For instance, one character that has unique features which causes all other characters to have a special bdy in order for that feature to take effect does not count as a version or mod. If all characters have a specific system that makes the game unique, the whole game is considered a single version.

The reason for not reviewing individual content (at least in this post) is because readers will try to compare individual content with full-grown vers/mods, but the former could be much more affected by the nature of original LF2, which means the scores of individual content is much more biased towards the original. This will be unfair for developer of smaller-scale creations.

Each section has a mark grading from 0-100, the higher the better.
You can think for each 2.5 point interval, an alphabetical grade is issued, for instance, 90 indicates A-, 92.5 indicates A
Since 4 intervals of 2.5 equals 10, the complete number-to-alphabet grading will be as follows:

100  - S

97.5 - A++
95   - A+
92.5 - A
90   - A-

80~87.5 - B grades
70~77.5 - C grades
60~67.5 - D grades
50~57.5 - E grades

under 50 - Fail, will not further investigate on that section

These sections are subject to future change, and feel free to contact me if there are bias on my grading.

Originality

Marco Graphics
Generally more beautiful graphics score better

Micro Graphics
Smooth transitions, no dirty pixels, graphical harmony matter here

Macro systems
A game that presents its dominant systems well, like a gun-fighting game which has guns that are easily distinguished and each gun has its use.
This is not equivalent to balance.

Micro systems
How well the system is implemented, and how few glitches/overpowered techniques are derived from it.

Balance
This quite depends on how does a ver/mod represent its characters. For a fighting game for LF2. There should be a pool of generic characters who have similar strength. If some mods have different measures I will discuss those new balances more in depth.

Intuitiveness
This can put up a great challenge for anyone who designs a large mod/ver. However do not underestimate this part even for small games.

Replay value
I shall boast about replay value of my version *Cough* sorry.
This indicates a bunch of things:

1. How the learning curve will be presented to players and is a new player willing to play more, just to learn its new techniques?
2. Will a player feel... ashamed to play it again? Or any emotion involved?
3. Would the game actually please the player after all the hustle?
4. How much new value is inserted apart from being a ver/mod, and is it probable that a new player accepts the value?



How will I sum up the marks
I will take out two radical (having most variance from the mean) individual marks and calculate the mean from others.

Original LF2
R-LF2 v.March 2011
Julian War 2 v1.13F
Rhythm of Night v1.02
Combined Effort v0.1
Story of HongBa v1.5
D.R.LF2 v5.0
DRS-TD v6.0
BX-LF2 v2.0
SDL-LF2 v2.0
X-LF Omega The Final
LF2 New Alpha
Fighter Hero

NTSD (Settling Dawn)
NSNA (Naruto Shippuden: New Age)
TTS-LF (version made by Nanaya and some other guys)
Seed-LF (the version made by Nanaya and can be downloaded here)
Kate-LF2
Killer-LF
Sidestory II
Hot Blooded High School edition
Special Version
Mokou-LF
NeoStage
One Piece
Reborn RBMT
NeuerStern
Project C
LF2Mega

C-LF
Gundam-LF2 (made by Philip something)
LF3 or any LF* where * is a number larger than 2.01
LFO-LF2
Pili LF2
R-LF2 201X edition
R.R.LF2
SM-LF2
SRW-LF

Any ver/mod that is bats*** insane or has power rating comparable to Reality LF v193 (my nauseating first creation ever)
Any ver/mod that I deem has plagiarized too much

Firstly, I will set a benchmark here.

Little Fighter 2 itself is beginning of every version and modification created, and it has both become a significant inspiration and limitation of most of the vers/mods.

I will delve into the game from my angle to explain how too many of our creations are affected by it.



85 Originality

LF2 is based on a setting of commoners wielding magical or physical powers that fight each other in a rather casual environment.
A lot of ideas for character designs come from other games and ideas, including Dragon Ball, Street Fighter and KOF.

However what makes LF2 a vast success is its smooth combination of generic fighting game with multi-player combat and its weapon system.
The latter two can be considered a single matter, because there were already some arcade games that feature characters from the three kingdoms taking on multiple enemies with weapons and spells. However those arcade games only allow 1-2 players.

LF2 adds the instance of weapon and more playable characters, along with versus features inherited from older games. (LF1 and Fight)

75 Marco Graphics

Graphics in LF2 are limited to 256 colors in each sprite sheet, due to limited computation power at that time. It ensured smooth performance.
Its graphical design from first sight isn't totally appealing though, some cheaply drawn backgrounds and copies of moves from SNK and Capcom games might not attract people until the word spreads.

80 Micro Graphics

There are some sprites that have frames efficiently skipped because players might now often see them, for instance:
Motion of using weapon for Bat, Knight and Justin
Justin's >>JA
Many of sprites for using weapons are reused

It is not a serious issue.
Meanwhile, most characters have smooth transition frames, but some major characters do reuse sprites which might both remind a player he is using a weapons "properly" but also wonder why that motion is reused.

90 Macro systems

The system is smooth. Most of the matters are easy to learn and each character has a rewarding long-winded learning curve. Characters also share some basic similarities that encourage players to try more.

A few questions on the systems are lack of instructions (The usage of chain moves are now properly explained) and lack of in-depth explanation for in-game properties, such as attack damage of each weapon.

90 Micro systems

Hitboxes are carefully placed in this game. The details of LF2 are very precise, except for a few in-bound problems that Marti and Starsky didn't solve: Louis getting stuck when hit during a jump, taking a weapon when getting hit doesn't go to injured frame, nor do being iced when landing.

80 Balance

The balance of this game slightly drags behind from other aspects, a lot of rules are required to maintain a fair environment, despite the presence of wide z-width and randomly dropping weapons.
Character damages and properties are okay, but some moves can be balanced much better by adjusting MP consumption carefully.

To compare with games nowadays, if some game similar to LF2 is made today, a comprehensive damage table can certainly help developers to balance the game better.

85 Intuitiveness

Some matters were not properly mentioned, including the catching mechanism and MP regeneration.
Other major matter are easily memorized by playing the game.
Having common properties for major characters helps too, for instance Rudolf has vrest >>JA while most fighter have arest >>JA, but the jumping method and attacking areas are very easy to follow for every character.

90 Replay value

LF2 is well known for its long-term replay value, via its learning curve and a large list of playing styles: Battle mode, Versus, Stage and Survival.
Its replay value is hampered by its slightly lacking graphics, but the simplicity reduced its effect on reducing its value.



85 Overall Score

This replay will focus on the last update of Reinforced-LF2 (download link here, this update is newer than that hosted on fileplanet)

Reinforced-LF2 made by Conrad Leung is the beginning of branching in developing LF2, namely the reinforced branch.

This version inspired countless number of vers/mods which boast for overpowered and graphic-heavy moves.

Mind that I will introduce plenty of new terms in this commentary, so it is recommended to read review of this and original LF2 to get the grip out of most other commentaries.

30 Originality

The very unimpressive originality score is due to its frequennt plagiarism and repetitive use of the very same game system.

For instance, Louis has three versions of D>A and Woody has three versions of D>J, where both their input keyset and their increment in move power are very similar. Even hell moves of Firen, Freeze, Louis and Woody share the same dragon head.
Most moves are derivations of original moves or some moves from other mods, only stronger and longer.

60 Marco Graphics

There is not much to say for those images ripped from original LF2, so I skip to the part of other graphics.
This version puts up acceptable raw graphics but failed to animate them.

For instance, the thunder created by Knight are not animated at all, just shaded by different contrast.
What seems to be well animated are supposed to be ripped from other sources, so CL shouldn't even take credit for that.

80 Micro Graphics

While the overuse of repetitive graphics hamper this score, CL did a good job in transitions, if you look closely on parts that are not directly ripped.

50 Macro systems 60

While R-LF2 introduced new move set and hell move system, it has demolished a vast amount of values in the original LF2 without properly creating new values:

Proper combo system no longer exists
Weapon system is useless now
Fighting in general is less rewarding because everyone tries to spam hell move
Fighting bosses is no longer rewarding due to extreme defenses (e.g. Bosses get invulnerability after getting hit will prolong fights very badly)

(Added note, also -10 marks)In general the game is at the brink of being unplayable.

