NES CHALLENGE - Rescue Rangers 2 in 1:28:22 [172/714]
0Amazing late title for the NES library. Capcom did a great job balancing the challenge for the target audience of the time around 10 years old. Capcom and platformers go hand in hand and you will not be disappointed with this game. Graphics, sound, music, gameplay, and control exactly as you would expect from them.
There were a total of zero cheap deaths. The second boss and those mine carts were rough for me. I didn't realize you needed to use the bosses projectiles against them and it wasn't intuitive. Your gut tells you to avoid the boss, learn the pattern, and then attack, however by doing so the projectiles never hit the ground for you to realize that is your weapon - it was only through experimenting I figured it out. Once you get that nugget of information, you realize that's how you take out the majority of the bosses through the rest of the game. I will say this was a design flaw though. The first and third bosses used boxes (weapons supplied to you), the second comes at an angle that misses the screen so it cost around 30 minutes of game time due to the restart after game over. Moving on to the forth boss, it supplied the projectiles but different from the others as they were dropped down. It isn't until you get to the fifth and sixth bosses that the game really spells out to use the projectiles - this is the design they should have used for the second boss to train you for the others. The mine cart was a bit troublesome as well, but that was because I didn't realize right away the character moves from the controls after getting hit or the cart falls. Again when that quirk was figured out, it became much easier.
Overall, it did feel better than the first game. The difficulty was toned down just a bit, allowed you to get extra heart containers if you want to, and got rid of the difficulty of that cheap hallway at the end of the original. The issue now is price. This is a game was late in the NES life cycle and people were transitioning to SNES, so there were less copies made which ramps up the demand by collectors. Currently going for $347 on eBay, vs $17 fo a the original Chip 'N Dale. Rescue Rangers 2 is almost like a DLC here as there weren't any real ground breaking changes, so I would save my money. As far as a rating, I feel this is probably in the top 150 games on the system. The original is better, but it is still superior to many games out there.