An ANALysis Of The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation Trailer

You knew this wasn't over, in your heart of hearts. I exorcised the first game back in November. It only took 3000 words or so, and here it is again for posterity. Even then I knew I wasn't done. The sequel game was in the works, and I knew that it would be hucked at me when it came out. Sure, I could deny playing it and save myself the headache. I readily admit that. I wasn't expecting to dislike the original so much... nor was I expecting the hilarious backlash. I'm courting fate by playing the sequel, in order to write about it, in order to possibly make people angry online and call me bad at video games for not liking the Angry Nerd game. I admit that. One day I may get over myself... but it is not this day. On this day, the release date looms over us, a Lavos Spawn hurtling towards the planet at high speed. March 29th. By April Fool's, I should have cleared it twice. I'll be writing about it by then, I imagine. Until then, all we have is the trailer. Which, despite being only 65 seconds, reveals a great deal. Let's analyze this, because I want to have my expectations on record this time for when the game actually comes out. It'll make writing about it a lot easier. So, for those of you following along at home who haven't seen the trailer yet... Let's stick the little bugger right into the writeup.

Okay, we've all seen it now. Let's dig deeper into this. I've got approximate timestamps for the stuff I'm going to talk about, if you want to follow along with the trailer and get visuals of what I'm mentioning. With that in mind, let's dive in.

0:06- We're going with the "oh no, trapped in a shitty Nintendo tape" plot again. Serviceable, but hardly an excuse to make the game bad while you're at it. I do like the pixel art for the Nerd's game room, though. There's even a Donkey Kong Country 2 poster rendered good enough that I can tell what it is. DKC2 was a tentpole of my childhood. I'm so sorry it had to be in this. No clue what the other two posters are; they're too vague for me to tell.

0:10- And right away we come to the one big change I'm actually excited for. Yes, I said that. We have a Super Mario Bros. 3 style level progression now, as opposed to the previous game's Mega Man style of "pick one of these 8 stages". This could actually be really good, if it's done the way I think they're going to do it. See, from the look of it, there are a shitload of levels on that map screen. It's hard to tell, but it seems like there's going to be 3 or 4 in each "area" and then a boss? It could work, and the reason I think that is brevity. The first game's levels were about... oh, let's say 20 minutes each? Definitely more if you weren't wise to the traps or down with the old-timey action platforming. They were also slogs of instant death gotcha moments. Now, unless Freakzone has made a gigantic 10 hour masocore fest, the levels should, in theory, be shorter in exchange for there being more of them. 3 or 4 minutes each, maybe. That sounds manageable! 4 minutes with a quick gimmick revolving around a certain hazard, escalating it across screens and then ending the level to move on to another before it gets stale. I like the idea of that. Whether or not Freakzone is actually going to do that or not is another story, but this is the one area I actually have some faith in. Don't burn me again, boys and girls.

0:14- Oh, god damn it. To be clear on this one, I'm not complaining about the boss. He's a big imposing thing who fits with the "totally rad" aesthetic Freakzone goes for. No. Look closer. The edges of the levels are dark. Please. I'm beggin' you. When we get to the graveyard set of levels, don't bring that fucking low visibility gimmick back. It's awful. It's just plain awful and you ruined your Manos game by adding it into the remaster. This isn't a found footage movie, we should be able to see shit while playing your game.

0:16- There. Now we can see shit. I really like the neon aesthetic of this level. It looks really pretty, even though I'm not sure what "generation" we're going for with the pixel aesthetic. 8-bit? 16-bit? 32-bit? Pick a side, guys. This is also a good time to point out the upper right. Yeah. The lives counter is back. You borrowed the SMB3 map screen just like Shovel Knight, why not borrow the infinite lives thing from them as well? Especially if you're gonna kill us over and over again. You'll probably put that on Easy Mode again and give the Nerd a pink Zapper again. Which raises a whole mess of problems I won't delve into here.

0:20- More borrowing from Super Mario 3 by adding in P-switches, essentially. What looks to be a good and exciting level gimmick can easily be ruined. It will all come down to one thing: how much leeway time do you have to get across the P-switch platforms and onto safe ground? If there's a second or two of wiggle room, then fine. If it's pixel perfect "we are giving you the absolute bare minimum of time" mechanics then it can go fuck off.

0:23- Portal gimmick. It seems like it could work well and create... interesting mazes. Just as long as it's used for good and not evil. Now that I'm all jaded, I look at these cool mechanics with hesitation because, when it comes to not making video game mechanics into super-difficult shit I detest, I trust Freakzone about as far as I can throw 'em. 

0:28- Now this I remember from the earlier trailers; the armor power ups. Yet again, it could be good, if not abused and tainted by terrible mechanics. Namely the one that plagued your blaster power-up in the first game; getting hit once took it away. If the armor power ups end up staying on until you clear the level, that's great. Even better if you do go full Mega Man X and make them permanent upgrades. Speaking of Mega Man X...

0:33- Fucking wall jumping. I'm real wary about this one. On the surface, it sounds like a rad mechanic from Mega Man X. Except, look at the timestamp of this bulletin point. There's wall saws you have to jump between. This isn't Mega Man X, it's goddamned Super Meat Boy. The wall jump in Mega Man X was there to evolve the movement options in Mega Man and give general good feelings when you pulled off wall jumps. This? There's no way I trust Freakzone to not put all kinds of insta-kill shit on the walls that you have to triangle jump around with utter precision. Time will tell on this one, but I've got a bad feeling.

0:35- AVGN reference "humor", back in full force. Like I really expected this to go away. I have to wonder, though. That entire sewer level is made to look like the sewer stages in TMNT 1 on NES. What came first here? Did Freakzone plan out a sewer-based level and then just so happen to add in the AVGN joke about just walking over the platform? Or did, god help us, they say "Hey let's add in this joke" and then craft the level as a walking reference to it? I'd love to astral project myself back in time to watch the planning meetings on that sort of thing, just to understand the thought process behind the design.

0:42- Race cars. Okay then. I wonder if this is going to be like a Turbo Tunnel sort of thing. Freakzone hasn't invoked Battletoads yet and the Nerd did do a video on it...

0:45- Riding a giant tanuki who is on fire and shooting waves of enemies in a shmup setpiece. See, this is the kind of stuff I actually liked in the last game. I would really love to see Freakzone make a full shooter game. They're not half bad at that in short bursts. It would be interesting to see, if only to get them out of the current rut they're in of making pixel art jump-n-shoots.

And that's all I have. What am I expecting? To be honest, more of the same. Gotcha traps with "self-aware" humor in an attempt to excuse it. The new mechanics look nice, but are rife with potential to be abused in the name of "tee hee it's a shitty game". Still, if that map screen prediction I made is correct, at least the levels will be brief enough that you can take breathers in between. You won't be mired at the same bit for too long. We'll see how it goes. All we need to do now is wait three weeks. Then, the fun begins.