The outcast's haven

Dear Human,

By now you know what it's like to be a Zombie. To be hunted. To be hated. You fought to survive in a world that didn't make any sense.

But now you're getting used to it. Your senses have sharpened. You finally begin to understand. Why be the prey...

...When you can be the predator?

Well, sorry for the recent lack of updates/rants, but I've been playing a lot of games recently. Games like, I dunno, Counter Strike Source, Metal Gear Solid 4, and of course, Sonny 2. What makes Sonny 2 different from all of the games I'm currently playing, is that it's a flash game. That's right, it's played on one's web browser, and it's around 20 megs in size. But, even with lower production values, heck, it's around a millionth the size of MGS4 (MGS4 is 40 gigs all up) Sonny 2 is an amazing game that's held my attention for at least 20 hours. Not many games hold my attention for that long, but then again, this is one special flash game ;)

Sonny 2 is an RPG, based on the good ol' Final Fantasy System. But, there's a massive twist to it, there's no potions, or uber cheap attacks that devastate the screen in one shot. The game requires a fairly devious mind to play, with the most insidious class giving the opponent an advantage, such as an increase in damage, at the cost of a few thousand damage. You can even attack yourself to receive those benefits, except you'd damage yourself in the process. Without spoiling too much, I acquired an ability where one could switch damage with healing, and well, I healed a few thousand damage, and got the benefits of the attack, not bad hey? If you don't like this idea, don't fret too much, there are three classes, each with a unique experience, with different tactics to utilize throughout the game.

Also, like most turn based RPGs, there's a cooldown on each of the abilities, but unfortunately, one can only equip a limited amount of skills at any one time, I think it's up to 9 at once. The interesting thing is that you can equip an ability multiple times, in order to avoid excessive cooldown times. The problem is that, you might have to sacrifice another ability, such as healing, or another attack. Fortunately, whilst juggling all of these things in combat, your AI teammates are fairly intelligent, they actually HEAL when they need to, and they attack with the appropriate attacks. Even more importantly, they have stances so that you can make sure that they only heal you in a Boss Battle, or they attack relentlessly, until the enemy is defeated. Equipment also plays an extremely important role, with the 'piercing' system. This system allows a character to focus their elemental attacks, and increase the damage of that attack, possibly at the cost of damage for the other attacks that a character can wield. Also, the skill tree is quite unusual, sometimes, one has to get a detrimental abillity to gain access to a powerful skill. Again, I'll say that deviousness is an important part of enjoying this game.

The enemy AI is fairly intelligent as well, one can expect a massive challenge if you crank up the difficulty levels, they use their abilities, heal, and help their teammates. Couple that with abilities that the player doesn't have, and almost every battle requires deep thought, and a well planned, devious strategy. And even after all of that, there's even a localized PvP system, so you can see which of your characters really is the ultimate character ;)

Sonny 2 looks great, and I mean that, well, it looks good for a Flash Game. However, because of this, I'd suggest playing it on low settings on a bad computer, and I mean, anything lower than 2.0 dual core and less than 1GB of RAM. The music and the attack sounds, are not bad, the music is environmental, and it's great to be honest. But the attacks and the groans can get irritating after a while.

And if that's not enough, there's a fairly good story behind it all, it doesn't really require knowledge from the prequel, apart from the fact that the main character, Sonny, is a zombie. There's a sense of black comedy, and obscure drama throughout the game, inevitably resulting in an 'Ultimate Showdown' of sorts in the end.

To conclude, I'd suggest just playing Sonny 2, and seeing how great it is for yourself ;P