Vox Populi Vox Dei 2

I played mostly for the nostalgia value from back when the original game was on flash.
Biggest thing for me is, the controls are not great. It's not very responsive, death animations are slow, landing surfaces are very small and unforgiving at times, and the leap... I wish there was an easy way to tell how much I'm going to be dashing, because it's an important mechanic. It helps you move faster horizontally, but doesn't tell you where you'll land, which is frustrating.
It teaches you to think and solve puzzles, then it makes you do precision platforming, then suddenly there's a boss fight, then there's stealth section with unclear lines of sight... it's kind of all over the place and there are certainly good stuff in there, but hard to say that the overall experience is enjoyable.
Aesthetics are pretty neat, with the blood falling off through the floors, that I must admit. It's a bit goofy when there's blood dripping from the ceilings and the enemies are completely oblivious though.

I didn't know it was going to be so difficult having played the original flash game and seeing it wasn't THAT bad. And yet, the game not only demands precision platforming, but also has the nerve to make you build and lose velocity where your character doesn't stop or start moving immediately, causing you to conveniently slide into the many obstacles it will throw your way, as if dying upon being hit wasn't punishing enough. The last straw was this room full of lasers and an acid pool with narrow platforms to jump on, which gives you the smallest margin for error. It is very frustrating. If I had known Vox Populi Vox Dei 2 was going to be some B.S. like "I Wanna Be The Guy", I would have never bought it in the first place.

Play this game if you like B.S. difficulty platform games.

Just Bad.

A followup platfomer to the first game.

I'll admit, i'm sad that the third game will likely never happen and I'll never get closure to the story, but that is tangentially relevant to my review of this game.

This game expands the story of the first game while removing/changing the focus of a lot of the gameplay from making tough choices of which werewolf to gore first(and to gore them quickly/carefully) to fast and precise platforming that requires a lot of trial and error.
Missing a jump means death 99% of the time.
There is a flying minigame section near the end of the game which alone costs about 1 hour on your first playthrough. 10 minutes of learning how to use the bird you ride on, 50 minutes of memorizing the patterns of all the bullet hell things coming at you and killing those things as they come on screen. Thankfully the game has frequent checkpoints during this section, but still.
The final sequence is very well done and super interesting, but my problem with it is how it suggests the third game is going to be coming soon and very much hypes up the possibility of this world of machine-gun-chest werewolves versus a singular ninja, trying to take her kid to safety, and all of a sudden there happens to be this singular *GOOD* werewolf who saved her?!

Frankly, I would call that a spoiler but this game is from 2015 and the reveal doesn't matter unless you played through the first game(which isn't on steam).

Heck, I don't even know if the developers are still... well... alive.

in any case, 7/10. Worth the 3 dollars.
7/10. Undercooked.

Pretty short yet nostalgic experience from the original flash game. The mechanics or “gameplay” did get hard as you progressively move forward, but it’s nothing too difficult. The revamped designs for the wolves were definitely cute to look at. Can’t wait to see what Episode 3 has to offer!

This game is one of the worst designed ones I've ever played. Dev is missed what made the first one so popular. Braindead mechanics and "gameplay"

If you're looking for the experience the first episode had to offer, you won't find it here. While the nostalgia factor is definitely here, the game feels very different from the first episode of the series, focusing mainly around platforming segments, rather than interaction with the enemies.

Core mechanics from the first game are still present, pounce being the only way to deal with enemies at the same time being a useful movement tool.


There are some segments of the game which require pure luck to pass through if it is your first time in a certain area, as if the game is softly encouraging player's death, boss fights could serving as an example, the first time you face the first boss you have no idea which part of the floor is going to open first, therefore you have to make a 50/50 guess to pick a side you're going to attack from.

Music is amazing, I absolutely adore it, especially during first levels of the game and the airborne segment, sadly soundtrack can't save a mediocre game.

I sincerely hope that if the third part is ever released, which is quite doubtful, it'll allow more ways of dealing with enemies, as well as changing the focus from a common platformer feel to actual Vox Populi Vox Dei that we had a chance to see in the first episode.

