One Finger Death Punch 2

When I first loaded up One Finger Death Punch 2, I wondered if there was enough to the simple concept to hold my attention for more than a few minutes. How could a game about pressing the left and right arrows possibly have enough depth to stay interesting, let alone warrant a sequel? Little did I know that I was about to lose a whole bunch of hours to this game. One Finger Death Punch 2 may be simple, but it's also the most addictive and fast-paced brawler I've played in a long time.

I want to start out this review by mentioning that I somehow missed the original One Finger Death Punch. It started its life as a downloadable beat 'em up for the Xbox 360 before eventually making its way to PC and mobile platforms. I own all of these devices, love brawlers and have access to a finger, yet somehow missed out on all of the fun. I'm glad that didn't happen with the sequel, because One Finger Death Punch 2 is the kind of slap to the face that made me wake up and love the series.

This is a game with a very simple premise: Enemies are rushing you from both the left and right, and it's up to you to punch, kick, shoot and slash your way through thousands of angry ninjas. You play a character so simple that he's essentially a stick figure with clothing. The idea is to attack left and right when each bad guy comes into range, a mechanic that often makes this brawler feel a bit like a rhythm game.

You would think that the two-button gameplay would get boring after a while, but One Finger Death Punch 2 makes the most out of it. It's more than simply punching and kicking the opposition, because you'll also dodge, catch, deflect, throw, slash and even shoot laser beams out of your eyes. And that's just the beginning, because this is a game packed with special moves and weapons, including a wide variety of swords, guns, knives and more. And that's before you discover that there's a mini-game where you kill people while riding a horse.

The enemies also help to mix things up. On top of the typical one-hit lackies, you'll also find ninjas that require multiple punches, dodge attacks, shoot you from a distance and more. There are also enemies that will send you into a mini-game where you need to tap the buttons in the right order, as well as showdowns that will see you mashing the button to win. But don't think that this is a button masher, because One Finger Death Punch 2 requires you to pay close attention to who you can strike and when. One false move and you'll leave our hero open to attack.

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One thing that caught me by surprise was the vast amount of content in this sequel. I went in expecting a linear path and a straight-forward progression, but One Finger Death Punch 2 is a lot more involved than that. There's a giant map to explore, which includes a number of diverging paths and bonus items to earn. A lot of the game comes down to collecting these orbs that you can use to make a stage slightly easier or buy different abilities. There are 26 skills and perks you can unlock, each with three upgrade slots. In other words, you're going to need to punch a whole bunch of bad guys in the face in order to unlock everything.

The good news is that you're not just doing the same thing in every stage. Granted, we never break free of the two-button system, but there are a lot of fun variations on the theme. There are levels where you're kicking a spiked ball at the enemies, stages where you need to target certain types of ninjas with throwing stars and a few that reduces the action to a single weapon. One of my favorite stages is the one where you're trying to kick the evil ninjas into a fun variety of old school torture devices. This is a good example of interacting with the backgrounds, something you'll do quite a bit in this game.

But even with the sprawling map, interactive backgrounds, multiple types of battles and unlockable skills, there's no getting around that One Finger Death Punch 2 is an incredibly repetitive game. The bullet points on the store page suggest that it's "to be played in bursts," and that's great advice. This is not the kind of game you knock out in a single sitting, but rather something you work at little by little. And while I liked this approach, I spent quite a bit of time wondering what more developer Silver Dollar Games could do with this formula.

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I don't know if an extra button would help to shake things up, but I do wish One Finger Death Punch 2 had some sort of story that tied the action together. The levels pull from old martial arts films, horror and even science fiction, so it might have been fun to see all these disparate elements brought into the fiction. One of my other nitpicks involves the way you get around, which is one space at a time. This slows everything down and is needlessly cumbersome. You should be able to freely look around the map and just point to the level you want to play next.

For as much as I would have liked a fleshed-out story or more skill in the gameplay, there's no denying that One Finger Death Punch 2 is a blast to play. Few things are more exciting and satisfying than getting locked in your groove and not letting the enemies even come close to hitting the action hero. The violent and often bloody presentation definitely helps sell the over-the-top chaos, and I loved every second of it. It goes to show that you don't need a lot of buttons to have a great time.