The very concept of good vs. evil in video games has always been a staple in the medium: the strapping young hero off to save a world in peril. The lad meets new friends and adventures as he battles monsters on his way to meet his destiny and defeats the dark overlord. However, this is not what this game is about, in What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? 2(or My Lord 2 for short), you are the God of Destruction, and it is your job to bring the peaceful world to its knees.
Now, I have played and reviewed the original My Lord last year, and I found it to be very good in the way that it captures the charm of past generations of RPG gaming, while blazing ahead with new conventions. My Lord 2 is set in a very Japanese inspired fantasy world which uses a fusion of strategy, puzzle, and RPG as its base of gameplay.
The story of My Lord 2 is that you are the evil God of Destruction, and you have returned to the human world once again to aid the evil Badman (Dracula looking dude). The overlord Badman asks you if you were the same god that helped him in destroying the human kingdom last time. Badman then starts to tell you about how he is always being hunted down and how all of the humans in the five remaining kingdoms want him dead, and the fact that he can’t get a decent tan and that he isn’t emo. So you, as the God of Destruction are once again teamed up with the dumbfounded Badman to help spread the love, err I mean the darkness across the land.
My Lord 2 is played out on a 2D side view plain. The graphics are on the level of a 16-bit game, just like on the old Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, perhaps you’ve heard of them. Most of the game screen is made up of blocks of soil which you use a floating pick axe to bust-up the blocks in order to clear up pathways that will eventually form a dungeon of your own making. However, you only have a limited time to do this before a band of crazy do-good heroes make their way into the dungeon. However, what await the heroes are lots of pain, suffering, and death, at the hands of monsters that you create.
The act of creating monsters is like a science onto its own self. Certain sections of soil are concentrated with life-giving nutrients by which breaking them will create your first monster; a little slime. As the slimes slither their way through the dungeon, they spread more nutrients into the soil, this keeps continuing until you have a level two or a three concentration of soil. Higher levels of soil create higher forms of monsters, level two will create a flying insect while a level three soil block will create a lizard-man. However, in order for you keep the monsters alive they must feed on the lower leveled monsters, thus creating a chain of evil life.
Each of the five new kingdoms has its own form of various monsters that can be created in its own region. There are many levels of each of the monster types with different color and power variations. Also, after you kill off each wave of heroes, you will be given the chance to level-up your monsters, thus making them stronger and tougher to kill.
The one thing that stands out the most in My Lord 2 is its charm. For anybody who has played any Japanese RPG you will instantly get all of the in-jokes that this game employs. There are even jokes and parodies of adventure movies ranging from Star Wars to Indiana Jones, great stuff!
My only complaint about this game is that it is very difficult. Do to the fact that you do not have direct control over the monsters; the heroes will get the upper hand quite often. You will spend many hours creating H, T, and O formations in the soil in order for your monsters to breed correctly and to make a dungeon that isn’t too spread out, making it easier for the heroes to take out your monsters, one by one. Fortunately, new to this version of the game, there is a practice mode that you can spend hours honing your monster/dungeon creating techniques. Lastly, you MUST play though the tutorial of the game, not doing so will bring with it a swift defeat.
Overall, My Lord 2 is a great game for your PSP library. Even if you have the first game, you will be laughing out loud due to the awesome comedy that this game employs. As an added bonus, if you pick up the retail version of the sequel you will also receive a copy of the original game in the box. This makes owning the box copy that much more appealing as both games deserve to be played.
Review copy provided by publisher.
