Grim Fandango. NiGHTS. Psychonauts. Super Mario RPG. Beyond Good and Evil. What do these games have in common? They're all superlative examples of their genres, and not a single one of them will ever (barring divine intervention) get a sequel. The appropriately named Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory, on the other hand, was the digital equivalent of a handful of poo, and yet it gets a part two, entitled (prepare to roll your eyes) Rengoku II: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N (R2). Clearly, the video game gods are punishing us.

I heart acronyms
If you can get past the absurdity of the H.E.A.V.E.N. in the title, you still have to find a way to choke down the fact that your main character is an A.D.A.M., which stands for "Autonomous Dueling Armed Machines." Lesser games refer to such beings as "robots," or "mechs," but they're simply not trying hard enough. The plot, and by "plot" I mean less "framework of the narrative" and more "conspiracy against you," goes something like this: in the future, supersoldiers named A.D.A.M.s were created to help us meatbags win a war. They did so in short order, and then we didn't know what to do with them. No exit strategy, y'see. So we thought it best to lock them all in a tower and let them spend the rest of their synthetic lives beating the holy bejeesus out of each other. If that sounds alarmingly like the gimmick behind the first Rengoku, that's simply because it's the exact same game. Oh, there are a few new trappings, of course, but everything that was lousy about the first one is just as lousy this time around.

The action in Rengoku II is virtually identical to that of its predecessor, in that you work your way up a tower, moving from room to room and killing anything that moves, and busting open crates for swag. On the surface, that sounds playable enough; I mean, really, except for the climbing aspect, I've pretty much just described Diablo, a game so addictive that the Betty Ford Clinic has an entire wing devoted to it. R2 isn't the addiction, however, it's the cure…call it video game methadone, if you like, because it's virtually guaranteed to make you put down your PSP mere moments after switching it on.

10 Things I Hate About You
Combat is the core of R2, and it handles it adequately enough, I suppose. As you collect items, you can upgrade your A.D.A.M.'s weaponry, equipping it to either arm, the torso, or the noggin. Elixir Skin can be used to upgrade resistance to certain kinds of attacks, or to lower the overheating threshold of weapons. The combat controls work just fine, and you should have no trouble smoothly dodging enemy attacks whilst dishing out some damage. The weapons are all terribly boring, however, and the combat never really rises above button-mashing status. It doesn't really matter what you have equipped, or what strategy you adopt, as long as you master the dodging controls and have a relatively nimble thumb joint, you should come out the victor of just about any fight you encounter.

As repetitive and uninspired as the combat is, it's positively sublime compared to the graphics. Dull…bland…ugly…you know, I literally can't think of a word to adequately convey just how off-putting the visuals in R2 are. The color palette is that of bread that's been left out in a humid environment for about a month and a half, and the character models are roughly on par with those used in the "virtual reality" scenes in 1992's "The Lawnmower Man." The environments are remarkable in that they manage to be both muddy and jaggy at the same time. The terminal rooms, in which you can save your game or upgrade your A.D.A.M. look like someone's first year project at game design school.

Masochists Welcome
As meager as the gaming catalogue for the PSP is, there's still absolutely no reason to go within a hundred paces of Rengoku II. The gameplay is repetitive in the extreme, and offers no satisfaction of any kind, while the graphics are so hideous that the game's box should probably come with a warning along the lines of "Caution: Extended exposure may cause blindness, on account of the fact that you'd rather rip out your own eyes than see this mess." (Surgeon General, feel free to tweak that to your personal satisfaction.) Unless you really have a thing for pain, steer well clear of this…I hesitate to call it a "game," because that implies there's some fun to be had. Tell you what, let's just all pretend Rengoku II: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. didn't happen and never speak of it again, mmkay? It's just best that way.

-Maj1013