Rengoku 2: The Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N

Combat itself is almost unchanged, consisting of thrashing on the face buttons on the PSP to attack with all limbs. As far as we've gotten, weapons just don't flow into combo attacks smoothly, making it difficult to create effective attack sequences at all. Instead of the perfect moments of a great combat-focused game where you get just the right hits in, we've been forced to aim for the heaviest weapons possible and try hard not to die.

Having finished off one boss (despite the difficulties of corpse runs and an ineffective combat system) we did get to see some of the story unfold.Apparently, the process used to create the A.D.A.M.s left them with some memories of the humans they once were. The text-heavy cut scenes before and after the fight seems to indicate that our character's old squad mates provide the templates for each level's sin and representative boss. This strange story is one shining light in an otherwise dark tower.

Including a game sharing ability is a nice sign that it will take advantage of some of the PSP's capacities, although there is no real wireless play, just local ad hoc. For now, this seems like it's a stairway leading down, not up.