Windjammers 2 harkens back to arcade games of old, while modernising it for the newer generation.
Windjammers 2 finds itself like a game out of time. In a world of first-person shooters, action RPG’s and narrative-driven tales that pull at the heartstrings, Windjammers 2 dedicates itself to not being any of those things. Instead, the team at Dotemu has crafted an experience that portrays the older world of gaming, a top-down angle, simple and fun gameplay that translates to replayability.
However, Windjammers 2 does, unfortunately, suffer from its ‘how to play’ section which ultimately does not provide enough information to the player and serves more like an instruction manual as opposed to an in-game tutorial, which if you are not familiar with the game at all could lead to frustration during your first hour or so playing, as you slowly but surely learn the ropes.
Once you get past that caveat though, this game is truly a blast. The gameplay is jumpy and fast and despite the constrained angle, the level design still has a chance to shine, whether that is placing new obstacles in the center of the court or perhaps adjusting the game to fit the themes of the map. An example of this is the Casino map which sees the ‘fixed point’ system adjusted to a more random each frisbee is worth a different number of points system which 100% adds to the chaos and randomness of that particular map.
Beyond this, considering the player only has the option between 2 matches, it ultimately leaves the world map feeling useless, a pointless buffer zone that only serves to detract from the arcade experience. Regardless of the map’s stellar beauty of course.
Once the player bombards their way to the end of the arcade, they are presented with their own unique ending depending on the character they have chosen, this immediately increases the replayability factor, so players can go and discover each of the endings themselves. This moves to the next point…
This game has a roster of 10 characters that all look like they have been plucked from your favourite 80’s and 90’s action movies. Each character has a distinct appearance and voice which may not have a gameplay effect, but it truly improves the game so much to see these absolutely ridiculous characters.
Each of these characters has their own statistics split between Speed and Power which adjusts how fast the character moves and how powerful they throw. Plus, each of these characters carries their own Ultimate abilities which essentially gives them incredible ways of throwing the frisbee, whether the ultimate is based around pure power that blasts its way through the opposing player or if the ultimate is based on ultimate finesse with ludicrous twists turns, curves, and angles, chances are you are scoring.
These characters truly enhance the game and combined with the game’s stunning old-school synthy soundtrack and incredible visuals, this game oozes with nothing but pure style. In addition to this, the level environments are gorgeous, with each map looking more and more beautiful than the last. Each of the character designs is magnificent, with every character basically being an embodiment of their stats, you could almost guess what the character’s stats were on the basis of looking at the character model.
However, the question primarily arose around choosing characters. I found quite quickly that while the speed and power stats do affect gameplay, the roll mechanic almost nullifies speed. You can be the slowest character in the game and still roll fast enough to catch the frisbee all the while still having immense power in throwing making some of the fast characters a little obsolete.
Furthermore, during the arcade mode, there were moments where I was faced with minigames. Now while the first time playing through these mini-games was somewhat entertaining, being faced with the same mini-games over and over again with each respective character run, led to the game becoming more of a slog than it had to be. It slowed the game down to a crawl when the beauty of this game is in its incredibly fast pace.
Ultimately, Windjammers 2 is a love letter written to the arcade games of yore. A brilliant crescendo of fast-paced back and forth frisbee throwing, oozing with incredible style from the characters, the levels all serve to be this complete package of a game that stands as a modern take on a game genre that has become more of a footnote in the modern industry.
The possibility for future Windjammers should not be out of the question. Whilst most gamers have moved onward from the arcade games in the ’80s and ’90s, Windjammers 2 stands strong as a monument to what made those arcade games so brilliant. Incredible, energetic… Fun.
That’s it for our Windjammers 2 review. You can also check out our latest gaming news to keep up to date in the world of AAA and indie games such as PlayStation Now’s next lineup of games or the new gameplay for WWE 2K22. Windjammers 2 is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
