Well now... after completing the first Cobra Kai game, I thought I'd continue with the sequel, Dojos Rising.  I was doing pretty well with this game, but after a few frustrating weekends, I decided that this was going to be a Did Not Finish kind of game for me.  Pronounced DNF on March 22 😹

The game essentially picks up after the first game ends, and somewhere in Season 4 (?) of the series. Kreese has taken over Cobra Kai, Johnny founds Eagle Fang, and competitions continue.

There are a few main things about the sequel that try to differentiate it from the original, with mixed results.  The game continues the narrator-based interludes, this case substituting Eli and Miguel at the Principal's office with Chozen offering his narration and words of wisdom. It replaces the 2D "Streets of Rage" aesthetic with an attempt to produce a 3D world that the protagonists can fight in.  This was an interesting idea, which allowed for some additional moves, like parkour, but the camera angles were horrible.  For most of the game, I essentially stuck with an isometric angle that was stationary and showed me most of the gameplay area.  The 3D fighting aspect really did not work well for this game.

Another area where there is a bit of departure from the first game is the "pick your dojo" element. Instead of finishing one dojo first and then being allowed to see the other side of things, you could pick one dojo and play through that storyline. I am not sure how different the different dojos are because I didn't feel like going back to play again.  The dojo I chose was Eagle Fang, which had me training students in an old garage. This was a nice idea, offering replayability (in theory), but the bad design of the game essentially prevented any joyful interaction and replayability.  There was an interesting element here which I wish had been better explored: each state on the map allows you to recruit players from that map, which help your dojo in some way (essentially either a fighter in training or logistics).  The problem is that the game only allows you to recruit 12 fighters, which is rather limiting. There is no good rationale for why you are limited to 12. It's not like your dojo has physical limitations. This essentially means that I ignore stage re-plays to get additional fighters, and I ignored some stages since my roster was full.

Once you have recruited fighters into your dojo, they act like little tomagochis (ugh). You have to take them out to various stages and win so that they are happy and gain XP.  You can then spend that XP on skills and leveling them up.  What happens if you don't take them out and complete stages with them?  Well, they get upset and have a 😡 icon next to them.  What that means, and if that does something, I don't know. I suppose having fewer fighters in your dojo means you can more easily rotate them through the grind to gain XP, but whatever.  The other nifty idea that failed to produce was that each dojo requires money for upkeep and for certain features. You get money through playing through the various stages, and through other means (I forget what those are, but I think I recruited a support staff person who basically fundraised or something).  That's all nice and good, but I quickly because money rich, without anything to spend money on! This was a real bottleneck for the game, and it made collecting money pretty pointless pretty quick.

Finally, the other new feature of the sequel was that the game worked up to a tournament, which further requires you to pair down who's fighting in it (in fact, some folks I had recruited for my dojo were on other teams, which seems a bit lazy as far as game design goes). There was a countdown at the start of the game, which seems based on how many stages you clear.  You can go to the tournament before the full countdown if you're ready, but it does help to level up your main fighters before you get there.  I was a level 11 by the time I said "fuck it" and moved on.  The tournament playstyle isn't something to write home about.  I feel like the developers wanted to do a Street Fighter-style game, but the special moves fell short, the controls were lackluster, and the animations were simply m'eh.

So, you complete the competition and the game ends, right?  Nope!  There are two stages right after that, the final of which being confronting Terry Silver. In a questionable game design decision (from a storytelling point of view) you are asked to pick your side, you can either team up with Miyagi-Do or Cobra Kai (or choose to not be aligned and fight all of them, and Terry's goons)... Why? How about picking a three-way team?  Anyway, through my attempts, I've attempted solo, Miyagi-aligned, and Cobra Kai-Aligned, and what I discovered is that your alignment seems to make no difference EXCEPT in that if you choose neither, things are just that much more difficult😅.

I got really close to finishing this, but the mall-security goons with riot shields and electric batons just killed me off after I had beaten everyone else in the goon squad... Watching the YouTube playthroughs of the game, it seems like I was really close to the final final final Terry Silver battle, but honestly, I didn't care enough about completing the game.

Total Points: 330/1000

Achievements: 21/54