Leaps And Bounds Over The Original
Red Steel is a series that Ubisoft just can't seem to win on. The original Red Steel launched alongside the Wii to critical reception, due to the buggy nature that associates launch titles, yet the title sold over one million units. On the other hand, when Red Steel 2 launched earlier this year, the title sold around 270,000 copies worldwide, despite praising reviews over the original.
In fact, the first thing you will notice about Red Steel 2 is that the game has absolutely nothing to do with the original, apart from the name. Scott Monroe of the first Red Steel is gone, replaced by the lone warrior (referred to ingame as the Swordsman), a member of the Kusagari clan who returns to town after being exiled years prior for obscure reasons. The game begins with our hero being literally dragged through town, tied to the back of the motorcycle ridden by the head of the Jackals, a vicious clan. After dispatching Payne quickly in an early mission, our hero learns that the Jackals are simply working under a much bigger threat, the Katakara clan.
Red Steel 2 is set in a world where cowboys and ninjas combine to create a rather disturbing lovechild. Of course, this may just be me, but mixing Asian characters and cowboy aesthetics and accents into one piece of dialogue results in an unintentionally comedic effect, especially when that character is attempting to portray a serious tone. You won't find any new ground broken in the story, unnamed swordsman appears, kills a lot of people with his sword, and saves some people. Of course, like any decent pyramid scheme, there is always someone more powerful than the guy you thought was in charge, who conveniently remains hidden and unknown until the time is right (IE: you killing his underling).
As the lone Swordsman, you'll take control of your own blade, as well as a small number of firearms, to fight your way through numerous bad guys. Your guns are useful for the first half of the game, until you start fighting the Katakara clan who can side-step your bullets with ease. At this point, you are essentially forced back into using your sword for the majority of fights. Your gun can be useful in shooting your opponents in the legs, causing them a momentary stun, or shooting them in the face, causing a relatively quick death. As you progress, enemies become better armored and more keen to blocking your attacks. You'll need to use heavier swings (swinging in full motion) to break armor, and make use of both horizontal and vertical attacks, as well as unlockable attacks to defeat your more powerful opponents.
The Wii Motion Plus does an excellent job, even if it isn't 1:1 motion control as the advertisements might have hyped us up to believe. You are able to perform horizontal and vertical attacks, stabs, diagonal attacks and more. The biggest issue I found, however, was that Red Steel 2 would likely be better played using a wireless nunchuk. Although not overwhelmingly prohibitive to gameplay, I did find a number of times where the cord connecting the Wiimote and Nunchuk would simply get in the way, either twisting over my wrist or being stretched too far. Otherwise, I only had a small number of incidents where the system did not pick up my swing, mainly when attempted to follow up a wide swing with another swing. Apart from swinging and stabbing, Red Steel 2 offers combination moves you can buy in-game, as well as a dodge feature, and of course, your gun. The dodge feature shows off one of the game's more aesthetically pleasing attributes, as dodging just in the last possible second will treat you to a slow motion view of the sword/hammer slicing off the end of your character's nonexistent mustache.
Missons in Red Steel 2 are taken from mission hubs in sectioned off zones. Each zone features a line of main story missions, as well as a number of side missions that involve activating nodes, destroying groups of enemies, or retrieving items. They are relatively related to the story, such as one mission that has you destroying wanted pictures of yourself before some maniac with a gun decides to go vigilante. Before you leave a zone, after completing the main storyline, you'll have the option to stay and complete your side-missions before you leave, an important feature because you cannot go back to previous zones, no matter what. Still, side missions do nothing more than bolster your bank, one that becomes exceedingly full at certain times. Moving from zone to zone is relatively quick, although the game does make use of a cheesy “waiting for the door to open” system to mask the loading areas. That being said, I never encountered a door that required more than 8 or 9 seconds to open.
Apart from missions, Red Steel 2 is all about collection and upgrades. You'll upgrade your armor, your health, your katana, your moveset, and more through coins collected in-game. The currency is collected by destroying boxes, finding seals, unlocking safes, and more. Collection does become something of a chore after a while, given that the main missions do not pay well enough to supplement your income, especially because the rewards are static and unchanging. Unlocking a safe will always give you three bars ($3,000 gold), finding a seal will always give you $5,000 gold, shooting a sheriff's star will give you a certain amount, and so on and so forth.
Graphics-wise, Red Steel 2 is stunning, especially the cutscenes. The game is cel-shaded, and feels more like Borderlands than XIII. The non-interactive cutscenes are a beauty to watch, and even the in-game interactive scenes feel like leaps and bounds ahead of the regular game's graphics. Although one could argue that the sword fighting nature of Red Steel 2 turns the whole title into one elaborate quick-time event, there are a few moments where you will be required to push buttons as they appear on screen, although these instances are small and few in quantity.
My main gripe with Red Steel 2 is that I can't help but feel condescended to by every measure of the game. For starters, if this is your first Motion Plus game, the game displays a mandatory several-minute long training video on how to install the Motion Plus, with a live actor. At the training portion of the game, the moves are demonstrated by a video of a live person. I just can't help but feel that that space on the CD could have been used for something more productive, like more variations in box and barrel textures, or more textures for the enemy NPCs.
Furthermore, I played the game on hard mode and still found many portions incredibly easy due to the heavily liberal use of quick-time finisher moves. Half of the Jackal gang members I encountered required only two medium slashes to kill, not to mention the gunman who, you would think to be slightly more difficult, are made obsolete by running toward them while pressing A (block) which blocks all of their bullets. I did die, mind you, in a few spots around the beginning, and when you die the game treats you like you have some sort of disability when you reboot at the nearest checkpoint. There is a serious drop in both the number of enemies present at the fight, and their willingness to use dirty tactics. It's as if the game says “you know, he's probably half-crippled since he couldn't beat you the first time around. Just fall over when he gets near so he feels like he's accomplishing something.”
Red Steel 2 is all about the aesthetics, which the game pulls of very well. Otherwise, it's a pretty generic game. The enemies are generic fighting enemies, the story is generic western/samurai, and the locales are generic as well. Rather, where Red Steel 2 shines and makes itself worth the money (perhaps not the $80 Ubisoft was asking for the game + motion plus bundle) is immersing yourself in the sword fights, being aware of your surroundings, and trying not to fall to the finishing moves (they make the game far too easy).
I'm giving Red Steel 3 a 3 of 5, because as much as I enjoyed the fighting aspect, the game felt far too condescending. From the over-lenient death system to the full-video training sections on how to thrust the Wiimote or plug in the Motion Plus, I especially felt the game was pulling a "Don't look at the loading screen, look at the shiny keys!" by hiding the loading screens behind cutscenes of door gears moving.
