UltraGoodness 2 is the continuation of the battle between good and evil since the first volume. Satan and his servants have returned and I think it is Jesus who must take them out with an arsenal of heavenly attacks. Here’s the bottom line. Jesus is sitting in front of the television with his cat when he sees an urgent message about an invasion of demons. So he begins to do what Jesus is supposed to do, which is to defeat evil. There is no other scenario in this game. No mid-game turnaround, no game where Satan hardens after initial defeat. You go through thirty levels, ten levels per chapter, and then you fight Satan. Game Over. Should I put a spoiler tag on it?
Did Satan spoil the cute bunnies? Oh, no!
The gameplay of UltraGoodness 2 is as shallow as the story. For a two shooter, I can forgive the finesse of the story if the gameplay is addictive. Unfortunately, there’s not much here to get you hooked. It’s not that the game itself is bad, it works well, it’s just outdated. Each of the three chapters has a different visual theme and uses the concept of the enemy, but the goal is always the same: get through the level, take out the enemies, find your way out of the portal. This game wouldn’t be bad if the “Eliminate Enemies” part was at least engaging. As part of the game, it’s a shame it doesn’t work.
It was a two-stick shooter with Jesus and a flying catfighter, I was expecting a bombing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, I ended up with a shallow game that never got going. Jesus and Cat have nine different attack moves, and for the most part Cat gets all the cool stuff. J&C (Jesus and Cat) both start with the standard magical Holy Orb, and as you defeat your enemies, you collect money to unlock more moves. The most expensive moves only cost about twenty-five hundred gems to unlock. So if you save your money for a handful of levels, you can unlock the best moves in the first world. These moves range from explosive shots, scatter shots, shots that go through enemies, and special moves for Cat.
You can quickly change weapons by holding down L2, but probably not.
As I said, Kat has the advantage of laser beams and huge missiles that he will fire. It’s a shame that most of these more expensive ones are not that powerful. I discovered blasting in the first world and mostly used it because it was more effective at destroying enemies. It also has a longer range than scatter fire, so even groups of approaching enemies are more easily taken out by the blast radius. There was also no way to equip the J&C with different weapons. They would both use the same attack.
In addition to the main weapon, Jesus has a grenade with a smiling face that has become insignificant in explosive fire. Jesus has a super attack that is useful, called Armageddon. Basically, you can summon three meteors to strike anywhere within your radius. This is useful if you want to get a group out very quickly. Since it’s a two-gun shooter, you can expect to pick a location, but it’s not very inventive. There’s a boxing glove that does damage to everyone on screen, a shield, a mushroom that makes you small and increases your speed, and an object that either fires rounds or sends a ton of grenades.
No lovers or stacking of objects. Only ordinary objects such as shields without cold construction.
A semi-unique element of the gameplay in UltraGoodness 2 is that time only moves when you do. That is, if you stop, the enemies stop and the bullets come crawling in, just like in SUPERHOT. This idea was probably better on paper, because in practice it makes almost no sense. In no case was it useful or necessary because you were always shooting or moving.
The design is as unimaginative as the gameplay. There are a lot of crazy designs to shoot from heaven and hell, but instead there are the usual levels of forest, desert and snow. The enemies lack creativity and are not threatening or cool to look at. It reminds me of those browser games with flash players. Overall, it looks neat with some normal special effects with explosions and weapons. There is just a lack of creativity in the design. A perfect example are the end bosses, which are as boring to look at as they are to fight. We are fighting demons, servants of Satan, and this is the boss’s plan?
Seriously? Kirby’s big pink bat?
UltraGoodness 2 has an eight-track soundtrack, but for some reason they all sound the same. They are also very short and stop and play in the middle. But it doesn’t move on to the next song, there’s just a few seconds of silence before the same song repeats. The songs themselves are not bad techno tracks, but they are not memorable and do not reinforce the feeling of fighting the demons of hell. The rest of the sound design is mediocre at best. All major attack moves have the same sound effect except for the opening move. Overall, the sound design, like the rest of the game, just seems generic.
My biggest problem with UltraGoodness 2 is the lack of creative ideas, or even a difficulty level. There are rarely frantic moments when hordes of people rage over you, when your only escape is from the heart. Battles between bosses are an easy distraction that you barely notice. You have heaven and hell at your disposal, but all the weapons, enemies, power-ups and design levels feel safe. You can finish the entire game in a few hours and there’s no reason to go back. In fact, you can take this platinum game to the seventh level of the first world.
The graphics look like those of a Flash Player browser game. The design of the characters and levels are pretty simple and not as goofy as you might think. It doesn’t look bad, but you don’t really notice it. | Overall, the mechanism works well. Shooting with two sticks works well with the DualSense. Unfortunately, there is no depth, complexity or variety to keep it interesting. |
The sound design consists of a small selection of sound effects that are not well designed. Most weapons sound the same and the soundtrack doesn’t offer much variety with short songs repeating the medium. | It is a double-barreled shooter that is not frenzied, but rather an isometric corridor shooter. UltraGoodness 2 lacks style and one hell of a bullet gameplay. With its short play time and no reason to revisit levels, it’s not that fun here. |
Final Verdict: 4.0 |
UltraGoodness 2 is available now for PC, Xbox One, Xbox X|Series, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
Tested on PlayStation 5.
A copy of UltraGoodness 2 was provided by the publisher.
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