You get far more than your money's worth with this game. Its packed with hours & hours of humor and addictive fun!
I don't know if the developers of this game were hardcore Mega Man fans or not, but shares a few notible similarity with the series of games. When you defeat a boss, you aquire their special ability. Also, you can choose to play any level you want on a map (there are only two maps, but plenty of levels) which range in difficulty. Lastly, during the last level of the game, you have to face all the game's bosses over again, then a new set of stage bosses, all before you get to the final boss. See...sound's famalier doesn't it? It's not to say that it rips off the Mega Man series, but just a few observation made and it actually worked well for the game. In addition to boss aquired power ups, you also gain temporary power ups during regular gameplay like missiles, shot enhancers, a force field, and rapid fire. On top of all of this (like in the later Mega Man games), you can stop by a shop and add permanent upgrades to your ship like the amount of bullets it fires at once, absorbing the in-game currency at a faster rate, how long you can keep temporary power ups and enhancing the usability of the boss acquired power ups. Speaking of the currency...their represented by little blue dots that you collect upon destroying stage enemies. The amazing thing about this is, no matter how many times you die, your currency never resets during that playthrough. So the harder a stage is and the more times you die on it, the more possible credits you can have upon finally beating the level.
There are only 6 main levels but they are grossly out numbered by the amount of bonus levels available (represented by "?"). These levels range in difficult and some are more or just as difficult as the level to clear on a given map. The end off each of these levels features the same boss type...a small ship that forms a body made out of a bunch of common enemies and turns the game to "Bullet Hell" for you. Usually, these levels themselves are more difficult than their bosses. For defeating the bosses in this level, the player is rewarded with more shields rather than a new power up. This may not sound very rewarding, but once you get towards the end of the game (and definately the last level) it is NECESSARY that you have cleared all of the "?" levels in addition to the regular ones. It sounds like the game gives you a whole lot to work with and enough to breeze through it, right? Wrong. The game's difficulty is hard but fair...right up until you get to the final boss, lol. For Two Buck's gives you just enough to fairly meet the game's challenges while still providing hours of fun but some times grueling difficulty.
The story is very simplistic but the character interaction is what stands out more. For Two Bucks is about a space commander whose been beating up on innocent people since he was a kid and now he's taken his conquest of bullying intergalactic...that's it. The conversation between the commander and bosses are pretty funny especially considering the personality of bosses. The bosses range from an uptight bureaucrat, a "wiggin out" reality show host, to a cranky old man. None of the bosses appear to pose any direct threat to galaxy or even to the main character for that matter. The fight's are mainly due to retaliation of commander threating to kill them...but boy, do these guys ever come prepared for a fight! The can be pretty hard and the experience is almost the oppose of the "?" levels (the bosses are harder than the levels). Even the first boss isn't really that much of push over. All are definately defeatable but it does take a bit of strategy.
Fortunately, the game has a checkpoint system that always saves itself halfway through the level and again right before the boss...so if you die on a boss, you don't have to start over from the beginning and the game is even nice enough refill your shields & power ups (the difficult makes this fair because you'll definately need them). These save points however, are only good for the current playthrough. Meaning, if you turn the game off or rage quit, you'll have to start from the beginning of the stage the next time you boot up the game. Permanent saves are only done between stages and after leaving the store. All of this is good until you get to the final stage. Like I said before, in addition to fighting common enemies, you have to fight all the stage bosses over again....which fine since each one provides a checkpoint after their destruction. Then the game gets cheap on ya...you have to fight 2 new bosses (the 2nd doesn't even have a life meter) in order to get the checkpoint for the last boss. Meaning, if you die on either one of them, you go all the way back to the checkpoint that was produced by the 5th boss of the game (for that level of course). It really benefits you to have a PSP Go at this point because this may actually take awhile to get through and the PSP Go allows you to pause gameplay of any game and move on to another one. Meaning, you can turn your PSP Go off and not risk having to start from the very beginning of the final level every time you get done playing or be forced to keep going when you want to play another game.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- Nice artistic visuals
- Humorous voice acting
- Nice sounds
- Amazing amount of content despite format
- Plenty of power ups to gain
- Fair difficulty
- High replay value
- Overall fun game to play
What's Not-So-Good:
- It was so much fun that I hate that it ended so soon
- More variety with "?" bonus stages...enemies, layout, and bosses
What's Bad:
- The cheap difficulty of final level of the game
In all, A Space Shooter For Two Bucks is an amazing game that is well worth more than any $2 you can spend. Its definately a must play for all PSP/PS3 owners!