Original Release: Forest, 1996, Windows/PC-98
The follow-up to both Ningyo Tsukai and the Westernized version Metal and Lace veers from both of those titles to become a more straightforward 2D fighter; there are still strip-off pics between matches though.
Ningyo Tsukai 2 (PC, Forest, 1996)
Where to Buy: eBay
Review by: Master-B
The follow-up to Metal & Lace is really only a mediocre fighting game, but that’s leagues better than the festering bowl of dog snot that was Metal & Lace 1.
I don’t think Megatech even existed anymore when this one came out in Japan, anyway the creators had just licensed the game for translation and distribution in the West to Megatech anyway, so the long and short is you’re stuck playing this one in Japanese. Fortunately the install procedure is painless (just uncheck the Direct X install option which is the only readable thing in there) and the in-game menus are in English for some unknown reason.
Most of the Robo Babes from the previous game return but the graphics are much sharper, there’s better Redbook Audio music, and the gameplay engine is about the caliber of a Street Fighter Alpha-era game.
Unlike the previous game this is a straight-ahead fighter. No earning money, no bar, no armor upgrades or items. Just pick your Robo Babe and fight it out with all the other ones. When you win a match you get the general bondage/dildo static .GIF scenes with the vagoos blurred out, but it depends on how well you did in the match (to get three pictures you have to win without losing a round, otherwise you only get two of the tamer ones, and I think ending with a special move might earn you some bonus pics too.)
Compared to the first game, the graphics are amazing. For the time, they’re pretty good as stacked up to other games, but the sprites in battle still aren’t very inspiring and the backgrounds have a decent amount of detail but aren’t particularly exciting. Still not a bad job on the whole, though. Fairly generic fighting game music, but it’s energetic and competently made. The girls have tons of voice clips too, they natter on to each other before each match, and then during the H-scenes after the match they moan a bit and sound like they’re reciting poetry or giving some dramatic speech in Japanese or something.
This isn’t really a great fighter, as it’s really unbalanced and there’s a lot of cheap hits, plus the CPU AI isn’t all that great. “Power moves” take off nearly 1/2 of your life, and can be recharged almost instantaneously after using one, making the game turn into a serious spam fest if you want to go down that road. Still, as compared to the first game’s awful clunkiness, it’s a major improvement and is actually pretty playable.
It’s actually a damn sight better than the first game, but still gets tiresome to play too quickly and the H-content is pretty boring, also the computer ceases to be a challenge almost right away even when you crank the difficulty up. You’ll likely run through everything this one has to offer in the first day that you play it. Still a big step in the right direction for this series, though. If they tuned up this fighting engine and brought back the One Must Fall upgrade elements they’d actually have a pretty good game on their hands.
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