I really didn't want to downvote this. Vox Populi Vox Dei was my favorite flash game of them all. Hell I installed flashpoint a while back just to play it again and I didn't know back then a part 2 was out.

But this.. This isn't vox populi vox dei.
If you played the flash one, remember how the game was centered around using your cloaking with clever timing to murder all the wolves? Here you lose the cloaking ability mighty soon. Lemme repeat that. You lose one of the main features of Vox Populi Vox Dei close to the start.

The whole game is pretty much a balls hard platformer. It's clear the creator played "I wanna be the guy" (a game I completed by the way) and thought he wanted to do that as well.
It would be better if the controls weren't as slippery as they are, but hard pixel perfect platforming and you don't come to a stop the millisecond you don't hold the key down, ugh. Monumentum is not something to cherish in such games.
I lost ll interest by about the time where you have to control two dudes at the same time with different (deadly) obstacles. I dunno if you regain the cloaking at any point and I don't really care any more.
This.. Just isn't fun for me. Maybe it's your cup of tea, it isn't mine. And it isn't what vox populi vox dei was.

If you liked Vox Populi Vox Dei for what it was, you'll likely not enjoy this game. Then again, it's just three bucks, try it yourself.

good game, some parts are pretty difficult especially some achievements but controls, graphics and music are ok my note is 7/10

The game is very cool.Confusing, yet, nice story.The animation of literally flaying those wolves alive it's also just super funny and well made.Although the game has a few bugs, it's very easy to overlook them.The boss battles were so cinematic and atmospheric.It also had a few puzzles which were especially fun and entertaining.Not to mention the sound design, which was stunning.Overall very fun and catchy little game. I, personally, am looking forward to the sequel.

I found the first one online on like Andkon Arcade or something and deicided to try and find the rest, I dont think theres a 3rd one in the making but its Friggen good and even worth it.

Before i begin this review, i must say that i loved playing the Vox Populi Vox Dei 1 as i found it a fun and simple flash game that could be completed in a few minutes, the game had mostly puzzles and a few rooms in which you needed to time some jumps and a short simple story, but overall it was a nice simple game.

A N Y W A Y S . . .

Fuck Vox Populi Dei 2, it turned a short game in which you kill some furries as a ninja, into some dog shit platformer where you control a mentally handicapped blue man who doesn't know if he wants to be a cat with mental problems or a piece of soap, who has to go save his fetus girlfriend again from some limp dicked furfags.


first there is the platforming, which is utter garbage since the character controls as if he's sliding across the floor with Roller skates covered in semen which frankly was in the original game, but due to not much platforming it was okay ( also because it was a flash game ), but in this greasy flip flop of an experience, there is platforming EVERYWHERE.

Ontop of Mr. jizz feet, the obstacles are annoying as fuck. There are SO MANY obstacles in which you have to stop and wait for it to go away, along with sometimes having to learn a pattern for 10 seconds just to progress, only to die on the next spot were you have to learn ANOTHER pattern to continue.


The game also has bosses for some reason, i don't have too much problems with them they're pretty O K , except for the fact that some of these bosses require you to go on some platform that's constantly moving, there was also the tree boss which had these stupid platforms that moved whenever they felt like it, which got super annoying.


They even remove one of the original mechanics from the first game too, but it isn't somewhere near the end, or even mid section of the game, they remove it near the beginning after the first boss, ( which doesn't take long to get to ) hell they barely even use it too.

The new mechanics are fucking terrible, such as this one level in which you're in the sky and have to shoot enemies on a bird. The bird controls SLIGHTLY better then the main character, but it has a delay whenever you're about to move in a different direction which can get you killed a bunch.

There's also this other one that i wont spoil but jesus christ fuck that level.

Actually, fuck that, i will tell you.
There's a part in the game in which you have to control yourself and a clone, sounds cool right? WRONG, they both move in unison together and many of the levels take advantage by making these nut kicking part in which you have one clone move into a wall so that the other version of yourself makes the jump, it's so fucking annoying that after that i decided to call it quits on the game.

