A game within a game.
and this game is a game based on that anime.
It is rather interesting because Go is a rather complicated board game that no programmers have successfully made a A.I capable of playing in human level. Many programmers tried, but they all failed because unlike other board games like chess, checkers, shougi, etc, Go is a board game that has incredible level of depth.
And this really shows in this game Hikaru no Go 2
Gameboy Advance is rather nice portable game station when it came out, but obviously it lacks much power it needs for this game. The time A.I takes for calculating next move takes ridiculously long. It takes minutes after each move, especially if you are playing on the 19x19 board and is in late in the game.
In other words, if you are on the subway and playing this game, chances are that you won't finish one game of Go on it.
Go is very long game to play even in real life. If two people play to the end without resigning, chances are it will take average of an hour, and that's from human reaction where people are much more responsive than this slow slow SLOW A.I
luckily for you, A.I is extremely poor and chances are A.I will resign when you are about 1/3 into the game because you dominate it so much.
Well to expect good go A.I from gameboy advance game is unrealistic, so to knock on it for that would be very unreasonable. The A.I does decent job to challenge players who have absolutely no knowledge about Go and is learning by playing this game, so to say the least, the A.I is competent for a game that is made to teach how to play Go. Also they seem to do some decent job differentiating level of skill between characters. Half of the times, you won't be able to notice it but sometimes you do see that some characters you face are just extremely poor Go players.
That is a good thing, because the special characters in the game that plays large role in the anime stands out (even if it is slightly) and does give you some sense of involvement with the world of Hikaru no Go.
And then there is story mode where you can unlock characters to play normal game of go. Story mode is slightly interesting as it gives you role of a character that has just become an Insei. Student of Go trying to become professional. The game progress through calender and you play ranking games and have tests certain days of the week. Other days you are free to select from limited selection of actions you can take (which usually involves playing rank free game of Go with some of the characters in the game)
There isn't much exploration as it is mostly just selecting from menu, but it is a neat touch.
The slow A.I doesn't effect too much in story mode thanks to smaller sized Go board in story mode games, allowing A.I to cut it's time in calculating. Although it sucks the fantasy of playing Go against your favorite anime characters in important match because smaller sized go board is not official go board and the level of depth just decreases heavily by the size, so it is difficult to take it seriously. However, considering the length it takes to play the darn game of 19x19 Go, this was needed cut.
What's nice about the story mode is extremely detailed tutoring in the beginning of the game. The game does good job of teaching you the basics of Go. It makes you participate while giving you lectures to keep your interest level high. If you want to learn about Go (and know Japanese) this game might be a good place to start.
The presentation of the game is neat. You see Go board and character models showing expression how the game is going. However, you look at the board in this tiny screen might hurt your eyes. After all Go is all about line and dots, but can't complain too much about that.
The nice part is voice acting. Unfortunately, during story mode all the lines are just text with no voice, but there are some segments of voice acting in this game. During the game, when A.I makes certain decisive move, you will see nice cut scene and special effects. Unfortunately, It is rare that the move is really decisive. Still, compared to most moves they are rather important moves that can effect the game if you don't react correctly.... most of the time.
it's a shame that music didn't make it from the anime. Anime Hikaru no Go is full of excellent soundtracks, but the game doesn't seem to have any of it, and music is pretty much on the poor side. Too bad, it could've really taken big advantage of good music.
Overall, Hikaru no Go 2 is competent game. It is interesting and entertaining while being somewhat educational (depending on if you think Go is worth learning)
If you can just bear with slow A.I response, and if you are fan of Hikaru no Go or Go, this short game might intrigue you enough to entertain you for a while.