"not bad, laziness dropped its score though"

So today we have Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns. a Duneon crawling Pokemon Mystery Dungeon ripoff. No really, the two games play almost exactly the same, it's just in Pokemon you play as a Pokemon and in Izuna you play as... Izuna... And between this game and the last Izuna game there really isn't much of a difference, everything was just copied and pasted from the last game with just a little bit of a polish added to everything.

Whats new: Control of two characters and team atatcks
You can now control one of Izuna's friends but they aren't on the field at the same time as Izuna meaning it's still mostly a one on 25 uglies a floor, although you can just switch to the other character and let him/her take a beating for a bit. Despite the fact the developers are a bunch of lazy social rejects with nothing but boob jokes on their minds, this game isn't bad, it's actually one of my favorites as of right now. It took everything I disliked about the first Izuna game and, some what, threw it into a fire. Having a partner means your not ejected from the dungeon whenever one of your characters dies and being able to perform special area wide attacks is nice for clearing out the majority of uglies in the room your in. Also, your not limited to just playing as Izuna and a friend, for all it's worth, you can play as everyone but Izuna.

Sound: Meh
I didn't like the first ones sounds and I can safely say I didn't care for this ones sound either. The attack sounds are bleh and the cries the characters make every once in a while when a monster comes up and smacks them is nothing short of annoying and drowns out the sound of the decent music playing in the background. Enough to make me keep the sound on my DS off.

Graphics: Your joking, right?
If your looking for good graphics on the DS you may as well stop while your ahead. To this day I've only seen a few games with good to decent graphics, and this surely isn't one of them. It seems when the developers heard they had to make a sequel they got really annoyed and decided to just phone the whole thing in by copying and pasted a majority of the sprites from the last game, giving them a little polish, making new attack animations for some then handing it off and calling it a sequel.

Game play: The good part
Ok, so the last two thing's I did were Sound and Graphics and your probably thinking "HacK SaW, you said you liked the game, why are you smearing its good name in the mud?" I'm basically pointing out the bad things before the good, so with that out of the way; time for Game Play!

The game play is about the same in the last game, but has been thrown in a blender with some new things thrown into the mix, such as the ability to have a partner. Partners are great because now you can switch between Izuna, Shino and Mitsumoto (More come later). So basically, if one group of ugly monsters come up and you know you can't fight all with one you can press the SELECT button to switch to the other character and have him/her carry on the fight. Only problem is the character not in use doesn't regain health, so if you manage to kill a room full of monsters but end up with both characters in the red and in serious need of healing and have none of the items used for healing then your stuck with L+R. L+R skips your turn, which regains health, but also means other monsters get to move, meaning they'll have the ability in this situation to come in and smack you till your dead. Also they made it so you have a set number of times you can switch with your partner, I haven't had a problem with it but it could be a hassle some times. Such has going through a room only to realize you need a switch when you can't because you wasted them cycling through the two you have, but that should really never happen.

They also incorporated the ability to use Special attacks with your ally. Get the special meter up with one of the characters then hold R and hit SELECT and they will perform a special attack. great for clearing out rooms full of uglies and even better for handling boss battles. The only problem; one character dies you can't use it anymore.

Story: The story: Ok I can't come up with anything :/
If you played the first you'll know mostly all the characters, I played the first but didn't really know anyone, would've forgotten Izuna if she wasn't a Naruto/Goku based character dressed as Sakura with bigger boobs and cat ears, lot my train of thought, sorry. Anyways, you arrive at a village for a wedding, the wedding goes alright until Shino finds out about her sister who was taken from her when she was a child and so starts out the adventure.

And so ends my first review, basically, an 8 out of 10. I did enjoy this game, I don't care much for Sounds on the DS, or any handheld for that matter, but if you want a yay or nay on weather the sound is good or not I would say "nay" because of the reasons above. The game, taking away game play and story, is basically a big "2" pasted onto the cover of the last game with "Legend of the Unemployed Ninja" scratched out with "The Unemployed Ninja Returns" pasted over it, it looks/feels/plays/sounds exactly the same and the only things different are the addition of partners and the story. If you liked the last Izuna game you'll probably like this one, if you liked Pokemon Mystery Dungeon you'll probably get along ok with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/08

Game Release: Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns (US, 07/22/08)