I had a better time taking a giant shit yesterday then playing this pile of Mole feces, the toilet clogged too and i bet my mom found plunging the toilet a better experience then this Pixel diahrea of a sequel.


I feel as if the game should've focused more on some kind of puzzles, since i believe platforming was only a minimal part of the original and plus the game itself was NOT made to be a platformer due to the characters Slippy Sliddy walking.


Anyways i hope the next game might be better since i found this to be a frustrating dissapointment since I've been waiting since i was a kid for Vox 1's cliffhanger ending to be resolved...

Vox Populi Vox Dei 2 is the continuation of a free online Flash game. When I discovered it, this fact both excited me and put me a little on edge as the only other thing under this developer's belt, that I know of, was said Flash game. Nevertheless, I paid the $3 in baited anticipation, as the original is a great little game experience on its own. Unfortunately, my gut was mostly right to be cautious about the sequel. Vox 2 ultimately amounts to a generic, though decently made, indie platformer. The original's claim to fame was its physics and method of dispatching your enemies, as you were to tackle them, eviscerate them mercilessly, then reposition yourself to assure you weren't exposed. The challenge was in the killing method taking several seconds and leaving you vulnerable to attack. The levels were mostly based around timing your jumps so that you could tackle an enemy either without being seen or attacking in such a way that landed you behind cover safe from enemy attack. The original also had a stealth mechanic which allowed you to sneak past enemies. It wasn't truly critical to beat the game, but it did allow for less tedious success. It's worth noting that Vox 2 arbitrarily tears this stealth mechanic away from the player early on and, as far as I can tell, never restores it. For the most part Vox 2 strays from the original's design philsophy in exchange for a less interesting and more frustrating focus on precision platforming. There's nothing inherently wrong with altering a game's direction, but Vox 2 really doesn't do anything special with its new calling. The game's bones are fundamentally janky, with respawn animations throwing off your timing as you try to set a pattern for yourself level after level. This is paired with questionable level design and controls that feel ever so slightly less responsive than a player would want for this type of game. The positives of the game's core are reduced, as well. In the first Vox, your tackle sent werewolves sliding on their back across the screen as you ripped them open, giving a real sense of heft and momentum. Here you fly back a few feet, then stop dead on the ground. On top of that, the kill method now requires you to hit the space bar repeatedly instead of simply holding it down as you could in the first game. Being that this is the only real thing carried over from the first game, it's a shame that it is made so much more tedious, less satisfying, and less prevalent. The game does attempt to vary the basic precision platforming with other mechanics, such as a horizontal flight section. Similarly to the rest of its gameplay, however, Vox 2 doesn't do anything especially interesting or satisfying with these sections. Part of the reason Vox 2 seems to have sacrificed so much of its gameplay is in the name of its aesthetics and storytelling. This isn't entirely without merit, as the game sees you travelling a vast distance through fairly varied environments, which does convey a certain sense of wonder. QUICK SPOILER: This is really to no end, though, as there is no final cutscene, text screen, or render of your character having overcome his trials. All you are rewarded with is a stylized "to be continued" screen. END SPOILER. With Vox 2 having soiled its predecessor's merits, introducing a new gameplay philosophy that isn't engaging, and totalling a less than 2 hour experience, Vox 2 doesn't outshine its predecessor. If anything, it makes you want to replay it instead.

Vox populi

A fairly enjoyable action platformer it has a neat setting and i like the incredible small protag in a giant world aesthetic like Risk of Rain. It’s on the shorter side and what you see is what you get as far content.

This game oozes charm. I wasn't expecting much as I got this cheap when it went on sale recently, but man did this game satisfy. The trailer or screenshots really don't do it justice as there was some incredibly clever minimalist art (4th boss - so awesome) and the overall atmosphere was superb. Action and platforming hell mixed with some stealth... this game definitely was deeper and more varied than I had anticipated. That said...

