Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Genesis) Playthrough
457A playthrough of Sega's 1993 license-based platformer for the Sega Genesis, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Sega's games based on Home Alone were quite good, and it seemed reasonable to expect a similar level of quality from the sequel.
I, for one, was pretty disappointed by it. I do think that it's the best Home Alone 2 game overall, but when you look at the competition - primarily the games on the Nintendo platforms - I think you'll agree that there wasn't much competition.
It's not particularly bad - not at all - but compared to Sega's earlier Home Alone games, it falls a bit flat. The graphics are fairly good in spite of the massive amounts of dithering, and the animations look nice - I'm not sure if it was rotoscoped, but the style and relative fluidity certainly makes me think it might have been. The sound holds itself together well enough with some good music (except that first stage, yuck), and the grunt and scream effects can be pretty entertaining.
My biggest gripe I have with it is over the gameplay. It's as by-the-numbers as platforming can get. Whereas HA1 gave you something resembling a platformer/strategy/tower defense-hybrid game, HA2 plays things far more safe, and the experience overall suffers for it. For the most part you're running in a straight line or through a maze while jumping on tree limbs/shelves, collecting items, and at the end of each stage fighting the Wet-turned-Sticky Bandits. (Gross. Did they forget to wash their hands after their alone time?)
There's really no variety, and it's entirely too easy to run through the whole game on autopilot. Being the sequel to an innovative and thoroughly enjoyable first game doesn't do it any favors.
Still, there are plenty of worse games out there, particularly if you are looking for Christmas games. Back in the day, this was worth a rental. Now, I'd say if you see it for $5, go for it. You'll have some mindless fun, and it's easily worth that much. If it's $20, you'd probably be better off picking something else.
(The ending scene is pretty cool though!)
And finally, my long run of Home Alone videos comes to an end with this playthrough, for now at least. Hope you enjoyed them, and the holidays overall!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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