Konami's Rengoku II: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. may feature a sci-fi theme and thousands of robots, but at it's heart it's an out-and-out dungeon hack -- and it's important to note that it's a pretty solid one at that. As you play through the game you'll note that there is a light back story but ultimately it won't matter to you as the whole and singular focus of it all is collecting the best weapons, upgrading your A.D.A.M. (short for Autonomous Dueling Armed Machines) and making it to the next level of a massive tower designed specifically for robot combat. There's no puzzles to solve, and there's usually only one big bad confused robot per level to deal with before you ascend to the next level. Ultimately, Rengoku II is a third-person action role-playing game that doesn't take itself too seriously and is perfect for those fans who want to kill things in a number of creative ways.
That's because Rengoku II delivers what (most) dungeon crawl fans want: lots of weapons, thousands of bad guys to kill and a dash of character development. The game works particularly well on the PSP and looks pretty good to boot with its third-person perspective. If you can wrap your head around the gameplay, and forgive the game's repetitive nature you'll enjoy what it has to offer. But if you're looking for a decent story or gameplay that isn't soundly focused on mashing various buttons, then you might want to look elsewhere.
The concept of the game is simple enough to grasp - you are a combat robot trying to get to the top of a tower. The end. There is a light backstory but it's forgettable, as you write this tale with guns, and hammers, and swords.. Rather, your goal is to destroy other combat robots, take their weapons and make them your own. Along the way you'll collect elixir skin, a synthetic material that you can use to upgrade your robot in various ways. The weapons and armor upgrades you can pick up can be attached to several points on your synthetic body - head, left and right arm, and chest. It's interesting to see how these weapon upgrades meld into strange shapes depending on where you place them on the body. For example, putting a gun on your head might give you a strange unicorn spike or putting a hammer in that spot might flatten your head. It's also interesting how this affects gameplay. Putting a melee weapon on your head like a hammer will make you jump forward and ram your head into the bad guys.
And yet, even with all this customization, the gameplay is pretty simple. You have four buttons
- one assigned for each weapon system you have equipped - that you can mash and percentage indicators over each weapon that you'll pay minimal attention to as you fire, slash and smash the enemies before you. The only thing you really have to pay attention to is your health and the temperature of your weapons which have a tendency to get "hot" when you overuse them. Players can also chain together attacks from their four weapons to get extra damage bonuses on enemies, though you can certainly just favor one weapon over the rest as you see fit.
As you climb the tower after defeating a beefier boss robot that blocks the way you may face multiple enemies at a time with considerably more firepower. Along the way you'll upgrade your robot in various ways using the synthetic skins we mentioned, allowing you to worry less about defense and weapons overheating and concentrate more on kicking butt and taking serial numbers.
There's one other thing worth mentioning about Rengoku II's gameplay. As you continue to use the same weapons repeatedly you gain improvements (or experience). This makes your skills in using them more deadly. The only problem with that is that -- unless you're completely in love with that chainsaw or shotgun weapons, you'll more than likely switch them out the first chance you get for something better. There's an awful lot of upgrades in the game and you'll find your self changing these weapons out at the drop of a hat.
The character building aspect of the game is also pretty light but it does pay to take the time to fiddle with it as you advance through the various levels of the tower. There's upgrades for reducing overheating on all your weapon slots, and defensive and offensive improvements as well as increases in your total number of hit points. This is all dependant on how much elixir skin you collect as you defeat enemies and break items in the gameworld. Not particularly complicated, the character building part of the game is still useful if you want to survive the tougher boss battles and upper levels in the tower..
The weapon and personal upgrades in the game really make the gameplay worth pushing through despite the fact that much of what you'll experience feels like familiar ground as you ascend this massive sprawling tower. Konami has also made some nice and free downloadable content for the game like exclusive weapons and multiplayer maps (hopefully they'll release more content like this in the future), and multiplayer is solid enough if you can find someone to play against..
And that's what you get in Rengoku II. - lots of combat, some interesting upgrades and weapons and thousands of robots to annihilate. The gameplay isn't necessarily flashy but it can be a lot of fun if you are attracted to mindless and seemingly endless combat. If you like action games or light role-playing then there's no real reason not to give this game a shot. Give it a rental first to see if it's your kind of game.
