even has a countdown to the crashing of an object from space, but instead of a space colony, it's the Scarlet Devil Mansion rocket. You have the Kappa Cannon to shoot it down, and doing stages raises its chance to successfully hit it. Success and failure, the rocket will hit a different location in Gensokyo. But unlike X5, there's no second playable character, so there's no Awakened Sanae should you fail. But regardless, it automatically opens the final stages, so if you don't care about success, you can just go to the end game. I haven't really tested how the cannon works, when compared to the one in X5, I just know that I managed to get it to hit with a 55%ish chance. I'm not sure if there's RNG to this, if saving and loading changes this or not. Momiji is a guest character in this game, and she is based completely off of X5 Dynamo, so she has all of his attacks, as is fighting for a sword using tengu. You get nothing from beating her, and it's purely optional; she's not trying to get in your way and will not force a fight. As stated, Hijiri's stage is suffering, especially if you want to get the ability upgrade. Rin's stage is based off of Blaze Heatnix's stage, only you don't have a giga attack to help make the wheels easier, so it's a long, slow slog through a mid-boss guantlet, so that's also suffering. Clownpiece's stage is based off of Infinity Mijinion, only instead of Illumina proper, it's the Three Fairies of Light... only giant, in the background and shooting energy balls and lasers. The rest of the main stages aren't really that bad, and frankly, Clownpiece's isn't terrible. Iku's teaches you that you start with the air dash and that you have to use it to have a chance of surviving. Patchu's stage is based off of Symphony of the Night, complete with the elevator and long library (because of course!). Mokou's stage is somewhat based on Snake Man's stage, with some Crash Man tossed in, and has a bamboo version of Whispy Woods as a mid-boss. The rest are various shades of things you would expect from the Rockman franchise as a whole. Ah yes, as stated, there's ability (armor capsule) upgrades in this game, unlike the first. They're not really that amazing, far as I've seen. One is literally just the Long Beam from Metroid, where Sanae's danmaku shot, which is basically the Zero Buster, goes across the whole screen length. Without it, the buster travels only a short distance before vanishing. Then there's the aerial buster, which allows Sanae to shoot at a downward angle while jumping. This actually causes her to pause in the air, and it can be rapid fired, so she could potentially just hover. They don't really add much utility, but they're there. The game also has at least one Sub Tank like item, allowing for a health refill on demand, so that's a big plus. There's also the EX item that grants you four lives should you continue from a game over. Since this game is unlike the PS1 X games, in that you have to redo the entire stage after a game over, it's actually useful. As of right now, I have to admit, I have not actually finished the game, so I don't know what comes next, but I assume it'll be based on Zero Space from X5. I will, of course, update this review once I do, but for now... I'll give this game a recommendation.