Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road

"Fatso's save the world!"

I'm still not sure what nation the Ikari warriors were supposed to be fighting for. One would assume from the title that they were either 1-Fighting for the land of Ikari
or 2-At least some kind of Japanese faction. My guess is they were fighting for the mafia, inasmuch as their names are ''Vince'' and ''Paul''. Yup, Vince and Paul, the Ikari Warriors. It appears our heroes have packed on quite a few pounds since the original Ikari Warriors. No more running around shirtless for these chaps; the days of being hunky and skinny are over! Our heroes now lumber around in Full Jump suits which hide the huge beer guts they got after defeating the first evil dictator in outer space or whatever you did in the end of Ikari Warriors 1.
Besides being little porkers, the game is slightly better than the original. There aren't as many glitches in this one and the enemy AI is ever so slightly improved. Well, on with the ratings:

Graphics=4.5 Your warriors need to visit Weight Watchers! Perhaps they were hanging out with Karnov, I dunno. In any case, the graphics are dull and uninspired, not too surprising with an SNK game for the NES (Athena, Ikari Warriors, etc.)

Gameplay=4.3 Your hefty heroes have a terrible time blobbing their way around the battle field and move pretty slowly.

Sound/Music=4.1 Nothing memorable, and nothing worth mentioning.

Fun=0.4 This game sucks. And to think I actually played through it in 8th grade. Believe it or not there was a group of kids who really thought this game was GREAT!! These kids were also, by no coincidence morons. They also like WWF wrestling.

REplay=0.1 = Maybe you'd throw it in to the NES for an overweight pal to say, ''See, not all media discriminates against the skinny-challenged? These two fat guy are perfectly content saving the world just they way they are!''

Overall=1.8 Blech. A shoddy game that for some reason leads me to believe it later evolved into Tommy Lasorda baseball.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/31/00, Updated 01/31/00