50 Micro systems

R-LF2 is more appealing at first sight than to be played for long, due to its lack of diversity.

Adding a chasing dart for Rudolf is considerable, but not throwing twelve of them at the same time and with state: 15.
Many normal moves suffer from being unavoidable, including spamming Energy Disks.

60 Balance

If you only determine balance by damage dealt by each character, it's a 75.
The problem is there is no proper buildup and strategy for this game.

A bunch of characters become very nasty when their health drop low, in return players intend to use hell moves to finish the other.
This has become a major route to end a battle, or worse, spam projectiles to prevent anyone coming close.

75 Intuitiveness

Every move of character has been described fairly well. However, the gameplay is less than intuitive than it seems.
Some characters have insane amount of crowd control and many moves are either lagging or unbalanced even within the same character.
Some moves share the very same sprites and even movements, making them hard to distinguish.

50 Replay value

The actual replay values of R-LF2 are well-written readme and discovering hell moves. The learning curve of this game has been suppressed to a low level which will push players away once they spam enough of hell moves, because the stage mode is a pain in the a**.

58 Overall Score

This is notably the first stage-based mod that I will review.

This famous mod is made by Jerry Hawk from Sykeval team, a Chinese LF2 team which consist of elite players and DCers.

There was a huge amount of hype around this mod, but after I played some more of it I feel there is something wrong with JW2.

87.5 Originality

If you consider JW2 as an independent game from LF2, this can go up to 92.5,
However there is some amount of repetitiveness regarding the layout of stages.

The good points are, most of techniques used here are both cutting-edge and clean.
Even I would need some time to reproduce quality like JW2.

This score is capped to 90 for this mod (if repetitiveness is removed) because not very plenty of new features are actually inserted.

82.5 Marco Graphics

The presentation of this game is top-notched. Clear instructions, beautiful graphics regarding meteor, statue, thunder and spikes.
The downside is new character graphics are lacking, including new Dennis balls that look like button which transforms into a blue Firen explosion.

70 Micro Graphics

There are some character frames that are not properly positioned.
A number of nasty little things swarm across this mod, including the Lion Forest flashing problem which hurts eyes very much.

90 Macro systems

There is little question how this mod presents its challenges to players. The only problem is participation of computer characters is sometimes hindered by in-game system.

67.5 Micro systems

The implementation has some major problems when you take a close look onto it.
Firstly, the high unpredictability of both thunder and meteor can be frustrating to players, even when playing versus mode.
There also goes some salty traps including spike ones in jail, there is NO indication on where traps are placed, I just dash dash roll through the setup, or die trying.

Modification of character moves are not appealing even though they introduce some new elements:

Henry's green arrow D>JJ seems to have bdefend:100 but is short-lived and is generally outmaneuvered by the original critical shot
Henry's D^A summons a square of arrows rapidly raining on top of enemy WITHOUT ANY INDICATION
Dennis's new chase ball doesn't detonate immediately after pressing A
Many new moves "move" very fast
Some changes are not intuitive and not recommended at all, for instance Rudolf's moveset is so greatly changed it does not resemble 50% of original Rudolf.


N/A Balance

The addition of moves for characters can not be chained into any combo in general. The ecosystem is largely changed, the only thing I am sure to say is some changes may greatly frustrate both old-school players and newcomers.

72.5 Intuitiveness

The main reason for such a mediocre score is although its presentation is awesome, it lacks in one particular matter: clear objectives.
The instructions paragraphs are certainly easy to understand, but are packed with too much chocolate-coated wordings. There are hard times deciphering the simple objectives from fuss of paragraphs.

77.5 Replay value

Apart from its pioneering skills in stage mode, here is a list of things that discourages the player to play again:

Stage mode is painful.
Stage 1 overuses Ion storm very much and presents little apart from it. Same for Stage 4
A lot of Stages require repetitive work:
Bandit with 1000HP which must be killed in 1 minute
Spike trap
Mine trap where you must deliver a crate for HELL amount of distance, so I must repeatedly press F5 to speed it up
Some awful character change, such as that super speedy Davis D>A

78 Overall Score

Which means this mod should generally satisfy most of players who play for the first time.

LF2: Rhythm of Night is a version created by Felix from the Sykeval Team, featuring several new characters and a complete stage mode.

My impression on this version is "a much more subtle variant of Julian War 2". This version excels in new techniques about stage and characters, but has slight bias towards experienced players.

87.5 Originality

While RN presents less content regarding stage, it was one of the early creations that utilize transparency, customized characters and stage talk effectively. It is highly inspirational to future creations just like JW2.

85 Marco Graphics

RN does not present much more graphical content compared to JW2. However its absence of poorly created graphic gives it an edge over the latter.

82.5 Micro Graphics

Fine-tuning of graphics and scenes are well done. The score however cannot exceed original LF2 much since some unnecessary compromises are made to match the style of LF2:
Attack of templates and Devetal tend to skip frames as to match the templates and characters in LF2
If the swing motions are drawn with gradual arcs rather than blink transparency grids, this will be more attractive.

85 Macro systems

The major systems are supported by solid mechanics, including the defense of ancient Template mission, bike riding and the final fight.

Some minor complaints include the lack of indication of health for sealed Julian and friendly Felix in Stage 2.

The systems of the game are slightly hyped by the story of stage mode.
If you separate who do you do and how the story tells you in Stage mode, you would find that you face many generally tough pawns but the variation is slightly lacking.
For example you might find the lack of Justin in this stage, in contrast to Knight appearing over 3 stages.
This might become boring at times, but if you don't think the difficulty ratings are attached to original LF2 it's fine.

82.5 Micro systems

I cannot find any major problems apart from some fights being too difficult (as aforementioned, is not an actual issue) and too chaotic.

How some battles are chaotic:
Attacks and movement of Specialized Templates can be really quick, to nearly unavoidable level
In the defense of Ancient template mission, I couldn't find an effective way to keep bandits from touching the ancient because the field is too crowded, in 1 player stage
Stage 1 features way too many bandits and hunters at the same time, and you have no friendly unit to cover your back
In stages featuring regular fight, pawns seem to spawn too much

Fights that don't feature large-scale battles are good.

N/A Balance

The only character that can be compared with a fighter is Felix, who is more powerful and has actual strength near to Bat.
Specialized templates share some problem of too quick moves, so they are not really capable to be put into the fighter pool unless some modifications are done.

Devetal is a good example of new Boss.

So in the end, this version does not give any character that can directly substitute a fighter.

But if I must give marks according to individual characters:

Felix - 62.5 as fighter (Too strong), 85 as subboss/boss
Specialized templates - 55 as fighter, 70 as pawn/subboss (Too quick moves, can be much better if they follow the LF2 model)
Devetal - 87.5 as boss

80 Intuitiveness

This version features extensive instruction regarding both the moves of characters and in-game stage objectives.
However players must admit controlling the new characters are complex, despite a full list of move damage is given.
The learning curve of new characters except Devetal may be steeper than of fighters, but are generally rewarding.
Players still have full control on how and when he wishes to learn.

85 Replay value

The replay value of this version lies on familiarizing with new characters, along with new systems and the plot of the stage mode.
Unfortunately new characters are placed at different level from fighters. It's fun but is incompatible.
Some interesting and memorable fights are alternated with slightly boring fights, but the latter does not pose much concern if the player is willing to grind.
The plot... could have some improvements. It's completely okay for a small-scale game though.

84 Overall Score
This version has quality work and is well balanced in most aspects.

Combined Effort (CE-LF2, full name is LF2 ver. Combined Effort) is an enormous collection of character moves, tweaks and backgrounds.

Since this version is not an "experience" but a "collection of technologies", I would take a different angle on commenting CE.

80 Originality

Generally speaking, new moves and backgrounds of this version are inspired by other games. There also exists some repetitive moves and backgrounds.
Those were nice tries in the early days.

75 Marco Graphics

Character moves are a mixture of high and low-quality graphics.
Taking Firen as example, there are two Fireball attacks and two rolling magma attacks. My concern is the over-usage of flame and ground fire in original LF2 for new moves, but the presentation is okay.

65 Micro Graphics

Quality of many graphics in CE are not properly restored after resizing.
Some moves use oversized graphics or are not well positioned. Nevertheless new content of this version has become a popular inspiration and plagiarized target.

