(This review makes more sense if you already played the original gonner. And if you haven't you should do that right now)
I'm a big fan of the gonner duology as a whole, which is why I speedran the second one, but I feel conflicted about the sequel. I think some of the ideas introduced here, like water, dashing, and passives are better. Mouse aiming also made things more interesting compared to only 2 directions in the first game. But I think the second one is a bit flatter. There's more content but it feels less distinctive, since locations can be done in any order, the enemy patterns and hazards have to be about the same difficulty, and the only added challenge are the eyes. There are also more guns and heads, but they mostly blend together. Partially it's how they are, the club feels weaker, I think it's more balanced to be in line with the other weapons than the scythe was. But also the fact that everything is unlocked through secret chests makes the meta-progression less interesting.
Though, I get why secrets were removed, gonner is a very fast paced game, which is why I love it. Frantically trying to maintain a combo by killing as many things as you can is just great. But, in the first one, there was always tension between that and the slower parts of the game. Secrets and rest points between levels become unavailable, though you do always have barely enough time to keep the combo, so I assume that's intentional. You still miss out on some aspects of the game when you're going for a combo, which is a shame. In 2, you can't maintain combos between worlds at all, which is a shame since without that you could even try maintaining a combo for the entire game, which would be the ultimate challenge. And while secrets let you keep your combo because of the blocks, stopping to go to a secret doesn't feel good because it interrupts the flow of the game. I think in an ideal gonner, secrets would somehow be integrated into the fast-paced gameplay, like alternate paths which still have enemies. That way you could still have unique secrets for unlocks and bonus levels, without the player slowing down.
One aspect that I think the sequel does better are the shops. Upgrades are pretty much always good to have, so you want to buy them at shops, and so combos giving you money makes a lot of sense since you now have a place to use it. Shops in the first game are only useful for hearts, because buying items makes little sense most of the time. You start out with the build you want, since everything is selectable from the start (well, everything except one head. It would be interesting if there were more things like that, powerful items you have to work for in the run itself and can't start with), and even if you lose something, the game gives you frequent replacements so it's not extremely critical to buy something. So, for shops, getting passive items was a good thing.
However, I think passives replacing actives is a net loss. Actives were a lot more interesting in the first game because you need to choose when to use them, but passives just make you stronger. And really, passives in gonner 2 are very simple, most are just straight upgrades and you don't need to think about them that much, there isn't a single one I wouldn't want to take unless my inventory is already full. Your choice with builds is now only head + gun instead of head + gun + ability. I think there's not really a reason to not have both passives and actives. With 4 overall things, there's a lot more opportunity for synergies and anti-synergies. There was some of that present in gonner 1, you could make different builds by seeing how things work together, that aspect is dimmer in gonner 2. However, in gonner 1 there was a dominant strategy, and you could always use it because you get to choose your items. Random passives have potential to make runs a lot more unique, but the way they are in gonner 2 comes short of really doing that.
Another thing that I think everyone who criticised the sequel has mentioned is that it's too easy. I agree, and I also agree that the first game is better for being harder, but I'm not fully sure why this one is easier. My best theory is that the eyes don't provide enough difficulty scaling, and the base forms of locations are not super difficult. This means the game is easier to learn, you need to figure out how to beat 3 relatively easy locations, and then figure out how to dodge eyes, and you can get to the final section. I think making the game more linear, splitting locations by difficulty for example, would allow the game to be as hard again, and therefore make it a lot more replayable.
I'll finish off with things I genuinely like about gonner 2, in more detail. I was mostly talking about flaws here, but it's by no means a bad game, not even a "mid" game, it's good. And in total it may not live up to the first gonner, it had interesting concepts which make it better in some aspects. I already mentioned these things at the start, but I'll elaborate. Mouse aiming makes combat require more thinking, but it doesn't slow the game down. It does make you more powerful but you also need to keep track of more things if you want to use that power. I liked the simple aiming in gonner 1 but 360 degrees opens up way more possibilities. Water also provides free movement without gravity which kind of turns the game into a twin-stick shooter sometimes. Most games make water really slow and annoying but here it's just as fast. It's also great that for people like me that liked the water, there's the flying head, now I can use free movement in every single level, and it's well-balanced by having just two hearts. Dashing is also interesting, instead of only being able to bump-attacking enemies from above, you can do it all the time, and you can also dodge away from harm in any direction. Makes movement and by extension combat more dynamic, and let's you move around faster. These also all combine together well, water movement, dashing, and aiming fit together very well here.
I would say I wish for a gonner 3, and I kind of do, but I honestly just hope to see more games from the same creators in the future, even if they are completely different from gonner. I have been coming back to both of these games for many years now, I got gonner 2 near launch (I think). And I still think about them regularly as well. I wish the developers luck with any future projects, and I'll be playing any new Art in Heart game as soon as it comes out.
PS: I wrote this in relation to the post about gonner 2 being 4 years old, and these are my condensed thoughts on the two games. When I wrote it, I realised it fit better as a review than a comment on a celebratory post. I hope you found this review useful, but if you read this all the way through and still haven't played the first gonner, you should definitely do it. It's a really good game. If you like it, I think you should also play gonner 2. I do think the first one is better, but the second one is still worth it. I played it for 55 hours, but I believe even with its flaws it has depth for double that. I hope you like both the gonner games!
