Different from the original but certainly great.
Unlike the previous metal gear titles though, the metal gear acid series is a turn based strategy game, which incorporates a degree of stealth, various objectives and action in the missions.
MGA2 boasts more 'cards' which the player selects into a deck and uses the various cards in the mission for their specific action (say using a gun, wearing armour etc) and moving (there's various distances you can move depending on the card), entirely different graphics, new music and (supposedly) lengthier game with quicker action.
Well the graphics are certainly different, instead of being more realistic as they were in the original MGA game, this time round there a very bright colourful and vivid cell shaded graphics, it looks good almost comic book like which can and has fitted in with the Metal gear universe, however I can understand if people feel a little disappointed by the graphics because they are comic/cartoon like instead of the duller yet more realistic look of the original, at first even I was put of by the graphics in the sequel but Ive come around and it works to the games benefit.
This benefit is made evident during normal gameplay, in the original there would be a slowdown and frame rate issues during the slightly more intense action scenes or zoomed out map views, this is eliminated entirely in the sequel, the cell shaded graphics just seem to be faster If I can get away with describing them like that, they don't slow the game down at all even with big boss fights including the inevitable metal gear fights near the end of the game.
Also the developers have wisely shortened the animation sequences and speeded them up so burst fire wont feel like its going on and on and on and when enemies dodge/evade they wont look like they're engaging in some sort of dance instead of actually one or two dodge animations in a row.
Another neat addition I felt was the video sequences on certain cards that occur when they are used, say metal gear solid 3 flamethrower cards will have a fmv play , using the ninja card will play a video sequence etc.
Sound wise the game is comparable to the original and in this way its still very good, the soundtrack is hard to put down in a specific genre, it has faster paced ambient music with parts which reflect the atmosphere of the game say intense action scenes will have faster music during story progression featuring conspiracies it'll sound slower more menacing etc and I think there's the odd remix thrown in from the original games soundtrack such as the title music.
All the guns, special cards and enemies sound ok but there's no voice acting instead its all text baby!
The main difference is offcourse to the gameplay! with the total change in graphics comes a faster paced game with no slow down, but the maps feel much MUCH smaller than in the original game and sometimes feels too faster paced, there's much repetition in the levels more so than in the original.
But the game is still around 15 hours long - took me 16 hours on first play through thanks to the delightfully challenging fight at the end, but anyway this is in line with the original games length but I had hoped it would be even longer than this due to all the touted extras - more cards etc.
And onto the cards themselves, the new cards are excellent they draw on more of the games in the series and there's strange new 'link' cards, furthermore during intermission between missions (were you buy /set up you're deck for the next mission) you can upgrade your existing cards at a cost of 'points' value you accumulated during missions (a grade is assigned at the end of the mission depending on how well you did) this can sometimes also effect the COST value of a card (the cost used in a turn determines how long you have to wait for that character to take his/her turn again) but they usually always increase the benefits of the card or its attack power etc.
However with all these new cards it came as quite a disappointment that you can only acquire about half a deck on your first play through in an attempt to either increase the difficulty of the game or increase its gameplay life by offering more longevity to the game (in the sense of replay value here) you need to replay the game on different difficulties and after you've completed it the first time through to be able to acquire more cards or entire series card decks... this was quite disappointing and felt rather forced, it meant I could only have level 1 equipment throughout the game (as in two whole items to equip on snake the main character) which limits what you can do.
Mind you if you are pleased with the game you may indeed want to play it through again and acquire these cards you're denied during first play through and so the longevity of the game will be increased for you.
Now I mentioned the maps earlier, they do feel very small so the game itself feels much more compact with fewer enemies than in the original game, yes this may lend itself better to the PSP as a portable game but I felt this was a little disappointing as the enemies were pretty easy to dispatch and so the game could feel too easy at times.
However the boss battles in MGA2 were more numerous and some were pretty excellent and challenging - but I don't want to spoil the game for anyone who has played, needless to say they're more varied than in the original MGA and MUCH more challenging.
But on this subject of the games difficulty, I feel it bears mentioning again that the saving system could do with some work - oeverall its very good you can save anywhere you want on normal missions, albeit it exit to the main menu, but what Im complaining about in this point, is that during the boss fights you cant save, fair enough you might think but unfortuantely, yet again theres missions were you will defeat one boss and straight away fight another without being able to save!!!
Story wise I would say is on par with the original game, it feels like an ok sci-fi novel as strange as I would expect from the classic sci fi writers on drugs but not quite as good obviously.
All in all, a great game on par with the original but has sufficient differences to feel like a fresh game and I hope there's a sequel made!!
Pros:
.New graphics work well
.Soundtrack and sounds in general are still very good
.Solid story, quite strange but exciting
.Fun faster paced gameplay
.Many more items/cards in the game thanks to upgrades
.More boss fights
.More challenging boss fights
Neutral:
.same length as original game
Cons:
.The game felt too short
.Most of the enemies were very easy to kill
.Maps are much smaller than in original game
.minor saving issues