N/A Macro systems

A character strength list is not expected in this version.
Unlike MVC, the over-abundance of moves in this version makes characters party goers instead of warriors.
It's better to admire at the various creations inside CE than trying to balance them out.

There is literally no new system introduced here because new moves are triggered by the old input key system and most tweak outside the game does not affect character battle at all.

N/A Micro systems

72.5 Balance

Damage of characters are generally balanced although pawns may sometimes pose serious threats.
Some moves are significantly stronger than others due to inappropriate MP consumption.
However because you can chain simple combos with new moves, this version still holds up valid fights between fighters.
Just don't expect your everyday battle against noobs or AIs.

75 Intuitiveness

Characters generally use basic key inputs for their moves, nothing special.
Moves are straightforward.

Many backgrounds in other hand are below par, they have issues of unclear coloring and z-boundary. And sometimes poorly illustrated and pixelated.

80 Replay value

While this version has large amount of content, it could be messy to find your favorite moves and backgrounds.
And from a glimpse of it, CE looks like some kind of lacking due to various mistakes.
This version however is an unorganized treasure which has inspired many upcoming creations.

76 Overall Score

Reviewing himself is a deed of corruption

I am... going to review my version.
Yes. I will try to keep my opinion as few as possible by including as much feedback as possible.

LF2: Story of HongBa (abbr. LF2Hongba) is a version which features lots of new characters including several bosses, about 20 new backgrounds and a stage mode.

This version is controversial in a bunch of matters as explained below.

87.5 Originality

This version has little change on fighters so I will talk about that later.
Originality of this version can be split into character and background part.

Characters are not very independent of original LF2, since the elite characters use moveset alike the pawns. Their moveset are however interesting enough to attract some players. Even though some moves are vastly different from that in LF2, they might share some common properties, like Dante's Radiating arrow has very different properties compared to Henry's DJA, but the usage is similar.

Characters who deviate from original characters very much played better job. New concepts introduced into LF2HongBa are generally accepted.

Backgrounds in other hand are very diverse. Ranging from realistic to cartoon styles, BGs which largely differ from LF2 style have be frowned by some players, while other player would praise them. BGs that are similar to LF2 are well accepted.

80 Marco Graphics

In general BGs in this version are well illustrated. Some of them are well animated, which is rare among LF2 creations. The quantity of memorable backgrounds gains reputation among other vers/mods. (tl;dr I'm giving an incredibly shameless 90 here)

Graphics of characters are not quite stable though, New characters are recolored and reconstructed from original LF2 characters and lots of projectile sprites are cheap creations, which drag the score of this mark. (tl;dr: it's a 70 for characters)

85 Micro Graphics

Transitions are generally good, there exists small amount of sudden or strange movement/instances which are notable when watched closely.

A few graphical weaknesses of LF2 are also fixed here.

87.5 Macro systems

This version features a large number of systems, while this may expand the content of the game, the score depends on how these systems are conceived.

AI: New characters can pose some threat but not as much as old ones
BG effect: A nice little addition but does not weigh much in overall
New armor: I feel I'm hyped, cold water bucket to myself... There actually exists some strange matters inside the armor, but to clearly explain it:
There are unexplained invulnerability frames and shielding objects inside my armor (which is cheating)

Stage-specific structures: A fun feature which expands fighting into point capturing/defense
New bosses: Each of them is distinctive enough even though derived from earlier creations
Elites: Their mechanisms are interesting and different, some of elites are similar to their pawn counterpart but they are suitably empowered.

New moves for Fighters: Some look underwhelming and difficult to use, some are powerful. Luckily they do not affect gameplay much, players who do not like them can skip the moves.

In overall, most of systems in the game are capable to expand LF2 in a constructive manner.

80 Micro systems

There are a few characters who might suffer from bugs, including Elite Sorcerer (Sore).

The arrangement of Stage mode may be slightly haphazard, although difficulty is suitable, indications of objective and stage talk can be difficult to follow.

Supplies may be highly unstable starting from Stage 3-5, provided the new armor is more tricky than it seems (which is proven by several testers) and difficulty of stage sections are raised quickly.

Characters are presented well. While some characters are a bit stiff their firepower compensated for that. They generally do not encourage cowardly tactics and are predictable.

77.5 Balance

10 Fighters are barely adjusted, so the Balance score would revolve around how 9 elites fit with the fighters.

Most of elites are slightly weaker than the latter.
They are dangerous when controlled by human and can dish out attractive amount of damage or crowd control, and are not much easier or harder to learn compared to fighters.

To sum it up, the balance of new character pool does not differ much from that of 10 fighters in LF2.

New bosses in other hand, are generally stronger than the original bosses. The new armor incorporated although effective, can be frustrating to fight against since it is much more unstable and even stronger than existing defenses in old LF2.

85 Intuitiveness

The new characters largely use input keys similar to fighters. There is also a quick-key feature for easy combos.
Complicated matter about defense system, stage talk and structures are well explained.

Some sections of stage mode may get confusing, but in-game instructions are enough to cover that up.
Although you would be screwed if you intend to ignore instructions.

92.5 Replay value

While not everything will go as intended in this version, the large selection could attract widespread attraction, and the selection covers plenty of aspects.
It is possible that a player is only attracted to a certain character or BG, but a wider player base means they can share their opinion on a common subject.
The plot is overwhelming because of insufficient clues throughout the game, but is still worthy considering its fighting part alone is both challenging and attractive.
Finally new characters could match standards of original fighters, and with different bosses, this would increase lifespan of the game by players exploring possibilities.

84 Overall Score

Anyway, if I would take time to revamp those lousy projectile graphics, this version would get *apparently* better.

D.R.LF2 (DoctoR?) is a creation of In_The_End which is a series of story-oriented version, featuring a large list of zombified corrupted fighters and pawns, powerful bosses, some ripped characters (both graphically and mechanically) and detailed story mode.

This version is very popular due to its extensive usage of quality graphics, outstanding mechanisms and overpowered characters. However DR is also despised by players who disagree with skill-less creations.

There are at least 5 viable versions of this game that are published and each of them carries parts of a large story. Also each version includes slightly different character, v5.0 is the newest version which includes the most original characters out of all of them.

Because of a bunch of factors: Stage mode is incredibly tedious, characters do not differ much between versions, and general battles are awfully long, I won't play any version apart from v5.0 and I'll just recall my memories of earlier versions to review the whole DR.

85 Originality

This game has a unite theme of Dark magic, while characters have vastly different moves including Dropdown explosions, Eye-beam and Witchery, they fit the theme quite nicely. Unfortunately the ripped graphics may slightly hinder the originality.

Ripped characters including Ragnarok Online Assassin and some Joker pixie... are just ripped. In_The_End has done good job to implement the performance and mechanism though.

87.5 Marco Graphics

Not only ripped graphics fit into the version well, revamped moves have nice transparency effects and are with slightly higher quality. Coloring of projectiles that are not ripped are slightly bland though.

Recolored original characters range from neatly done to moderately crude. There is little expansion of them apart from coloring though.

85 Micro Graphics

Pixelation, aliasing and color blocks are nearly impossible to be seen. For characters which is heavy for transitions like DLAE (A cloud composed of eyeballs which can stretch its arms which ends are skulls) the work is highly smooth. Most of animations are well animated.

Some moves however are not animated at all, including chasing balls generated by John's JA and DLAE's beam attack.

40 Macro systems

This version has major problems that makes it unfavorable to play in versus mode.

The apparent sin is its incapability to maintain a solid balance scale. Without a scale there is no guarantee which character is suitable to 1v1 against another.

A lot of characters have unique strengths but they are not properly explained, and instructions to use them are buried in very messy move lists. Too many character traits also cause them to become very unpredictable and frustrating to fight against.

A large number of boss characters boast excessive defensive and offensive abilities which basically denies any viable way to deliver considerably damage to them, except to spam projectiles like no tomorrow.

Dark fighters are capable to perform death juggles at ease, and as the game is developed, characters that have reasonable weaknesses and are suitably powered are replaced by Dark fighters.

Stage scenarios are easy to follow, just slightly lacking in clarity.

30 Micro systems

A number of critical mistakes are made in this version despite a generally good looking damage table and power rating for individual character.

