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Once the top of the tower has been reached and defeated, the second half of Rengoku II opens up. While the first tower is a series of ornate rooms, each level done in a theme, the 99-floor second half of the game sacrifices what little level design there was for a series of connected boxes. On the plus side, each of the three 33-level sections of the second tower has its own rule set, throwing some interesting twists into how the game is played while focusing even more intently on combat than before.
Heaven A knocks Adam back to the strength he started the game at and automatically takes care of any stat raises between one floor and the next. More importantly, the only weapons Adam can have are those he can equip, and once one is out of energy it's gone forever, or until an enemy drops it again. No extra inventory; weapons are used, stored on a spare slot, or discarded. Heaven A constantly forces changes in strategy because of this, and has the most replay value of any area in the game.
Heaven B, on the other hand, lets you keep all weapons found in the original quest but drops stats down to their beginning levels again. Leveling up stats is manual, rather than Heaven A's automatic, and by the time Adam reaches the 33rd floor he should be back to full strength. Unfortunately it's the most tedious area in the game, at least the first 25 floors or so, because the weapons from the end of the first tower are far more powerful than anything the lower level enemies of Heaven B can stand against, even with Gram's seriously diminished hit points. It's worth working through the dull parts, though, because when the action gets going again it's as fun as it ever was.
The final area is Heaven C, and it's the most brutal section of Rengoku II. Stats don't get lowered, but only weapons found in the area can be used. They go into the standard inventory and get to be kept once the tower is completed, but Heaven C houses enemies wearing the strongest and rarest weapons in the game. Death means getting knocked out of the tower and restarting, and it happens often, so saving and reloading gets to be a regular habit. But the joy of new and exotic weapons calls, and anyone playing this far will be unable to resist their siren song. The final levels of Heaven C were absolutely brutal, and truly satisfying to defeat.
There's a lot of fun to be had all through Rengoku II's 30 hours of play, but it's a very gameplay-focused title. The scenery can be tedious, and every enemy in the game – except for the bosses – is the same guy with a new weapon selection, but combat is so fast and responsive that this becomes almost irrelevant. Going into a room, quickly assessing threats based on who's got what weapons, and taking the bad guys out as fast as possible before they do it to you becomes incredibly addictive, especially when your chosen weapons work well together. Rengoku II is a big, fun, fast-paced brawler, and there just aren't enough of those around these days.
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