Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2 Game Review – Game Review

Man, when this game started, I was so excited because it really put you in the sway of things. There is no extended preface, not even a majority of the summary. One of the first screens you’ll see when you first launch this game is that you’re stuck in a battle, a simple list of commands in the corner, taking up one of the first bosses in the game. You don’t have a health meter or anything else, and you’re not sure if you’re scripting completely, or if you should remove your boss in front of you. Things feel dynamic, the combat feels smooth, and you do feel the game just fires on all cylinders. But the more I play the game, the slowly the feeling and excitement disappears.

It’s been a while since I played and reviewed the last game Demon killer: Hinokami chronicle, but I don’t remember it’s such a slow pace. Much like the first game, it was inspired by the popular anime series Demon killer The story pattern is broken down into chapters. The visual presentation of storytelling is actually very solid. CyberConnet2 creates incredible cell shadow graphics to create something expressive and engaging. The colors are bright and the expressions are pleasant to the cartoon, Dubbing Incredibly solid. Actually, I was surprised at how many sound performances actually exist in this game. There are definitely more voice lines than the first game, and lip sync is more seamless.

The problem with the game is the rhythm. This game makes the feet dragging a lot and you’ll think its weight is tied to them 2 tons. Some of this is due to the performance and demonstration of the game. I played this game on the Switch and the actual animations of the game are solid, but navigating in the story does feel like a trivia. The cutscenes in each chapter last longer than I think they should have a lot of dead space between the character’s actions. The game gives you the option to skip cutscenes, but only do this at a time. So if you want to get into the actual game, you have to hold that B button to skip multiple cutscenes that accompany the loading screen between each cutscenes. I don’t know how it’s going on on other hardware, but this version of the game can last up to a load screen between ten and thirty seconds, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you do this back to back it can actually take a few minutes to really interact with the game as a player.

Let me say that, it took me nearly fifteen minutes to participate in the first real battle in the game, besides the trailer and teaching program words. If you decide to watch all the cut scenes, it may take about twice as long as the storytelling is slow. Even cutting yourself is fascinating, it isn’t enough to prove how long it actually took you. The game likes to fill as much narrative progress as possible in the actual game, which doesn’t help. When you are able to escape the cutscene, you will be placed in a very small, very narrow world where you can complete side quests and collect items that are likely to help you fight. Most side content is optional, but the problem is that the game forces you to interact with its head before choosing whether you want to decide whether or not you want to interact with them first.

The heads are a little cute, like how Tanjiro tracks the demons through scents, or Zenitsu can listen in a conversation because of its enhanced hearing. But when these heads feel like they are just to extend your stay in the little “world beyond”, it’s hard to be fascinated by these mmicks. If you are looking for someone, you have to listen to multiple conversations just to track where they are, not just from point A to point B. But if you take these heads out, there is little reason for you to explore the cross-world beyond some side content. The items you can find can give you an improvement in battle and some good knowledge can be found in the scattered journals, but the benefits don’t match the trouble. A lot of it boils down to just talking to NPCs, which quickly gets boring.

So the shear scene is slow, multiple load times to skip the shear scenes still add up, and when you actually allow you to interact with the game you get stuck with gi headers, Sidequests, and Mini Games. Isn’t this a battle game? Yes! That’s hands-on, it’s the bread and butter of this game, definitely my favorite thing. It was awful, it actually took us a long time to get to the real meat and potatoes.

Even on the switch, the combat is fluid and responsive. There is some bright particle effect when you make a light attack and some crisp sound design. You are fighting in the 3D arena and are allowed to perform quick dash to manipulate around your opponent. There is a guard feature, which is surprisingly durable, but you can be punished if your opponent manages to string the combo together to turn it on. Make sure your fingers are on that guard button, because if you hesitate for a second, you will easily and cruelly get clued. In the main story, the battle feels very balanced. Most characters have very unique actions and elements related to their attacks. It’s easy to understand, and the game tries to mix it with the introduction of tag warfare. Sometimes, in Story mode or mode, you can attract teammates who can support you. You can freely switch them between battles or let them jump in quickly for additional attacks. Not everyone can form a tag team, and some character choices are a bit like cheating because you basically choose two characters that take up a character slot. But at first things do feel like everyone is in balance and trying multiple character combinations to make their unique finishers fun.

The problem is that in scripture mode, as it becomes increasingly difficult late in the game, you start to notice how easy it is for abuse by the game’s combo system. It’s easy to use fast attacks, heavy attacks and teammates to stream multiple combinations together. If you can pin it, you may drain most opponents’ health, even before they have a chance to swing their swords. This sounds exciting unless you are on the receiving end, as far as I know, there is only one way to get out of the jungle when you find yourself one. There is a button dedicated to dodging when your opponent is in the process of combo damage you, but this mechanism is not always available in combat. It is tied to the meter that is refilled in combat. So while you might do this on your first attack, if your opponent follows up quickly enough, you’re just forced to sit there and accept it, hoping you don’t die when you hit the ground so you can strike back. So, in the end, the battle just boils down to “cramming them before you get cluttered” and I didn’t find it fun.

So you have to go through all the waiting to start entertaining and engaging just to highlight its flaws, more and more. Playing this game feels like I’m pulling a line to an old sweater. The more I pick this little thing, the more it starts to collapse, and all I have left is a game at best, but at worst, it feels like a good thing. The effort to put in is solid regarding character animation, voice performance and bass combat systems. However, this is also very abuse-free, and the amount of fill in the game also means you have to spend more time waiting for things to happen rather than actually using the material. I was very disappointed with this issue and found it difficult to recommend very casual viewers.