MP cost is not well defined. The power rating between characters are not defined: A number of wave-clearing moves and high-damage moves are poorly designed. They are very unstable in damage output even though stable hitboxes are provided.

The version is generally overpowered that means even calculating damage of same move for different characters will be nasty.

Neither stage play nor versus play would be fun:
As aforementioned trying to find two evenly matched characters to play versus will mostly bring frustrations, because everyone would finally just spam ultimate moves;
Stage mode is incredibly tedious and repetitive, including boss and subboss with supreme defense and excessive health, too many friendly and enemy units, unpredictable behavior for EVERY character including pawns.

35 Balance

The balance of DR is twice as nasty as R-LF2, which is barely maintained by its painstaking damage table.

This is due to overpowering moves are more prevalent and more absurd defensive abilities are forced into boss characters, while this might not be serious concern for general vers/mods, DR took a hideous path by firstly phasing every original fighters with overpowered, unbalanced Dark fighters, then attempt to amend the strengths of boss characters based on these abominations, causing more irreparable irregularities.

50 Intuitiveness

DR barely passes the mark intuitiveness due to following reasons:

Installation, playing and compatibility are confusing
DR also initiated the bad habit of blaming player's computer requirements instead of improving the game's compatibility

Move list is crammed with unnecessary details
Character who does not appear in a certain version should not appear in that version of move list at all,
To attempt to one-size-fit-all with a single set of readme is not a practice for majority of fighting game.

The packaging for each version should be available for download separately

Too many systems which are not fitting into LF2 module at all or generally do not give constructive value to the game
Repetitive, standalone moves
Some moves are unclear, with identical character actions, or worse, no notable action

35 Replay value

If the replay value of DR is about the story plot and overpowered characters, I can predict that nearly no new player by now would fancy DR, and those who play DR until now are probably obsessed with overpowering and the culture of this game.

From my quick scan, it seems very few to none characters introduced by DR can be directly incorporated into other mods (in reality, none of them) and they don't even produce a valid versus environment.

From the view of various stage playthroughs, it seems the plot doesn't even worth the boring battle the stage mainly consists of. I used Fear (John) and Henry just to confirm I can just use one move forever without positioning, and this lame method ensured safe passage of many stage sections. So the Stage mode is a definite failure.

56 Overall Score
I personally would give it a 46 instead (by taking out an 87.5 and an 85 instead, focusing on the bad things of this version)

One sentence fits all: Rotten orange

I now understand why In_The_End does not even go for reboot of this version because it is so screwed.

Abbr. DRS-TD, this is possibly a reboot of D.R.LF2 created by In_The_End.
This version features nerfed moves from D.R.LF2 and a very mature tower defense mode, replacing the survival mode in original LF2.

As a sidenote, I usually start testing a ver/mod by viewing the Demo of the game. It can give an rough impression on how moves are empowered and how well the AI is in the game.

I have also discussed about the balance of this game and he claims that a lot of work is done to prevent spamming moves, but I think there are still lots of improvements to be made for them.

Unfortunately, the v6.0 published for the game is most probably the final version, because it was released 6 years ago, despite itself claiming to be in beta.

87.5 Originality

The main feature of this game is tower defense, as the game claims, and is proven by me and several players.
While there are some concepts that are not very new, including the usage of stationary barriers in RN, hell moves from R-LF2, this version has a nice mashup of elements that has a complete overall feeling.

90 Marco Graphics

The quality of graphics of this version goes beyond JW2 and DR, to very smooth and appetizing level. The usage of transparency is not deterring to eye at all.

Some character moves have a rapid and rather crude transition, including the grab moves of LouisEX and Rudolf, but the execution of moves is smoother if the grab succeed, otherwise they are cartoon-like.

77.5 Micro Graphics

Although the artifacts of graphics are almost absent, there are frequent sudden transitions of animations, and a lack of division of animation, for example:
Dennis has two moves that use the identical Chase Ball launching animation
The ultimate move of Dennis at start looks just like a speedy Whirlwind Kick

Enemies included in TD are quite strong, but the problem is the dark blue background would make attacks of Dark Knight quite difficult to see, especially moves and projectiles are fast and transparency is used in deep grey sprites.

The sprites in short, are not too colorful but sometimes difficult to see.

80 Macro systems

The tower defense system has a list of problems (the core mechanics are solid), the major one being the tower is difficult to manage.
The tower has an irregular move list, consisting of commands like AAA, DJJ, DAA and there are three levels of tower which has a separate move list.
If you let AI use tower and few enemies get close to it, chances are the tower would be reluctant to upgrade.

The siege weapons are strange in terms of hitbox, they become invulnerable whenever they move and they have some invulnerability when they are attacking. While you can lure weapons to a safe distance you cannot guarantee damaging them.

New moves of characters (some are inherited from DR) are generally powerful, including the usage of lightning dash (frigging fast movement) and lightning weapon (STM spammed this weapon in a play in TD) both used by Louis.

The concepts of new characters abilities are certainly nice additions, and are adjusted well.

95 Micro systems

The concept is not organized very well but the acting of characters is well done. Characters have consistent offense and defense stances, the effects are well done, and hitboxes are carefully placed, if you take out the blinking invulnerability problems for some characters.

Even though balance seems somehow out of place it can be perceived to be easily fixable because the arrangements are highly completed.

Kudos on the effort on the TD instructions. There are some parts difficult to comprehend but once playing in TD mode, they are really straightforward to follow

75 Balance

New moves of characters have high power or high priority, or are difficult to avoid. In return the synergy is worse for those moves.
The priority weighs the most in decreasing the balance mark of this version, moves like John's giant purple column are nearly unavoidable and Davis has a very large range counter move (although it doesn't deal much damage).

In overall the version strongly encourages new moves to be used because of upper edge they provide, although they don't really deal more damage. As a result the rewards of playing combos is reduced but new moves try to compensate them, even if they slightly fall behind because of possibility of being spammed.

75 Intuitiveness

The move list included inside the bundle didn't improve in clarity.

New moves of typical characters are abundant, the author tries to explain this as much as possible, but some moves are not easy to memorize, since most characters have at least 8 moves and new moves need 4-6 keypresses to trigger.

The overall impression though is alike original LF2 although with some complexity, the learning curve for old moves stay quite flat so some practices from original LF2 can provide quite enough enjoyment in this version.

90 Replay value

The TD mode is not very controllable in overall, due to powerful ally and enemy knights and generally a "farming" experience of the game: Collecting energy orbs has become a major part of game, that emphasizes on avoiding attacks.

Character moves are not to be easily compared to another version that stay very close to original LF2, and they are inspirational to new products due to careful positions and interesting effects.

There are some unpolished parts even with sophisticated layout of the characters and siege weapons, these can be improved slowly (if someone intends to make a game that combines TD and FTG)

83 Overall Score

BuXie-LF2, which BuXie stands for the main character (and the representation of the author) is a version which features a large number of new characters with original sprites and moveset, along with a series of complete stage mode.

This version has some similarities with both D.R.LF2 and its sequel DRS-TD, and although it has an impression of being a polished DR, it has some highly differences from DRS-TD.

87.5 Originality

This stage mode features large number of original characters, some ultimate moves and a stage mode (if you count the earlier versions, there are multiple stage modes).

I do not wish to give a score of 90 despite of very abundant original content:
Concepts of new characters do not really go much further from LF2, including the humanized Keroro soldiers, Aquarion ultimate move and some samurais who fight very similarly to those from Last Blade (a FTG made by SNK).

Quality graphics and some backgrounds requested from Marshall seem to hype this version for some bit.

Nevertheless, the mashup of characters from different genres into a balanced selection of characters is highly appreciated.

85 Marco Graphics

New characters are generally colorful but not too distracting. They are quite easy to distinguish even without dedicated details. The overall animation in other hand seems to be skip frames in unnecessary occasions and sprites are often reused. Some moves use oversized projectiles.

The worst part is some characters are really hard to determine which move is he using, including that yoyo-user that utilizes ice and fire attacks.

The projectile sprites, while ripped, are just as good as where they came from. This doesn't contribute to more originality but is at least appealing.

75 Micro Graphics

This version intends to impression players with well-scripted transitions, but only succeed in those in projectiles. Some characters (about half of them) do not have enough motion indications, they may look like launching a projectile or swinging a weapon but their body movements are insufficient to indicate so.

