My head is a cavernous barrel. As I plant my feet and missiles burst out of my face-hole, my neck snaps back with recoil. Embedded in my left arm is an efficient macro needle gun. My right arm tapers into a drill, its momentum capable of carrying me across the room to plunge into another unfortunate cyber-dweller. An examination of my calves reveals that they are disproportionately bulky due to a cooling system that allows me to rapidly fire my various munitions without overheating. All in all, I fit in fairly well with the other characters in Rengoku II -- a traditional dungeon crawler (though being in a tower your goal is to reach the highest plane rather than the deepest floor) with a very nontraditional style.

Looked at a certain way, it's awkward and bizarre, like the ridiculous fantasies of an extremely troubled middle school kid. But examined from another angle, there's something cool about the literal "killing machine" aesthetic. Grotesque humanoids with weapons jutting out at every angle, resplendent in their mechanical detail, stalk utilitarian techno-dungeons in search of something to kill/rend/destroy. If you can get behind it, and mentally remove the stigma attached to the name Rengoku (a result of the first game's clumsy incompetence), you'll have on your hands a technically proficient example of the genre that's perfectly enjoyable.


It might also be a bit pretentious. The opening scene contains black and white footage from various wars and philosophical questions pertaining to the nature of war and obscure names for levels and functions tied to Roman mythology and biblical allusion. When it comes to concept, though, Rengoku II is a very honest game. The game is about killing your enemies and searching for the ultimate killing tool, and it achieves a pleasantly single-minded experience. You have four buttons dedicated to your head, left and right arm, and chest, and each button is dedicated to attacking and killing with whatever murder implement you've decided to place there. Logically, when you've got an axe or a shotgun for a face, "talking things out" isn't really a viable option.

The game does let you customize your body to suit your style of play. If you like violence with a close personal touch, attacks from different body parts can be linked together to create damaging combos. If you like to kill from a distance (or attract compliments on the size of your gun), there's an impressive amount of variety to the ranged weapons. Other strategies could be to stun or overheat your enemies, plan around the special properties of support systems, or to minimize damage to yourself by concentrating on defensive parts such as shields and regeneration. There's a lot to consider. As you upgrade and expand your man-machine using points (represented as elixir skin) and parts, you gain versatility from extra equipment slots you can swap out via a menu when the action is paused.