So, I'll write a bit about what I liked and what I didn't.I found that the graphics weren't great, but very decent. The blocky level design looks a bit generic and overall it looks rather simplistic, but the graphics never stood out negatively for me at all. Notably, the desert hell background with the layered dust looked great, and I liked the very visible reloading animations, for example the sawblade cannon's. Also, I guess it was a good idea to go with the floating limbs, since I suppose this way the risk of walking animations or the way the weapons are held looking out of place wasn't so high, while it still looks nice.
I'm not so sure about the sounds. All of them suit the game well, but I rather disliked that I recognized many of them from games like Doom or Quake, I think. I suppose that may be intentional, considering the "classic action" style of the game and the many references to other movies and games. Like I said, I'm not sure if it's a bad thing or not.
I can give nothing but praise for the music, of course
I've enjoyed Josh Whelchel's music in other games before, and reading that he made the soundtrack for GunGirl 2 was actually one of the reasons why I gave the game a try as soon as I heard about it. At first I thought that some songs sounded a bit like too typical rock/metal, but on the whole the songs' variety is great, they nicely complement the action, and they also work very well on their own. I love the violin!Now, the gameplay. In the beginning, it seemed a bit too generic with the standard weaponry and simple enemies patroling back and forth on their platforms. Yet, I think it's great how you expanded on that classic formula. With the increasing number and variety of enemies as well as weapons the game surprisingly became a bit tactical. Enemies often spawn inside a "pit" where they can't reach me, however with few exceptions all weapons only fire in quite straight lines, so I have to get inside there myself to defeat them. So, I could usually watch and decide on the best moment to attack, which weapons to use, etc. That was very unexpected and very good fun all throughout the game.
But, that changed a lot in the second half of the game, especially when you get the cursed skull. Around that time the amount of enemies that spawn is quite overwhelming, so that it started being much less about the right way to approach them, and rather about just blasting your way through the hordes. This isn't bad in general, but for me this kind of mindless, more basic action got a bit old after a while, whereas the game still continued for some hours. This was especially noticeable when I had already gotten most weapons and abilities, the gathering of which then didn't serve as an additional motivation anymore.
All in all, though, I think the combat was very well done. Firstly, the "feeling" is just right, it's simply very satisfying to kill the zombies with each weapon. No weapon ever becomes useless, they all remain fun to use until the very end, and you get quite a creative variety of them. I was only a bit disappointed by the energy rifle, which was announced as the ultimate weapon, but turned out rather weak. I'm not sure if I just didn't upgrade it enough, but I never used it much for anything else than creating the highly useful "energy shield". On that note, the actual "tactical shield" is great. Because of it, it is never too annoying when there are many enemies in your way, since you can mostly just pass them and use up a few of the regenerating shields, but since they are so limited this is never overpowered.
While the Cave Story-esque upgrading mechanic is very motivating when you first get a weapon, I found that it becomes rather redundant once you've fully upgraded it. I lost a weapon level here and there, but then it was mostly just a matter of a tiny bit of "grinding" to get it back up to level 3. Losing weapon levels was nearly only dangerous in boss fights, especially the final one, as losing a weapon level usually means that the weapon loses most of its power. You could have toyed a bit more with weapon levels, for example sections where you don't have all weapons and/or weapons are locked at a specific level.
On the topic of bosses, I didn't like fighting most of them. If I remember correctly the first ones were okay, but fighting the cultist leader was very overwhelming for me at first. It seemed impossible to dodge the spit by the one mutant, dodge and defeat the zombie horde, dodge the other mutants attacks and then still attack him. I beat that boss by just blasting the spitting mutant and disregarding everything else, and after that just staying on top, dodging the other one's attacks and shooting him. Similarly, fighting the big floating monster in hell, after inserting the two runes, seemed impossible without constantly taking damage. While there is a bit of room to dodge it, I couldn't figure out how to do that successfully or if that's possible at all, as it constantly comes directly at you. In the end, I defeated it by just standing in one place with the monster on me, firing the shotgun as fast as I could, and being lucky with the auto-block. Again, though, that didn't appear to be the right way to do it. Lastly, the final boss also frustrated me a bit, as I'm generally not a fan of having to retry lengthy fights several times. However, it only took me two or three tries to beat him once I figured out how to competently dodge the fists in the last phase. So, I guess for a final boss fight this was actually nice, I just don't like this common concept of a final boss in general.
On the whole, though, the difficulty was just right for me. I played on "hard", and usually it was just that, hard and nicely challenging. Only in some parts I wished there was an additional save point after a lengthy and hard section. Especially in one hell level, where you need to get a portal stone fragment and have to quickly climb a wall with spikes and blocks that disappear after few seconds. I had to retry that several times, fighting through the whole section again, only to try and climb that wall again.
Backtracking is another element I came to dislike towards the end, and only then. For the most part I found that it was done well, especially since you were obviously aware of the problems that can arise from it, what with the all the "fetch quest" references
If I recall correctly, I sometimes even enjoyed it, when I remembered the place that I have to go to next. For example when you first find a locked door somewhere and don't know what to make of it, but recall it when it is brought up for the next task and you know exactly where to go. However, at least having to find the silver doors for the portal stone fragments was very tedious, since I had already thoroughly explored most areas before and then had to do it again, mostly without a clue where I have to go. I would have preferred if there had been hints on where you have to go, as with most other search tasks before it. In conjunction with the aforementioned monotonous combat towards the end, this actually resulted in quite a bit of boredom and decreasing motivation to go on playing, especially in contrast to the much more appealing earlier parts. In my opinion, some sections towards the end should have been more concentrated and just exciting.Finally, the humour. The many references to other games and movies are nice, yet I'm not sure what to think of the total lack of subtlety in them. I guess this is intentional again and it adds to the B-movie style, but it also made it somewhat unfunny for me. Nice, but not all that amusing.
In conclusion, I've had a lot of fun with GunGirl 2 and in my opinion it's a great game. As with every game, a lot could still be improved, but all in all you did a very good job with it. Glückwunsch
I hope that the post made this clear, but moreover I hope that it served as a helpful perspective on my experience with the game.By the way, did I miss it, or was the song "Sing Gloria" not used in the game? I just listened to it and it's superb, but I don't remember it from playing the game.