For instance, Henry-like character with a sword may use moves like throwing a flying sword and wildly swinging his sword to fend off enemies. The motion speed is great for the character but little motion shades were used.

70 Macro systems

New characters generally follow a model which has crowd control ability as strong as Firzen, but the damage output is not stronger than typical fighters. It means although they are able to use weapons to damage enemies they are generally incapable to have any synergy with weapons, and not to say with other characters.

Many new characters generally do not chain combos well, some cannot chain at all.

New ultimate moves of fighters in this version are not interesting (are at the level of hell moves for R-LF2). Deep has an ultimate which launches a fast-moving state: 15 blast that has unlimited range. This does not suit his character at all.

Each new character also has a hell move that use extreme amount of MP. While they do not provide a viable way to OTK players in versus mode, this has a very large impact in Stage mode, making playing frustrating because background have very narrow Z-axis width and is often crowded.

Backgrounds is a collection of original LF2 and some Marshall's creations (BuXie has obtained permission on that matter). The Stage mode is a collection of cornered battles which include some number of higher skilled enemies and allies. This means the player have less control on the battlefield and cannot find suitable strategy to protect his allies. Allies can be overwhelmed easily in the middle of each stage, player would often have to face too many enemies either early-game or late-game.

The only puzzle stage, Stage 3 is noisy and unintuitive. Spike Traps are deadly and it's quite unfair to forcibly walk onto spikes, and there is a bandit ambushing you from behind. Even if you get to Stage 3-3 there are completely unpredictable randomly placed traps (you cannot even see where they are) that might (it's all random) instakill you because you get stuck between standing javelins.

77.5 Micro systems

Character moves are implemented well with generally little inconsistencies (but they are still confusing to use, just each move is good).

Stage mode is a mixture of some cheaper techniques including enemies spawning in between your army, or worse, your ally would fail to avoid the ultimate move of an enemy hero and be instakilled, which happens quite often. The highlighted puzzle stage is nasty, it doesn't feel rewarding even if you manage to clear this because it involves overpowered traps and much of RNG.

67.5 Balance

It feels like a mixture of DR and DRS-TD when it comes to balance. There are projectile spamming moves where DRS-TD don't dare do, but the moves are generally predictable.

In several Demo plays, original fighters (which are unchanged except of the new hell moves) are more competent than new characters in 1v1. Combined with spamming tendencies of new characters, it may come to conclusion that new characters are generally just noisy and have unnecessary complications that make them not as rewarding as fighters.

If you don't think it is worth a mediocre score, I will add that some moves are very punishing including a ground-thumping move that hit enemies far away in z-axis, and samurai characters have ripoff of hell moves from last blade that charges forward quickly and deal 250 damage.

85 Intuitiveness

Majority of characters have very straightforward move lists. Combos are not an issue because generally they... don't combo.

Stage mode does not differ much from fight-and-kill actions, and revolve generally about one-time army and boss-oriented army.

72.5 Replay value

The learning curve is generally short-lived for new characters, and hell moves have no extension on the curve.
Stage mode does not feature a replaying value due to:
Lack of participation rewards
Slowly overwhelming or overwhelmed enemy force (due to consistent adding of strong allies)

As such the replaying value of this game lies on the new characters.
There's not much to say about them other than they don't have good synergy and the cartoon style would not exceed much from original LF2.
Especially transitions are not much better, sometime worse than of original.

78 Overall Score

SDL-LF2 (likely ShingDiLun, don't blame me for the unfamiliar name, this is translated from Taiwanese) is the sequel of BuXie-LF2.

This mainly features completely redrawn characters (and some new ones) and more stage modes.

I forgot to say that SDL-LF2 has bundled the stage modes of previous versions which can be easily switched by extracting the corresponding zips, so to the final version (v2.0) of SDL-LF2, it actually includes 3 SDL stage packs including 2.0, and 4 BX stage packs, to a total of 7.

However I feel uneasy when they are not all packed in one format (both 7z and rar are used).

This review will compare SDL-LF2 with past products and earlier LF2 creations. Although you would expect improvements I am typically harsh on these matters and have found various rather unsettling trends for this version.

87.5 Originality

This version inherits some characters from BX and replaces some characters with new ones (according to story for each version), also includes a stage mode for each update of the game.

SDL-LF2 introduces more beast systems and puzzles in stage mode. Properties of old characters are largely unchanged.
Sprites of exclusive characters are all redrawn to higher resolutions.
New boss fights do not add original content but the boss characters use new techniques, as per the trait of BX.

Not many new features are introduced since release of BX v2.0 (each feature has lots of content though) so the score will stay at 87.5.

80 Marco Graphics

Graphics of all characters are remade. They are of better quality of original fighters now. Skipping of frames is reduced to about that of fighters. This in overall gives a streamline experience, especially when playing with melee characters.

I don't appreciate the lack of work done on projectiles (even after several iterations), new projectiles are either recolored original sprites or ripped form other games. Some other sprites are reused from removed characters.

75 Micro Graphics

Usage of weapon for new characters are not carefully positioned (as per BX), and punch motions are not improved either, they look like using too much efforts compared to fighters.

Transitions are surprisingly not improved despite the reduction of frame skipping. To explain this properly, "frame skipping" refers to insufficient frame to even support an animation, and "transitions" stand for the motion that is derived from the frame animation of character.

Melee characters are much better animated than ranged characters due to effective usage of repeating character frames. Ranged characters lack a large number of buildup and ending frames.

The cavalry system introduced in SDL-LF2 is uneasy to determine the states of characters, especially defending. This may be due to lack of animation of horse in some frames.

72.5 Macro systems

SDL uses the inherited systems from BX, that means characters are roughly the same as from BX, having crowd control as strong as Firzen but damage input no more of a fighter.

Cavalry system gives new possibilities in battles, it's just not very appetizing the whole body of a cavalry unit suddenly becomes semi-invulnerable and hurts everyone in path of it.

It's still tedious in versus mode to fight as or against new characters.

Some moves of recurring characters are adjusted, they don't differ much from that of in BX.
New characters except Leaf (who doesn't yell) and Zex are noisier than even other BX characters, mainly due to sound amplitude not properly adjusted.
Melee new chars do quite well in combat but ranged characters are a fest of spamming projectiles.
Recurring ranged chars... are just not fixed at all.

The two new bosses, purple-cloth psychic (XiangChengLiu) and Cat-ear juggle king who has voice of Dio (Zex) are powerful. They give fights as good as purple cat-god in BX (Ming) and are challenging. Too bad the solo boss fights in 3-2 and 5-3 feature seemingly low health bosses who actually have greatly increased health regeneration, making the fights very tiring.

Be wary of XiangChengLiu who has an attack that summons 9 glowing mines at once that spreads, if you are in close proximity you can be instakilled! Even if they have spread the mines are triggered by itr kind: 9 which will blast you into air repeatedly, dealing heavy damage. They are very nasty and will deflect your projectiles, as per properties of itr kind: 9.

The excessive amount of allies continues from BX to SDL. The simple best way to play through stages is to spam powerful moves because usually you will either be covered by allies after being beaten up, or have a very large supply of beers and milk. Oh, and the stages are only slightly wider in z-axis.

Stage 5 puzzle in v2.0 is intuitive but has some bugs that upset players, including the positioning of henry flutes is unfriendly and may make the game stuck, and milk isn't readily picked by the stage-specific knight.

The only BG effect that is implemented in the game is made by Blue Phoenix (I guess) so I won't comment much on that, other than its sudden appearance and hindering of movement might unsettle players.

Lastly, hell moves of fighters are replaced by something alike Firen's explosion, if you amend the explosion to everyone's need, every hell move uses about 350MP.

75 Micro systems

The new ranged characters are just not good:
Usage of even faster projectiles
Repetitive: Zack in particular uses three moves which all involve black energy disks which all move at same speed and the launching motions are nearly the same
Unavoidable moves for hero characters
(Star Tsumani and literally every move of Sirius, Kanno can deal incredible damage once she grabs with chasing attacks, and she can summon 3 chasing objects with only 60% MP, not to mention she has multiple chasing moves)

It is confusing in catching and caught animations of cavalry. Louis's whirdwind throw with them was well done though.

