Infectious Mansion 2 is a 2D Action Puzzle game in the vein of the original Resident Evil. Our journey takes place in a mansion and has us play as two different characters, Yuki & Saika. One is there by pure accident and has to fend off the horrors awaiting within with a kitchen knife, while the other is there solely for vengeance and has a shotgun to accomplish just that. We start off as Saika to ease us into the game via her safer long-range attacks against the relentless horde of undead. It won’t be long before encountering a terminal allowing us to switch characters and make use of the fact that they are located in separate locations we couldn’t reach otherwise.
Sadly, this character switching mechanic is thrown to the side quickly after the intro, leaving us to play as whichever character we prefer. Saika with her shotgun has range on her side, but a slower attack rate. Meanwhile, Yuki has to get right up close and personal with her foes and make good use of her faster attack speed. Aside from that, their only gameplay difference is that Saika can climb or descend from ropes. It is an incredibly minor thing since only one area in the mansion has a rope, counting towards the second and last time you need to make use of the character switching. Both share the same inventory, including stuff like life potions and grenades. They can carry up to five life potions to use at a whim, as well as three grenades. Damage is retained, so if one character is too injured, it can be a good idea to use the other to slay zombies in the hopes of another item drop.
Another function of the terminals aside from character switching is to save the game. Unfortunately, this suffers from a rather annoying glitch whenever you choose to load up a game. It will revert the amount of grenades and life potions to one each, making grinding some enemies necessary. In its totality, Infection Mansion 2 lasts a bit over an hour, so it’s not the biggest deal in the world. However, it is an issue certainly worth mentioning. One of the highlights of this title is the mansion itself. It is quite enjoyable to explore the interconnected halls and rooms. As previously mentioned, this has more of a Resident Evil design than a Metroidvania. Slowly but surely you’ll see more of the mansion open up as you solve puzzles and find keys to unlock previously inaccessible areas.
The puzzles are pretty enjoyable, ranging from a simple “hmm, I wonder what to do with this light fuse” to a way to open a safe you’ll probably never solve if you don’t read the diaries laying around. I have mixed feelings on their decision to have continually respawning enemies, though. This has the effect of rarely having downtime and being unable to enjoy exploring as you will likely be too busy pressing the fire button. It also necessitates the need to have infinite ammo, as well as being unable to have items such as health potions used as a reward for exploring, instead of being mere random enemy drops. All you’ll find are items necessary for progression alongside diary entries.
Considering the first entry of this series was a completely linear Action game, it is understandable why they had combat be such a big focus. It just doesn’t gel as well with the open world, puzzle-solving aspects they added to this sequel. A slower spawn rate would help significantly here. While exploring the mansion, you may unwittingly stumble into a boss fight. I love how they are located inconspicuously, leaving you to find out what you just walked into until it is too late and it dawning that you haven’t saved in some time. These are also the only times where your jump attacks come in handy since none of the regulars foes require it. Another skill I’ve yet to mention is the dash. It thrusts your character a bit forward and gives you invincibility frames to go through an enemy or projectile unharmed. A handy thing to master in these cramped, 2D halls.
I guess this brings us to the hentai. It occurs when an enemy manages to slay you, causing a sex scene. There are 15 unique animations to see between the two characters. Each scene gives you the ability to speed up the animation and decide when they ejaculate. A particularly nice touch is that speeding it up also changes the facial impressions to match the intensity, unlike some games where it pretty much feels like fast-forwarding a VHS tape. The H content is mostly vanilla sex with acts such as fingering, vaginal penetration, and tentacles. Our foes are monstrous creatures, however, and that is reflected in their sprites. Its blood/bleeding tag on the store page may lead someone to believe this could be Ryona or Guro, which it is not. There is just a bit of random blood splatter on our character from killing foes.
On the technical side of things, this title seems to display at the 1280×768 resolution. There is no way to set it to fullscreen, and maximizing the window to match your display gives it blinding white borders around the same-sized image. It is best to play it in the window it launches in, which may be a pain for those with high-resolution monitors. Infectious Mansion 2 is quite an ambitious sequel that expanded considerably from its predecessor with all that said and done. It is a short but sweet romp through an intricate mansion, filled with puzzles to solve and many horrors to slay. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, despite some flaws. You’ll also find that it unlocks all of the sex animations to be freely viewable in the Extras menu, for those that stick around to see it through to its conclusion. This is definitely a title to keep in mind for fans of H Action games with a further benefit in that it needs you to use some brainpower to brave this dark adventure.
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