Dig Dug II

Bit of a strange choice to me for the sequel to Dig Dug to essentially remove one of the most interesting elements of its gameplay but I get that a lot of arcade sequels seemed to have an interest in seeing what radical ways they could shift gameplay ideas around to make it feel sufficiently distinct. My main issue really stems more from the fact that the gameplay style they ended up settling on is something that straight up doesn't work even if it's a cool one in theory. Turning each of the huge number of stages of the game into a sort of top down puzzler where you could take out huge chunks of enemy waves by making them sink into the sea with bits of the island. The issue stems from the fact that the enemies are all so aggressive that there's literally no time to actually enact any plans you could come up with, with the stages feeling more about madly killing as many of them as possible before they swarm you than actually putting yourself in some more truly advantageous positions.

You could argue that there's an element of risk-reward to destroying bits of the island with enemies on them, with the way that taking out larger quantities of enemies can often lead to dramatically smaller spaces to avoid the ones that are left, but it is yet another element of the game that feels too far geared against the player. Unless you kill basically all the enemies in the first couple bits of the island you get rid of (something incredibly difficult to do when you're having everyone beeline towards you), it's just a death sentence and doesn't really have any sense of dynamics to it. A big part of the problem comes from the fact that there's no real and easily usable form of crowd control in the game that warrants making you be at a complete standstill whenever you actually want to attack something.

The first game's digging mechanic paired excellently with the slow methods of dispatching things because you could largely control the flow of where things would be for long enough to put you into an advantageous position, rather than in here where you're immediately thrown into the deep end and basically required to not think too hard about interacting with one of the main points of interest that the game could have. That's really my main problem with the game more than the absurd difficulty, the fact that it's almost as if you're encouraged to not properly interact with a lot of the defining characteristics of the game once you get beyond the first few stages, it just makes for a very hollow experience that could have been something way better with a few other tweaks to the design.

Growing up, Dig Dug II was my favorite game on Namco Museum DS. Today, I just find it ok. Yeah, it's nothing special. You play as a man in a jumpsuit with a power drill, I think. The goal is to eliminate all the enemies in a single level. You can do this by blowing them up individually or by gathering them on to a landmass and, by connecting dots, you can cause the whole land to collapse into the ocean enemies and all. It's a lot of fun when possible and, for the first couple of levels, it is. You also get an insane point bonus when this is accomplished sometimes granting an extra life.

The only problem is most of the time, you are punished for trying to pull this off. Rather than roam around aimlessly like in the original, enemies will chase you all the time. Sometimes there are so many that they can, and will, completely surround you. If you touch an enemy or fall in the water you melt. I suppose you play as a snowman then. Movement is also problematic. I don't know how to describe it but changing direction while moving feels awkward. In a game where you are constantly running away, this naturally leads to frustration and stress.

Overall, Dig Dug II is a fun little game for a while and definitely one of Namco's better arcade games that I've played. It still contains those old school difficulty spikes though so if that's not your thing, I don't recommend.

The sequel to Dig Dug has arguably a much better idea in which you can drill lines around landmasses to make them sink and drag opponents down. You still have the pump which acts the same like in the first game, but drilling the ground opens a whole new level of play that refreshes and animates. Sadly the improvements are bogged down by the game's great difficulty and inclinations to tactical management: The enemies chase you relentlessly instead of wandering around like in Dig Dug 1, and the controls which are awkwardly grid-based will give you a tough time.

There are two versions of the arcade game, the "older" and the "newer" versions as they're call on MAME, and the newer version has a noticably gentler learning curve, so I recommend you play the newer version. (3.0)

The NES port is faithful and is a welcome replacement to the arcade version. Much thankfully it offers a level select(upon completing stages) and infinite continues. (3.0)