The Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves

The original Denpa Men was a lovely surprise - a quirky RPG that was accessible yet deep, silly yet challenging, infantile yet clever.

The Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves doesn't mix the original formula up too much, although there are some notable differences, such as the way progression is handled.

Put simply, if you enjoyed the original Denpa Men, then you're going to need this follow-up too.

Enter the Den

The hero's wife and kids have been kidnapped, and so he's looking to you (and an army of Denpas) to hunt down the villains and get his family back.

Beyond the Waves first asks you to use your 3DS camera to hunt around your living room for floating Denpa Men and catch them with a net. These go to make up your party.

You then head out into the open world on the lookout for dungeons to crawl through and enemies to bash in the face repeatedly. As you kill enemies, your Denpa Men grow in level and skill, and you'll be able to push on and defeat stronger enemies.

The game is dripping in personality, from the funny little characters to the high-pitched voices to the vibrant colourful settings you're asked to roam around.

And the way in which fallen comrades stay dead makes you really think about how you play. You can choose to resurrect them for cash, or go on the hunt for more little men around your house.

Denpa-pa Denpa-pa

The simplified battle system, which allows you to automatically set your units to attack for you, makes a return, to great effect.

And there are some clever new additions as well. You can now jump instantly to areas you've already visited, while planting flowers and catching fish give you strategic options beyond those that were available in the original game.

Essentially, Beyond the Waves adds a lot more variety over the original game, making this a familiar yet enjoyable experience for Denpa fanatics.

But with this variety comes added grinding. You'll now find that in each new area you'll need to keep killing enemies over and over before moving onto the harder enemies.

This level-grinding makes the Beyond the Waves feel a lot more formulaic than its predecessor, although the aforementioned variety balances this out to a degree.

Nevertheless, this is the Denpa Men followup that fans have been hoping for, and it cements the series as one of the best RPG franchises on the 3DS.

The Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves

The Denpa Men 2 is the sequel we were hoping for, offering up quirky RPG action that is as challenging as it is silly
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Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.