Implementation of stages continues to be difficult because players would have hard time to decide how to keep his allies and himself living. My attempt on Stage mode... was just to flute all the way along. I didn't get through Stage 1 Difficult and got instakilled in Stage 3 by XiangChengLiu. But it is less than fun if flute>drink>flute is the ideal way to clear the stages. I did that because the stage layout strongly recommends me to do so, especially multiple enemies with innate armor are overwhelming in these stages.

65 Balance

There is not much balance change for old characters, boss characters can be skipped but new ranged characters are annoying (again!):
While exclusive ranged characters are expected to have a generally lower output, some new characters have projectiles that are both fast and deal slightly too much damage.
Not to mention unavoidable and unblockable moves.
New projectile moves try to match the quantity scale of old moves. I insist that it is just not good to try copying the number of knifes Purple throws.

I HATE frigging Sirius both in playing as and against him. He is just a stronger bow-wielding template in RN except his attacks are shorter and wider.

New melee characters blend in the game smoothly with others.

Oh, frigging cavalry bandits can stab in rapid successions, it will certainly be humiliating if I ever get juggled to death by this dumb technique (but it's a repeating move that drains MP constantly, so it's completely possible for AI to kill you that way)

Horses are difficult to tackle, they have armor and they may become invulnerable in occasion which replenishes his armor in progress. Nasty.

In conclusion, the balance of SDL just gets worse than BX. More instability kicks in which does not provide an enjoyable versus experience and slowly tears away what remains in BX.

75 Intuitiveness

I should give 85 except that I cannot find any information about move list of sub characters (I can choose Cavalry bandit without inputting lf2.net and it is included in random selection!).
Also move list doesn't tell me of MP consumption for most of exclusive moves!

72.5 Replay value

It's surprising that additional contents can actually reduce the replay value of a sequel, but the poor mixture of contents along with stage mode that has not improved a lot don't deserve a raised score.

75 Overall Score

A decreased score means there is definitely something wrong with the development of SDL from BX. I hope if I direct this review to BuXie he would be more careful in future game development.

XLF-Omega is the final creation of the trilogy for the XLF series, X stands for X-power, a supernatural force wielded by all major characters of this game. XLF series was created by two-men team team SR (stand for Sten and Robert, and they have representative characters in the game).

This version features a submersible experience in using original characters who have completely new moves and combo chains, a bunch of shared abilities which are similar to in some FTGs, hell move systems (yeah...), backgrounds and story mode.

I am going to review only Omega and not the part creations: XLF can no longer be found and I definitely don't want to rate XLF2 after playing some orange Freeze with horizontally flipped hair.

90 Originality

Firstly, about the concepts of characters here:
Characters are reconstructed from parts of original characters. Every character use moves that summon oversized hitbox and projectiles, but from my experience it was intended. I just don't like some moves have too little initiation time. About half of moves are presented well although there is a problem in repetitive moves both between and within the same character.

The projectile sprites and BG graphics are ripped. There doesn't give much originality but the presentation of moves based on the projectiles is acceptable, the mechanics are fresh although not carefully polished.

The combo system apart from being completely different from LF2, are generally harder to chain. A lot of characters rely on spamming projectiles (fortunately most of projectile moves aren't overpowered), melee characters do have reasonable reach to prevent being owned easily, and are generally more appealing to play.
There are few new features introduced in Stage mode, apart from new pawn graphics, the majority of fights are plain, and there are a few dialogues. No puzzles there and only a little criteria-based fights.

The boss fight of Lambda and DX-Sten are similar in scale of Julian and CL in R-LF2. No big issues.

75 Marco Graphics

There was a very large improvement from XLF2 which only recolors characters and adds small parts, Omega assembled characters very well with nice color themes for each character.

Each character move is generally nicely constructed. There is sufficient indications of moves, although some moves barely did it with frame skipping and therefore transitions are only fair. Melee characters would perform slightly better here.

Fortunately, although background are largely stationary (some have parallax) they are of high quality (even many are ripped they chose very correctly). I can see some resizing problems but this is little compared to the good effort in removing aliasing and pixelation problems.
BGs are generally of milder color themes compared to characters which is good, partly because fights are intense and players do not pay much attention there.

The main downside of graphics in XLF-Omega is the poor interface. Improperly stretched letters in selection menu and the blinking "Click to join" are not easy to read. Character portraits in selection screen are generally out of proportions. I don't require a terrific portrait face but Cloaked Davis (Chisel) has 70% of his head shown as his hair. The worst part is about the HP and MP bar. It's very difficult to know of exact health left provided the red and brown HP proportions are now having very similar color, and the size of bar has shrunk. This part gives a very large penalty in the impression of the overall graphics.

In battle mode I have a problem of determining which pawn corresponds to which function he has.

67.5 Micro Graphics

Apart from poor transitions, some moves are difficult to see and distinguish (repetitiveness in the same character) and character positions are not fully rectified, there are sudden sprite changes regarding melee characters.

K.O. notices are oversized. I think this problem is less prevalent in 1v1 and stage mode (there is no light weapon except milk and beer) but it still obstructs vision. Reducing its size to acceptable level is much better.

62.5 Macro systems

Again, character power that rivals R-LF2 is difficult to manage. This version did good job in preventing spamming moves but chaining combos is a lot harder compared to what promotion video did. Unfortunately some characters are innately programmed to spam, include Mark without sunglasses (Joy) that has an AI which spams shockwaves like no tomorrow. It's not like projectiles are overpowered but they are strategically very favorable to keep anyone at bay.

The thing I dislike the most about this version is the oil barrels, they are generic heavy weapons randomly falling from sky, but they summon a heck load of explosions when destroyed. Because characters do not deal enough damage, there is a large element of RNG roaming across the game. Two barrels can possibly instakill a bunch of people staying very close to each other! This can ruin the whole gaming experience.

Character strengths are at least aligned, I see effort done by authors, if without RNG and assume I can chain properly, the damage yield of characters can be very rewarding. Too bad chaining is not easy and too many repetitive moves along with heavy MP consumption drive me back from enjoying the game.

Pawns (X-rangers) punch really fast. Do not let them get close and be aware of "Hunter" ranger who can shoot multiple state: 15 fast bullets very rapidly.

The bosses are really nasty to tackle, provided you already have spamming moves of heroes. A John-Dennis (Hades) can FILL a map with his projectiles and LouisEX with Scythe (Gene) is just launching really powerful moves and projectiles. Lambda has invulnerability once it gets hurt, has incredible moves, DX-Sten as the hidden boss is just "hidden", once he is damaged enough he will spam D>J (there are even 2 more variations) from more than a screen away and blasts you for 40% HP at a time.

There goes a big problem on the shared properties of heroes in this version: X-power. The concept is okay: Healing and supercounter, but they do seem to make fights less fun since they are scaled based on the spamming abilties of heroes, the supercounter blasts everyone across THE WHOLE MAP at an instant, healing is alright but unfortunately would prolong fights.

70 Micro systems

Provided moves do not use really complicated systems like position detection, their implementations are straightforward and moves generally do not glitch badly, apart from their already bugging properties.

It's not like authors did a particular job on the details of moves, but hitboxes and movements of characters are mostly reasonable, that contributes to consistency. However a major discredit to it is the damage for each move is inconsistent if two or more hitboxes are present in a single move. It's very difficult to determine how much displacement and damage a move deals because it depends on distance of enemy very much.

72.5 Balance

I didn't test all characters but it seems there is at least some interesting balance that slightly exceeds SDL, if you take the speed moves of XLF-Omega as common speed you would soon get used to it and develop some highly damaging combos. The bright side is, Although every move of XLF-Omega is better than moves in LF2, their strengths are rather similar to each other, compared to DRS-TD, BX and SDL which feature a few super-powerful moves for every character.

85 Intuitiveness

While this version uses generic input keys in LF2 for new moves, characters have more moves and start to use composite keys like DJAJJ for some moves. Fortunately the number of composite keys are few, it makes character straightforward... a more important point here is there is generally enough time to use composite keys.

X-power and taunts use shared keys and have identical effects for every character. This is a good measure to implement a new large system.