I hated the last section of the game - the unforgiving lack of any checkpoint during that section nearly broke me but I pushed through and was greatly satisfied I did. Actually this game does have some very difficult, rage inducing parts but they are (for the most part) achievable with a few tries. It's certainly not Master Spy or anything that torturous (albeit wonderful),

Highly recommended to anybody that likes their platformers to have some teeth. 👍

I get what this game tried to do, and what it wanted to be. I also know what it should have been, and I'm a little dissapointed. It's a good game, but it isn't what I was expecting given its sequel status, and it really isn't what I wanted.

VPVD 1 was a completely different style of game; it was part stealth, part puzzle, and part platformer. The focus was on solving puzzles and killing bad guys. There were no death pits in VPVD 1, nor were there many lethal obstacles. Usually you were killed by a werewolf who had spotted you, and there were plenty of puzzles in between.

VPVD 2 is a good game, certainly, but not really a sequel to VPVD 1 in any sense but in name. There are virtually no puzzles, the stealth aspect goes out the window within the first few minutes of gameplay, and death pits and obstacles abound. What we really have is a reimagined Super Meat Boy.

If you like that style of game, then by all means, buy this game, but if you were looking for a really strong sequel to VPVD 1, you should turn elsewhere.

Nice atmosphere with very good controls. I got it cheap in a bundle, but I am also inclined to say that it is worth the 1,49 EUR on Steam sale. Give it a try if you like indie platformers with some decent difficulty.

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I think I liked this even a little better than the original Vox Populi Vox Dei. The gameplay varies nicely and it's not very expensive, and although you will die ALL. THE. TIME. you rarely have to start over from very far back. I think the only stage where the backtracking felt really obnoxious was the side-scrolling crow-flying wolf-shooting stage, and at least with that you could just shoot bad guys instead of jumping on them and then awkwardly ripping their guts out for fifteen minutes.

Oh, and the mechanic where you have to reveal the floor with the blood of enemies is a nice little mechanic, considering how much of the stuff splattered everywhere in both games.

I see this game as Super Meat Boy meets Another World. It's a fun little title, got cool pixel-art graphics, good challenge without being too hard. Nothing exceptional, but worth playing.

Vox Populi Vox Dei 2 is a pretty hard but fair platformer with puzzle parts and it has even a side-scrolling shooter insert.

Pixel art at its finest!
If you like this style and retro game mechanics you will be satisfied for sure.

It isnt too long but varied. It took me a few enjoyable hours to finish it. In view of the price its a really good deal.

Good old times... I remember playing the first game years ago. It's been six years, wow. I remember that I searched the whole internet for the second game. Now there it is. I almost forgot this series existed. Anyway, let's get to it.

Pros:
-Interesting and confusing story
-Gameplay
-Musics
-Laser shooting epic wolves.
-Epic boss fights.

Cons:
-Wolves don't have ding-dongs anymore.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I adored Vox Populi Vox Dei 1. I played it all the time in high school and loved it, it was a welcome change of pace from the standard flash platformers that overwhelm the market and was challenging, but still fair. I'm also a seasoned veteran of the platformer genre.

With that out of the way I need to state that Vox Populi 2 is not Vox Populi 1.

VP1 was a puzzle game with a side-scroller facade. There were minor platforming elements, but on the whole the game's focus was progressing past the baddies in your way by a means of stealth, planning and timing. Platforming mechanics like death pits and jumping gaps took a backseat to the design elements of the game.

VP2, however, tosses most of this out the window and stages itself like your typical indie platforming game. It has spike traps, projectile hazards, and jumping puzzles. A lot of the game relies on trial and error and sheer persistence to get through, so much so in fact that I feel compelled to compare it to "I Wanna Be the Guy".

At this point, although episodic, the story feels almost negligable. While the first game's plot was simple yet engaging, the story to this point has taken so many twists and turns that it feels more like a parody then something I'm interested in seeing through to the end.

The learning curve is pretty relentless as well: I found myself dying more than dozens of time on the first level of platforming. Maybe I'm just rusty, but I'm more inclined to blame the game's controls. They're simply not tight enough for the kind of precision platforming that VP2 demands of it's player. They feel slippery and it takes too long in some cases to get the horizontal momentum you need to be making it from platform A to platform B, which is why I found myself needing to take most of the jumps while hanging off the edge of platform A to compensate. In a game where you need to be making sudden stops and precise landings the controls should be built to match it.

