Acknowledging that SYNTHETIK 2 had some pretty big shoes to fill, and after reading various negative reviews on top of feedback from friends, I jumped into the game and expected to be at the very least sorely disappointed.

The case wasn't such. Early Access is a fantastic look into what appears to be an extremely promising future for this installment, and in almost every single case it improves upon the original.

In comparison to Legion Rising, SYNTHETIK 2 feels like the game that the developers WANTED to make, and even in this somewhat barebones state, it already surpasses its predecessor in many ways.

There's an inherent bias to how this sequel is perceived, the decision to jump from 2D to 3D is nothing short of ballsy - a lot of people will criticise its lack of simplicity, but the game manages to properly transfer the environments we've seen before and add new ones in an extremely cohesive way, and boy am I all for it.

Fancy lighting, shaders, particle effects, models, levels - all of these things I thought would have almost no correlation with what we had already seen.
When I launched the game, I went ahead and set up my android the way I wanted. Clicked on the deploy button, afraid for what could come next, and I'm greeted by an actual intro of my guy jumping off a helicopter.
The entire visual department was absolutely on point. It captured what made the original attractive and managed to succesfully lay a grittier tone on it.

The first thing I heard when I launched the game was the absolute brilliance of the loading screen music, then on to the menu, despite initially thinking it sounded somewhat "generic", I let the thought go just to appreciate just how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good sounding every single track is. I could sit in the menu for a LONG-ass while just vibing for the hell of it.

And then I started shooting, and getting shot at - among other fun things that you do amidst total robot genocide.
The sound design is so incredibly crisp and satisfying that it's easy to lose yourself in combat. Probably the primary reason that I keep dying every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time, I get too invested in how good everything sounds.

And here I am. Hell, I'm not even a review guy - I never make these, but this was THE exception.
For the love of all that is holy, give this game a chance. Maybe you'll be surprised like I was, or maybe you just won't like it that much and you'll call me a lunatic.

The developers deserve every penny they earn throughout this process.
Flow Fire is meticulously crafting the perfect sequel and I'm ready to see every last update this game gets before full release.

Thanks for reading! Now go bust some CPUs.