Max Manos really did not need a sequel...
The original game was already pretty much feature complete with little room for improvement, and it seems that the developer has found that out the hard way, as low and behold, there is no improvement to be found in the second game.
TL;DR: If you haven't played the first game yet, you should stop reading this review and go and look at the first Max Manos instead. Max Manos 2 is inferior is just about all aspects compared to the first game, and the original Max Manos is actually a very respectable incremental.
As for why Max Manos 2 is worse than the original, it mainly comes down to a combination of there being nothing to really innovate on, and doubling down on the weaknesses the original game already had. Starting with the first point, the original Max Manos was based on a pretty neat and interesting concept, which was expanded from a simple demo around chain reactions between various shapes into a fully fledged incremental game. It was a pretty good incremental overall, but that was mostly off of the innate merit of the concept, combined with the very well polished graphics and presentation. The execution of the incremental part of the gameplay was actually quite subpar and had several flaws, such as poor upgrade feedback and there being some notable content padding in the game.
Max Manos 2 does nothing to expand on the concept of the first game, and in fact, it goes in the opposite direction and moves away from the very thing that made the first game so great. Despite this, it still recycles a concerning amount of content for a rather disappointing rehash of the first that somehow manages to get the worst of both worlds. Under half of the original shapes make a return in this game, but there are no fun chain reactions to be found here. They basically just function as the only "fun" upgrades you can actually control, as Max Manos 2 has also gutted the upgrade tree. Now, instead of having control over what you buy, about half of the base stats and ALL of the supplemental "fun" upgrades are now turned into 1 level "ring upgrades" that are locked behind progress through the 201 floor tower in intervals of 5 or 10 levels, instead of just being able to upgrade them like normal. This has basically removed attack speed as an upgrade, as you now completely max it out within the first 3% of the game, and attack area hardly fares much better. Both of these upgrades were crucial to the first game, and both of them also offer very easy to see effects, which is an important point to touch on later.
The ring upgrades are just a lame gimmick that completely falls flat compared to just organically exploring the upgrade tree on your own. The few shape upgrades there are have also been locked behind level requirements too, being given out at level 12, and every 40 levels after that. There are a few other basic and honestly half assed gimmicks as well. Occasionally, there will be a "special floor" which will randomly pick from about 20 or so special floor variants. About a third of these are basically cosmetic, with very basic ideas like "double enemies but they are at half health" and vice versa. A quarter of them are just levels filled with 1 type of shape, which end up completing themselves in about 3 seconds, there are a few complete gimmick levels that also complete themselves in a few seconds, and there are a few "levels" that just give you more stamina or money. And finally, a few are quite literally cutscenes. None of these levels actually add anything meaningful to the game, and it just feels like cheap content padding. The original game had some gimmicks too, but they were actually interesting in some regard, such as making custom shapes, or the slot machine letting you go over the maximum limit for upgrades.
The last direct change from the original is the switch from a standard if basic time system where you just got a set amount of time each round, to a stamina system, where you still have a set amount of max time in a round, but now you also lose time whenever you attack enemies. Since you have to attack enemies in order to play the game, you are in a bit of a bind when it comes to that, and it turns out that in practice, the large majority of the time limit comes from attacking enemies. In the game, it explains it as if its just your cursor attacking enemies that damages you, but no, even things like explosions or projectiles still drain your time. This isn't great, because that ends up giving the player the impression that some upgrades are not only useless, but WORSE than useless, and have a net negative on your run by making too many low damage attacks that drain your time. I myself could never tell if an upgrade was ever a true net negative, but I couldn't ever rule out the possibility either, when this is something that should NEVER be happening in an incremental EVER.
Besides all the negative changes though, Max Manos 2 has also inherited the old problems of the original game. The main 2 problems the original had were the poor clarity/feedback/return on investment with upgrades, and content padding through both direct throttling of statistics, and through making you go through multiple new game+'s, with only half of them having any real change to them. Unfortunately, Max Manos 2 does nothing to fix either of these problems, and they are actually even worse than before. With the upgrades, there is less clarity in the upgrade tree as to what they actually do. Damage upgrades just "increases damage" without giving you a number, same thing with stamina upgrades "increasing stamina" and economy upgrades "increases money gained". Anything that is chance based is simply "increases the chance of X happening" with the most you can really infer is around the number of levels you can buy (20/25 depending on the upgrade).
There is actually much more I could say, but I hit the review character limit, so ill quickly summarize the last few things:
The upgrades are near worthless on an individual level, each being extremely weak.
RNG nature of the game means that you can go multiple rounds, doing the exact same thing, and fully investing into upgrades that should in THEORY, be giving you objective increases in either power or money earned, and see no improvement. I have went 5 rounds in a row (and you likely will too!) doing that and seeing NOTHING change, which should never be happening in an incremental. There isn't even THAT much RNG, the upgrades just suck.
Enemies increase in health over time, but there are no global damage upgrades, so if you focus on 1 thing, the others fall behind, and the upgrade prices are NOT cheap either.
NG+ is quickly and shoddily added on, from NG+ 1 (out of 4), you start with infinite damage (enemies die after 2 seconds when hit), and 50% more cash gained, with no major gameplay changes like in the original game (where 2/4 NG+'s were padding, but the other 2 were actually kind of cool) NG+ here basically instantly become waiting on the floor loading animation to just get through the slog of the game.
This is a bit subjective, but I found the story to be inferior to the original game. There basically WAS no story in the first, (your mitten was stolen by a sentient pentagon in the shape dimension) and it was a bit zany in general. The second kind of retrofits more of a story in there, and is even more zany, but in like, a kind of cheap and cringy direction. Dimensional Border Patrol? border tower infested by "pirates" led by Pirate P Pirateson? these weird "Calibrant" guys who act like jerks? it was just unneeded, and would have been more elegant if they just didn't explain anything at all.
Overall, its not like Max Manos 2 is the worst incremental out there, but its a pretty far cry from the originals pretty impressive showing. It doesn't hit the same highs, and the same lows as before are now even lower. It is a shame to be sure, but I suppose we can't win em' all...
