Buying new games when you are young is akin to a religious experience. For most children new games were a rarity, usually relegated to birthdays and the occasional holiday. Your mind is racing as you consider what game you’ll buy as the world is your oyster. It makes all sting that much worse when the game you bought turns out to be a turd. Ikari Warriors II triggers me for a few reasons. One because it is bad. And two because it was part of the SNK double suck fest when we got hit with when bought both it and Athena in one shot. Can you imagine buying two games at once and they are both terrible? Needless to say, avoid Ikari Warriors II like your life depends on it.
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road is one of the strangest sequels of all time. After rescuing their commanding officer in the original Ralf and Clark are caught in a freak thunderstorm that transports them to another world. The ruler of Alexia commissions our two commandos to free his world from the evil Zip Zap. I wish I were making that up. It is hard to imagine the two goofballs from the King of Fighters going from fighting soldiers to battling intergalactic aliens but that was par for the course with NES sequels. At the very least Ikari Warriors II is not an abomination like the Nintendo port of the original. But that doesn’t make it a good game.
While it has its problems Ikari Warriors II is significantly improved over its predecessor. There’s a decent assortment of weaponry available rather than being stuck using the machine gun and different grenades all game. You have a bazooka, boomerangs, and a sword that can all be leveled up multiple times. More importantly you can switch at any time. There are secondary items that are a big help as well. Lightning will clear the screen while potions restore health. Possibly the best item are the wings that let you fly through the level at a rapid pace. Many of these features were not in the arcade game which is a cool bonus.
By bombing the environment you can find items and weapons everywhere. Some are even in plain sight. This is a huge change since you aren’t forced to rely on random drops. Ikari Warriors II has a currency system using hearts. Hearts are used to purchase items in the shops and can be earned in multiple ways. Aside from drops from enemies you can battle the patrons in the shop for hearts. It sounds odd but is cool but not really worth it for how hard they are. There are also random portals that whisk you away to a difficult boss fight that has its rewards. It is nice that there are options but for the amount of trouble you’ll go through they still don’t beat simply killing enemies for hearts. Especially in light of the game’s control issues.
Ikari Warriors II sadly has the same control issues as the first game. Like the original Ikari Warriors II used a rotary joystick for 360 degree movement. The first game tried to imitate that on the NES with disastrous results and sadly this game falls in the same trap. Movement is slow as your character slowly rotates before moving in any direction. Its painfully slow meanwhile the enemies might as well be the flash in comparison. One addition that helps somewhat is the ability to lock your firing direction and strafe. But as a whole it is a band aid on a large gaping wound. The control scheme was the biggest flaw of the NES version of Ikari Warriors and it’s a damn shame it was replicated here as it doesn’t work.
Even with the addition of a life bar, inventory and items Ikari Warriors II is still a viciously difficult game. Every enemy is significantly faster than you and will pelt you with shots as you lumber into position. The optional fights are the epitome of this; pray you aren’t accidentally sucked into a portal. The most egregious reason for the difficulty is that you have a single life with no continues or passwords! There is a cheat code that lets you respawn but if you don’t know it beforehand it is impossible to beat the game on a single life. In one of the biggest middle fingers to players the cheat code stops working on the final boss, an already tough battle that saddles you with the worst weapon in the game. It’s like they distilled their disdain for the players into digital form.
In Closing
Ikari Warriors II is a marginal improvement over its predecessor but that isn’t saying much. This is still a bad game should be avoided at all costs.