In overall this version performed well in presenting how to use moves for every character (But forgot to tell us MP consumption of most moves, what a shame).

80 Replay value

The stage plot is not really much, although some veteran LF2 players despise the story of XLF as bland and mindless, this can be said to several other versions as well. The plot is acceptable for a FTG, if you think that Ryu's story never advanced at all.

The stage mode is a spamfest. However it isn't caused by abundance of allies but the high firepower of each character. The layout of each stage session is much nicer and at least gives high control to the player, alike in original LF2.

Characters have a rather steep learning curve, if the barrel, counter and HP bar problems are taken out, this game can take on really good fights, although to further improve some nerfing on abilities should be done. The former three problems are easy to fix anyway.

75 Overall Score

Well, this means I would roughly equally recommend SDL and XLF-Omega to others, because SDL has some bad marks that are not present in BX, the number of players who think SDL is better than XLF-Omega or vice versa should not differ much.

LF2 New Alpha is a modification created by Leaf Fantasy, which specializes in creating new variations of input keys of moves. There is not much exclusive content apart from new moves, although there are Buxie, Felix and Lighto, with some borrowed backgrounds, they are not reviewed in this version because I think most of efforts were done for their respective creators.

90 Originality

The ideas of new key inputs are very original, including Rudolf's charging DvA attack and the extension system. The implementation of latter is complete but sometimes I may miss on the target or cannot figure out proper time to chain moves.

The moves themselves are not groundbreaking, some ideas are already used by plenty of versions including Firen's D>JA and J+DvA. Also move synergy is not extended, many moves are alternations or stronger versions of original moves with different key inputs. Provided new moves cannot chain well, there is not much reason to use them practically other than admiring smooth graphics.

85 Marco Graphics

New moves follow a very smooth model where fits original LF2 very nicely. The graphics are generally smoother than in LF2. There are some reuse of sprites but in good conditions.

Some moves are notably powerful but the graphics for them are also well presented.

87.5 Micro Graphics

Transitions is especially good for this mod although some moves have sudden movement like Rudolf's DvA, and Woody's DvA< looks like skipping frames. Deep's DvJ is an exception.

80 Macro systems

This score is controversial because there are two sections of systems, one scoring significantly better than other.

The extension system which chains a new move by pressing A is notably worse than the direction key input system which charges by holding keys.
I have particular difficulty to chain extension moves, I think Firen's D>JA in my version works just like the same as the counterpart in this mod, and I am unable to use Louis's D>J<D<J (Louis jumps backward after his whirlwind kick throws enemy upwards) and any combo regarding his new moves, Rudolf's D^AD>A, and cannot chain after Woody's DvA< as examples.

John's Magical Fusion system is also seen in DRS-TD, this mod did a job not less than DRS did.

Direction key input system is well done. The presentation of nearly all moves regarding this system are good.

80 Micro systems

Since Directional Key Input system is done by using hit_d in DC, it is impossible to fix the F6 bug, so let's skip it.

The systems are generally well implemented although I see a lack of interactions other than prescribed combos indicated by the move list. For instance John can use stronger versions of D>A and D>J via magical fusion (DvA which summons a ball that fuses with other projectiles) but they push everything away when combined, which doesn't encourage players to use more projectiles to combo, especially DvA ball consumes quite an amount of MP.

Most moves are not terribly hard to trigger, just needs some time for practicing.

75 Balance

New moves although not up for synergy, promote a number of fighters to be overpowered: Henry now has delayed damage and Firen has a speed punch that can be chained into Fire Balls, Freeze has a Ice needle rain.

Other fighters have new moves that mostly do not exceed the level of LF2HongBa (of respective fighters), that means moves are generally underwhelming.

82.5 Intuitiveness

Other than extension moves (fortunately they are only minority of all moves, however I should be wary if number of ex.moves increases when developing) every move is straightforward to use. However abundance of moves tend to force some moves to use at least 6 keys to trigger them.

85 Replay value

This mod has a lot of room for practicing, including the new systems and (unknowingly) the guest characters in this mod. Because guests are better balanced inside this mod compared to their home creations, they can be fun to fight as and against. Some borrowed backgrounds unfortunately have minor quality problems including unclear z-axis boundary and too narrow passage, but the mod overall gives a fresh and memorable experience.

83 Overall Score

Fighter Hero is a modification created by 叶小六 (Leaf Little Six) from the Chinese community.

This mod is basically a fusion of the PVP,PVE combat of LF2 with the MOBA experience (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), FH is seen to exploit the LF2 engine to a high extent, in different aspects compared to Neora and Alucard.

As of limitations of FH, I have a few words about this mod:
1. Since LF2 is a 2.5D platform game with only single lane, FH is also single-laned.
2. There are some complications about this version, involving matters that are not related to MOBA games and have large adverse effects in gameplay.
3. The lack of indications bother me very much, especially for games which require large amount of map awareness.

70 Originality

The concepts of this game revolve around these, which differ little from in MOBA games:

Characters are divided into two sides that aim to destory each other
Each side has defenses consisting of towers and supplies
Regularly generated wave of soldiers assist players in fighting other side
Neutral creatures that give advantage when defeated
An ambush system that is activated when a player stays still in night
Revival system, characters have penalty when reviving

The elements different from MOBA are mostly from original LF2:

Heavy participation of heroes in combat
Usage of (limited) weapons

From my view, I don't think blinding following the path of an existing series of game is good enough to create an outstanding product.
The concept of fusion is easily perceived but a game that only has fusion is generally easily forgotten.

40 Marco Graphics

The new graphics this game uses are generally ripped from other games. The color theme is satisfying but the compromise for battle mode isn't very acceptable to me:

If the author can make such massive mod, he can certainly spend a little more time to fix original backgrounds which are now showing uncolored rectangles due to forced stretching of the game window.
There is only very few backgrounds including Ancient Battlefield that are not glitched. It will certainly be better if some alternative backgrounds, even stationary ones are added to the game.

Ancient Battlefield in other hand, is only partly appealing when played in versus mode, which VS mode not intended by the author. There are blank areas that are purposed for scenery objects in VS, the parallax effect is good but the x-axis length of map is unsuitable for a fair fight.

Not to forget Ancient Battlefield is the only background that is suitable for the intended MOBA mode.

When starting the MOBA mode, the blank areas of map is filled, but the now-completed map is bad. Really not attractive:
The transparency of curtains in middle of map gives huge disadvantage to human players, computers are not affected at all
Trees are very annoying. They did the job in shielding projectiles but obstruct movement and vision heavily
Crops are also nasty in blocking views

Towers have nice graphics but their apparent bodies don't match the actual body hitboxes.

The death timer isn't easy to see if foreground scenery objects block the view, and if you die there is no way to prevent being blocked from seeing your timer.

80 Micro Graphics

Projectiles and objects exclusive to this mod have good transitions. The horse is surprising good looking despite its confusing control. Animations are smooth although the words in global timer can be difficult to see.

But I won't take this part as important as other parts in this mod, because most of transitions done are from ripped sprites, that means actual work mostly revolves around processing foreign sprites.

35 Macro systems

This mod revolves utilizing soldiers and using skills to outmaneuver the opposite team.
It means the critical way to assess the mod is how its systems facilitate a comprehensive experience of Tower defense and attacking.

As I said in the beginning of the review, the author seems to have little awareness in amending a foreign system properly into LF2 system.

Firstly, I will talk about the lethal errors of this mod:

The reward for killing an enemy is john's heal ball which heals no brown portion of HP.
Contrary to this, the milks that are dropped regularly in middle of battlefield have significantly larger endurance (can withstand at least 3 Blastpush) and can heal very large amount (likely at least 250 brown HP, not to forget milk restores MP too)

The milks spawned in middle of map give very large advantage to any player that can steal properly, while it doesn't seem to be problem in 1v1 and early game, this has very large impact once the first tower of either side is demolished. The increased number of minions can be easily ordered to stall around or in front of the milk spawning place, that gives a constantly magnifying advantage which can easily unbalance a game.

The rewards of battling the enemy team and neutral creeps are completely irrational.
While killing enemies can raise experience of a team, the reward for experience seem to be minimal to the rewards for demolishing a tower. Also there is little experience rewarded by killing heroes compared to soldiers.