Attacking werewolves also feels much less rewarding because of the controls, since mashing the space bar to do it at maximum speed is no longer an option. It seems to me to be because the player character can make another slash at his enemy after the previous attacking animation has ended. This makes the mashing feeling of destroying another creature feel far less rewarding and take the same amount of time every time instead of spurting blood on every key press a-la VP1.

The level design is poor as well. There are many cases in which you'll be committing to blind jumps and falls, relying primarily on the level to give you a checkpoint or platform to land safely onto. Even the spacing of checkpoints is relentless, one of the first jumping segments has you complete six different finicky jumping segments before allowing you a checkpoint.

There's another level early on where you encounter a machine stamping the floor of a hallway with spikes from above. By and large it's your standard 'wait until this hazard stops functioning before moving past it' type of timing puzzle, but it takes a good 10 seconds before complete its loop, which feels far too long to be waiting around to study it's pattern. What's more is there are 4 of them, each one is larger then the last and takes longer to complete as a result. Big elements of the design just feel poorly thought out at times which drags the gameplay to a screeching halt.

The design does attempt a few interesting turns later on when a stage uses it's blood particle mechanic to help the player see platforms. But for some reason it decides it needs a space shooter stage and a level that mirrors the player on the top and bottom half of the screen, forcing you to keep both sides alive. On the whole it's nothing that hasn't been used in a platformer game before, and to better effect then it achieves, so the question remains as to why they would choose to implement it at all?

Design issues aside, that's my main point of contention. I'm just left bewildered as to why the creators decided to scrap the puzzle formula to adopt a platformer approach. Vox Populi 1 was a game that used it's puzzle game design to great effect and I really was excited to see all the places a sequel could possibly go. However Vox Populi 2 just adapts to a saturated market and is just another platformer which makes the sequel immensely disappointing, and it's certainly not the game I was hoping for it to be.


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tl;dr

If you're a fan of difficult indie platformer/action games and willing to lose one or two lives to design choices, this game may be for you.

But

If you're expecting a sequel to Vox Populi 1 in the same style of gameplay, you may want to hold off on playing this one.

This game is weird. Super weird. One of the reasons you should buy it.

Other reasons:

*You play a ninja who murders werewolves who shoot lasers from their chest
*You murder a statue, a tree, and a giant lizard.
*You navagate a giant monster's intestines by popping its blood vessels and using the blood to reveal hidden blocks.
*The non-game (promotional, ect) art has an awesome Art Deco aesthetic, and who doesn't love Art Deco?
*It's cheap.
*It's challenging.
*If you buy it, they'll make an episode 3.

edit: finished the game. the end throws some really interesting puzzle mechanics at you. overall nice, but the one complaint about the entire game that i have is that the difficulty spikes a LOT. it's still fun, just kinda annoying sometimes.

the original was a nice puzzle-platformer that was immensely satisfying yet pretty short. go look it up if you haven't played it, it's free.

anyways, this game has more elements of "platform hell" than it does "puzzle", but both elements are still there. it reminds me of 1001 spikes in that aspect. speaking of 1001 spikes, expect a lot of unfair deaths here and there, but levels are typically short enough that it feels like a slap in the wrist. (at least where i'm at, i've beaten the game halfway and will update this review when i finish it). it's not really for everyone in this aspect

the platforming is VERY wonky and slip-slidey to begin with but you get used to it fast. beating the shit out of the werewolves is a lot more satisfying in this game because they're a lot harder to get at, but the button-mashing doesn't really feel right. minor inconvenience at most. just realize that it's probably gonna take 4-5 seconds to kill them compared to the first game, which was a lot faster if i remember correctly

the graphics are nice, gives me an "another world" vibe. before you complain about the pixel aesthetic keep in mind that the first one was made in a time before that kind of stuff became the norm. music is almost non-existant for atmospheric reasons, i'd assume.

verdict: a nice little puzzler that's worth its price but not for everyone. if you're on the fence about it, wait for a sale.