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Hikaru No Go GBA Two
   

Hikaru no Go 2 for the Game Boy Advance came out in Japan on July 18th, 2002. The story revolves around your character's life as a new Insei.

Official Website : [ext] http://www.konamijpn.com/products/hikaru2/index.html

Preorder at [ext] http://www.videogamedepot.com for US$48 plus shipping.


MikeNoGo: I've preordered already, and I'm looking forward to getting the game. I was unable to obtain a copy of HikaruNoGo GBA (1), so I made sure to grab up this one. Look here for a walkthrough and info after it comes out.


The strength of HnG 2 is HILARIOUS... they've made the non-winning/losing parts more interesting by having special effects, like slicing your opponent's stones in half, Sakura blossoms falling, etc etc. Not only that, but they realised that players got DARN bored waiting for the computer to make it's moves all the time, so they shortened that... sadly, the result is, the enchanced graphics and stuff takes up memory and processing power, plus reduced thinking time... it's actually even WEAKER than HnG 1 for GBA, I think that Akari, who was easiest in HnG 1 is like 2 stones stronger than like Nase, who is the 2nd weakest in HnG 2... either that or I'm getting stronger...

There's storyline and stuff which is ultra cool, but I suggest playing the non-story modes FIRST.. cause that's the way to win special effect stones, to design your own custom stone. You'll be playing a LOT of 9x9 games in story mode, as it's the main way to raise the opinion of Isumi, Waya etc of you. And they're so weak, you NEED to have some custom stones just to distract you from the futility of their struggles and stuff...

MikeNoGo: Survival Mode is fun though, even if a bunch of 9-stone handi, 10-1/2 reverse Komi games against Isumi probably make me weaker. Sometimes in the higher settings, Survival Mode has you play one color games too. Now that is a challenge, and it improves your memory.

Jasonred : The Go Engine of the game itself has a few flaws. It's not too incredibly awful at highest strength, somewhat like the First HnG game, but the problem is, they couldn't really figure out how to make the "weaker" characters weaker without turning them into brainless morons. The problem is you're starting with far from perfect Go playing. Next, it's programmed to make INTENTIONAL MISTAKES. So, very often, you can just watch your opponent play Suicide Go. Where your opponent fills in his eye instead of extending. Scary. Another important flaw, and one that hurts me in Survival Mode, is the game's score counting ability. As far as I can tell, it has no understanding of seki, and it has problems recognizing territory, especially in really large spaces. And it's dead stones part is dodgy. All in all, I recommend using the computer's area calculate option... not for your own playing use, but to make sure that the computer will count score properly! I often have to "prove" to the computer that groups are dead/alive before I can end the game. Bleh.

Campaign mode is a little weird. Even for almost beginners to Go who played the first game, they'll find most of the go playing to be too weak for them. (if they could finish the first game, they're too strong for most of this game). On the other hand, while my strength is only around 20k, (enough to MASSACRE most of the game's characters in 5 stone handicap matches), I was finding it difficult to answer quite a few of the (mandatory) problems given by the Go Institute. Also, these problems come in the earlier parts of the game. So, in a sense, the difficulty level drops. Weird.

Again, the computer's reduced thinking time is the Major Bonus. If they're going to lose this badly ANYHOW... at least do it quickly!


[ext] Game FAQ and walkthrough (ChessWhiz: This is a broken link -- shouldn't it be removed?)

just use this link: [ext] Game FAQ and walkthrough



This is a copy of the living page "Hikaru No Go GBA Two" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.