Nightmare Creatures II review

And fighting the creatures can be a lot of fun, at least early on. They're very well designed, and their animations give them a sense of life. And power-ups such as the razor (which lets you slice them in half or quarters) are quite a kick. In fact, you can lop off the monsters' heads and their bodies will often still chase after you.

Altogether, it's a moderately interesting and original game package, though it definitely has its downside. For instance, after being made to execute about four full leaps, you must complete a number of difficult running jumps while avoiding/fighting several large, poly-tentacled monsters. Since falling into water kills the character off and the section is fairly far into the level, you don't get many chances to practice your technique before having to start over from scratch. If, hypothetically, the area had a series of connected catwalks to run through while battling the beasts or if the jumping function wasn't so entirely awkward to deal with, the level would've been much more enjoyable. While this is less of an issue later on in the game, the weakness of the fighting engine then becomes more readily apparent. Though there are reportedly 30 combos in all, you really will only end up using about six to eight. Since the more complex moves are significantly harder to pull off (especially with those attacking creatures interfering and all), you'll end up jamming on the kick or slash buttons with an occasional block or dodge. And while the thought of having to keep fighting throughout the entire game can seem pretty appealing, it loses its charm after you die several times trying to explore or find your way.

While it does have a lot of nice elements, Nightmare Creatures ultimately ends up as a fairly disappointing experience. That's really quite a shame because the potential and premise were clearly there for it to be an incredible game; it just feels like it came out of the development oven a few months too early. Perhaps the extra time and effort that seem to be missing from this title will appear in a sequel. We'll just have to wait and see.