YMMV / Shadow Warrior 2

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • A couple of missions (starting with "Hot Blooded", the third story mission) feature "Demonic Rods" as Plot Coupons; said items are shaped like male genitals. In one mission (bounty hunt "A Delicate Subject"), the quest giver (a priest from Ameonna's cult) mentions they're some sort of holy relics (they are worshipped by a rival cult). While this may be dismissed as another instance of the usual immature humour of the game, it actually has basis in real life, as worship of penis-shaped holy objects actually exists in Shinto religion.
  • In the shops, the price of everything looks very high, yet money drops very often, and in high amounts. It actually reflects the low value of yen in Real Life.
• Anticlimax Boss: Ameonna, using Kamiko's corrupted body. While the first Kamiko's corrupted body boss fight was a challenging Wake-Up Call Boss as well as the boss fight against Zilla in a giant mech directly preceding this was a Climax Boss, your upgraded arsenal, as well as the ability to shoot nigh unlimited amount of energy waves provided by the final weapon given to you by Zilla makes the final boss fight a cakewalk, not to mention the final boss movements and attacks are still the same as the aforementioned first boss fight, as well as more spacious arena also fewer unique boss tricks and as of the final update, players have fought the harder Dual Boss variant optionally in a free DLC sidequest.
• Awesome Music: The main theme is an intense, ominous piece that will get you pumped to play.
  • Even more awesome is Monster Music's "I Am Power."
  • Stan Bush's "Warrior", which plays during the final showdown with Ameonna.
  • "Serenity" is a beautiful, calming piece that plays over the hub area of Dragon Mountain. Impressively, despite the hub level featuring randomized seasons every time you visit it, the music fits the ambiance of all four seasons.
• Contested Sequel: While the wide-open levels, map feature, less instance of Cut and Paste Environments, complete removal of Falling Damage, and the gore effects were praised, the RPG Elements and the looter-shooter mechanics became the biggest point of contention. The watered down story with most surviving characters Took a Level in Jerkass and the abrupt, seems to be rushed ending didn't help matters.
  • Another point was Wang himself. His jokes in the first game were a good mixture of dry wit, mildly exasperated sarcasm at the utterly unreasonable odds he’s up against, and of course dick jokes. In the sequel the dick jokes take center stage, his sarcasm is replaced with bravado filled dad jokes, and his wit is replaced with pretty generic insults about how ugly enemies are. It makes him come off as far less cool and professional as his 2013 incarnation. Some have pointed out this makes him closer to his original 90s self, but then there’s a debate about whether this is a good thing.
• Demonic Spiders: Enemies with combinations of 'Swift' and 'Mighty' modifiers. Now you have a demon capable of matching your movement speed, delivering ludicrous amounts of damage with a highly quickened attack speed. God help you if a boss enemy spawns with these modifiers.
  • Thorntails, full stop. Ranged players have to deal with a barrage of spikes, melee players have to deal with it's high damage melee attack, and everyone has to dodge it's stupidly fast charge.
  • Talons, especially Superior versions. Majority of the time, these things will spawn from miniature claw enemies upon reaching half health. It's not so much the melee attack on these things that is dangerous, it's the untelegraphed jump-slam they do. Without high damage resistance, this attack alone is capable of instantly killing you.
    • Even worse, the developer has made Mighty modifier versions of Talons alot more common if you are replaying a trial. Trying to farm for orbs? You're in for a hell of a time
  • Mists are a royal pain to deal with, they love to move erratically, have a very painful melee attack and throws homing balls at you all while vanishing and suddenly popping up in your face. Even worse, they often attack in groups and have elemental/physical resistances.
  • Spectres can be a real handful to fight in groups, they're very nimble, hard to pin down with gunfire and loves to spam powerful and accurate bombs at a distance that hurts like a mother. If you face these things while they have anything else to tank hits or distract you from them be prepared to either chase them down or dodge a lot.
• Game-Breaker: The combination of Vanish and fully charged Force Slash (in which you can easily fully charge it before the time runs out) can utterly annihilate enemy groups easily.
  • Before it was patched, fully upgrading your chi regen and healing spell made the entire game a cakewalk. You could essentially heal faster than enemies could damage you.
  • Before the Nerf, the Arm of Orochi was by far the deadliest weapon in the game, capable of tearing enemies apart with endless fully-powered Force Slashes much like the fully-powered Nobitsura Kage did in the first game.
• Goddamned Bats: Any enemy can become this if your weapons lack the proper element, could also cross into Demonic Spiders.
  • Floater drones. While not particularly powerful, they will quickly become a chip-damaging nuisance if left to spawn in high numbers. Moving unpredictably and hard to ever pin down in one spot, their sporadic flying and various elemental debuffs and resistances can quickly wear one's patience when trying to focus on something more threatening.
  • Humanoid Yakuza and Cyborg Henchmen can become this for sword-wielders, having a tendency to repeatedly knock players away with series of acrobatic kicks; made even worse if fighting atop a rooftop or near ledges. Now you too, can experience becoming a human pinball!
  • Fangs and Drones can tether Wang and pull him towards them. The biggest problem is that this not only cancels your charge attacks it also forces you to stand still, and on higher difficulties this can easily get you killed especially if you're fighting large groups of enemies. Warlords are bigger and meaner ones that will do the same crap if you stay far enough.
  • Dynomites run at Wang and detonate. Big deal, just shoot them before they get close, right? The problem is that these things are much faster than your bog-standard video game Action Bomb, so by the time you notice them, they'll have either blown up in your face already, or are so close that you may as well not bother shooting them.
• Jerkass Woobie: Kamiko. She starts out as some kind of scientist working for Zilla, but then ends up having her body turned into an Eldritch Abomination and having to have her soul removed and placed inside Lo Wang, where she is basically just a passenger and unable to do anything but watch or talk to Wang. We also learn later that her grandmother (Who is a vicious Yakuza boss) was abusive towards her and that she is The Child by Rape of Mezu, who created her to serve as a power source to close the gates between worlds, and is literally just three years old, being half demon. While she is pretty bitchy and immature in general, it's really hard not to feel bad for her given her horrific past and current predicament.
• Tear Jerker: Smith's death, and Kamiko's final conversation with him.
  • Some of the lore segments, particularly those involving Smith's ancestors and Kamiko's mother, also get quite sad.
  • Lo Wang seems surprisingly sincere when he asks Kamiko whether Hoji could speak from beyond the grave through the Blade of Exile. When Kamiko makes fun of him in response, he makes no attempt at a comeback.
• Woolseyism: In the French translation, the D.O.L.L. enemy ("Dirty Old Leisure Lady") is translated as B.O.C.U.L. ("Belle Obéissante à Capacité Ultra Lascive", literally "Beautiful Obedient One With Ultra Lascivious Capacity"), which is phonetically identical to "Beau Cul" ("Pretty Ass"). For an enemy which the lore described as a Sexbot repurposed into an assassin bot, that's as fitting as the original name.

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