OverBlood 2

OverBlood 2
European cover art
Developer(s)	Riverhillsoft
Director(s)	Akihiro Hino
Designer(s)	Akihiro Hino
Writer(s)	Akihiro Hino
Composer(s)	Hiroaki Iwatani
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

OverBlood 2 (オーバーブラッド2) is an action-adventure video game developed by Riverhillsoft for the PlayStation. It is the sequel to the game Overblood, released on the same platform. The game was published in Japan by Riverhillsoft on July 23, 1998, while a European version saw release from Evolution games on April 13, 2001.

Gameplay

The game features seven levels, plus a hidden bonus level unlocked by earning 2000 Clear Points. Between most of the levels, which are all set in different locations, the player generally has the option to explore the main city where the game begins in order to buy items, weapons, talk to non player characters and find hidden perks in the game.

Plot

The date is December 2115 in East Edge City. Christmas is just around the corner. The world is a boiling inferno that would be uninhabitable if it were not for the atmosphere-cooling device that maintains the temperature. The game begins with the protagonist Acarno, the ambitious Junk Blade pilot, arriving at East Edge City Airport after relocating, and upon his arrival a fellow passenger is mugged by a powerful, mutating villain. After throwing a mysterious capsule across the floor in his direction, the passenger is killed. This is the first point at which the player controls Acarno, and swiftly exit the airport after avoiding people trying to shoot at him. Acarno jumps out of the airport window, falling hundreds of feet into the sea.

After climbing out of the water, Acarno is given the choice to examine the capsule. Upon doing so he hears the name "D-NA" between a lot of static, before the message being played cuts out. The game then turns into a free roam game, giving the player the ability to travel throughout East Edge City. Eventually Acarno will come across a bar named "D-NA", and inquire with the bartender, Raz Karcy (the main character from the first Overblood game), who begins telling him about the passenger who gave him the capsule which led him to the bar. Raz informs Acarno about a conspiracy involving the global company, Hiyano Industries, who is planning to build a ship for the planet's elite to flee the planet and using so much of the Earth's power supply that the atmosphere-cooling devices needed to keep everyone alive would stop working. With time being of the essence, Raz offers Acarno 50,000 credits towards the entrance fee to enter the local Junk Blade race in exchange for helping with his plan to stop the launch.

Development

Mark Estdale, an industry veteran, looked back on his work on the localization of the game in an interview with GameCulture. He stated, "I read the script. It was awful, translated to English from Japanese by Italians so I suggested rewriting the English to match the stylized Japanese, or making it into an acted comedy or to scrap the whole thing. I was told the script was perfect and couldn’t be changed and that we must do it with seriousness. We squirmed and the actors wept. When the game finally came out we discovered amongst many painfully awful mistranslations that the hand bomb throwing device was a grenade launcher and the whorehouse key level was actually a warehouse."

The director of the game was Akihiro Hino, who previously worked as a programmer on the first game. He would later become CEO of developer Level-5, working on franchises such as Dark Cloud, Professor Layton and Dragon Quest.

Reception

The game sold 62,492 copies in the ten weeks following its release, which failed to meet the sales of Overblood which sold 195,201 copies in the same amount of time. However, Overblood 2 was arguably more well received among gamers scoring a 5.7 average score, beating Overblood's 5.3 at GameSpot.com. In comparison, the two games are cited as being very different, shifting from sci-fi horror/survival in Overblood to a 3D action game in Overblood 2. The main similarities include references to the story and including the main character from the previous game as a non-playable character, and the fact both games are set around the same time in the future. Many players posted online that they experienced a game-breaking bug that freezes the game after a particular boss-fight.

During the time of its release, the game was reviewed by many different gaming magazines, receiving average scores. One area both games were criticized on were the faults with the games graphics, animation and excessive dialogue in cutscenes. In an import review of the game, GameSpot criticized the excessively long cutscenes, along with the slow performance of the game engine. However, many fans and independent reviews online credit the games uniqueness and original story line.

The Overblood series received more recent attention after being the subject of the online video blog series Super Replay by the editors of Game Informer magazine. During the Super Replay, the editors criticized the lack of the ability to skip cutscenes, the convoluted storyline and the general lack of direction. Despite this, they occasionally praised it for its ambition.