Control of horse is extremely painful, even after continuous practice. It must be revamped to be as simple as racing cars in RN or NeuerStern or completely removed.

Hitboxes of towers are not properly adjusted, i have hard time to use every projectile to aim for tower, and air attacks always miss even though the tower graphic is high enough for any jump attack to land. Even land attacks have difficulties to aim correctly. In contrary AI characters have exceptional accuracy in using normal punches and projectiles to damage towers. It's totally unfair.

45 Micro systems

.... Now to the less evil parts of this mod:

When neutral characters are dead they become indestructible heavy weapons, if you throw them onto trees they will "hug" the tree until someone blasts them away. Needless to say ultra-durable dead bodies are unintuitive, and enemies can easily use dead neutral creeps beaten by you if they get a glimpse of chance.
Also it's not recommended to waste 30 sec of time dragging dead bodies to base to gain a 10 sec reduction of revival time.

Running back to the base for restoration could be hasty, but the worst part is you don't automatically restore health in starting area. I would recommend to put the innermost tower further away from starting area and use a groupheal there. A choice that changes less is to use large number of specialized milks (instead of one at a time) that cannot be taken out from the starting area.

Death timer is increasing too slowly.

I cannot blame for the lack of health indication for each tower, but it's just an essential feature for any tower defense game.

The ambush feature is not practical: You should not be idle in a MOBA game to become invisible, you just waste valuable time clearing waves. Even if you can ambush towers after clearing a wave it's very unpopular choice provided you still need to deal with enemy heroes.

Demolishing a tower rewards players with milks. It doesn't improve the quality of your army but encourages stealing for both teams. Again, it further encourages stacking army although not to a serious extent.

... There is a large number of efforts just to make the whole system work, I understand that, but even the minor systems of this game are not comforting to players, it's like only a basic framework is done in the mod and large amount of anomalies swarm wildly inside this mod. In other words, I feel the author is being smug just because he can stick everything he wants into this mod, and forget even the details of making the game fair and manageable.

As I played in Demo and versus mode (the author didn't recommend it) and tried several games of MOBA, I also found out the AI for most characters are glitched, fighters generally cannot use moves except for D>A, and some sub-characters are glitched in different matters, including Mark cannot use D>J and Monk and Justin cannot use any move.

N/A Balance

There is no balance change in any inherited character. It's strange the damage output is generally lower because AIs are glitched and (I suspect) the overall damage has been reduced.

25 Intuitiveness

The overall flow of the game is visible even without readme. However, neutral creeps and horse are unmanageable. There are a lot of hindrance inside this game even though the basic mechanics work. As I tried in a play as Henry, I am forced to use Run-rowing (>>D) repeatedly to get across trees and to steal milks. Minions both following and disobeying your command is generally hard to master.

However, I will give a VERY LOW intuitiveness score on this mod because almost everything that I learned in previous MOBAs and LF2 versions do not work here, and the reward tables of this game are completely out of place.

40 Replay value

I basically won't recommend anyone who come across to stick to this mod long enough, because the system is generally rigged, having a large favor of stacking soldiers and stealing milks over killing enemies and dealing damage to towers

I cannot damage towers properly unless at least 10 friendly soldiers allow me to move just below towers, and even that I cannot know how much damage I have dealt to tower at all, I also feel powerless because I am forced to bring large enemies to overpower towers which I think I'm dealing minimal damage to towers no matter which fighter I chose.

46 Overall Score
Although the score without any graphical content will be only 40.

NTSD II is a product of NTSD team, which is a continued product of NTSD (okay I know this description is lame)
The NTSD team is surprisingly abundant of developers and testers compared to most other versions and mods.

This version is aimed to entertain Naruto fans by replicating the environment of ninja fighting, techniques of ninjas and some funny stage mode.

I didn't bother to find a proper newest version of NTSD2, because the newest versions are mostly hosted on unstable sites, which by now should have all taken down the archive of NTSD2.
As such the v2.0 I am reviewing can be downloaded in this post, and is not the newest version of the game.

Despite a lot of efforts put into systems and sprites in this version, I find this unsatisfying:

Battle mechanics are unreliable, especially withdrawal
Combo is generally nonexistent, and any character who has prescribed combo can overpower other players easily
The overall color theme tries to smash too much detail into unnecessarily little spaces
The effects although with beautiful graphics, fails at execution
Hitboxes are improper, speed of moves are unreasonable
Some gimmicks are very frustrating

87.5 Originality

Most of graphical content of this version are either ripped from other sourced or hand-drawn.
While the new mechanics, sprites and effects are highly different from original LF2 style, unfortunately it rarely escapes the shadow of the Naruto series.

From some view it might look like ripoff of other Naruto games, I will explain further.

85 Marco Graphics

While the interface, character and effect sprites are original and highly detailed, there exists some repetition of sprites and some moves are using oversized sprites which may hinder sight (even if the game is slowed down)

55 Micro Graphics

There are lots of bugs swarming across this game:

Many of character and effect sprites have not yet fixed positions
Execution is confusing and poor:
1. Some moves are difficult to distinguish, like Sasuke's D>A and a weapon that sprays water
2. Withdrawal system is very confusing and requires too much concentration, because sight is hindered badly
3. Character sprites are too small to distinguish moves
4. Lack of transition frames

I don't like how the selection screen tries to put undersized character strength descriptor and makes the character portrait too small
Not to forget you select characters by pressing Left and Right, not Up and Down, yet the character portrait prompts you to scroll vertically.
(It is more apparent in another version iirc)

37.5 Macro systems

I reckon it to be generally unfavorable to play in versus and some stages.

I gave up after playing 4 versus matches because control is highly confusing, and the readme adds much unnecessary complexity.
But tbh, there are a number of critical factors that urges me to stay away from this version:

There is generally no balanced combo to be used:
I did expect I could at least throw a weapon and do a running punch, just to deal some extra damage, or perform a simple combo.
I failed miserably, a few AI characters do know to do simple combos, but very rarely over 4 hits and very rarely actually uses different related moves together.
Weapon throwing is painful, you do not even have a Blastpush move that bashes a weapon to daze a nearby enemy.
Jumping is highly inconsistent
The feature of clinging to buildings can interrupt combos, even basic punch attack chains
Buildings hinder movement and sight in nasty ways
Hitboxes of melee attacks are very inconsistent
Withdrawal is very inconsistent and annoying
Health bar is using olive green which doesn't stand out well when surrounded by decorated bar borders
Backgrounds although I see much efforts are put into them.... they look like pathetic ripoffs of Arcade game BGs. What a waste of BG potential.

For stage mode:
I don't understand why pawns in Stage 1-1 are yelling in voice of Naruto, nevertheless because I have low control in character, it quickly becomes very messy.
Stage 2 features survival mode which is actually a spamfest, including Kakashi that repeatedly teleports behind you to slash you EVERY 0.8 SECONDS, Naruto that spams his copies while being invulnerable, Sasuke who calls teleporting thunder regularly, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
Stage 3 urges you to throw black balls at pawns to kill them, but throwing is pathetic because eveyone is jumping too low and running too fast...

I crashed when loading Stage 4, I feel it is not worthy to try loading it again.

40 Micro systems

I appreciate how much efforts are put into dialogs, placement of objects and prescribed combos, but there is not much to give apart of these.
Again, the execution is poor.

40 Balance

Because I cannot properly find any un-prescribed combo, I assume characters should have similar strength.... initially.
However some characters do have significantly powerful moves that chain into themselves.
Even basic attacks seem to differ greatly between characters despite they all use melee and punch range is similar.

There are also some unsettling burst damage (up to 220% of original damage) regarding wall combos

65 Intuitiveness

I remember a version featuring "catching prescribed attacks" not existing in this version. Other systems are collection of using hit_d,j,a in falling or lying situations. The weapon system although good-looking, has not been properly rectified. AI users generally have difficulty using weapons.

The move list is a long list of branched moves. It can be quite difficult to memorize and use moves properly. I suggest largely reducing number of moves as not to blindly replicate some standards to imitate strength levels in Naruto.

60 Replay value

While it has quite large volume of original sprite and mechanic content, its performance is lackluster for poorly performed movement and combos, unsuitable and unfair stages and scenarios, and lack of new value apart from being derived from the Naruto series.

57.5 Overall Score