For fans of Death Note, a must-buy. For casual gamers, wait for a US release.
Gameplay: The game plays somewhat like a board game. Instead of being a psychological match to gain or deplete trust like the first game, the second game takes place in the city (divided into squares) and requires the player to eliminate the opposing team within the turn limit of each stage. The player controls either the "L" or "Kira" team and attempts to arrest the members of Kira's team or kill off all major members of L's team, respectively. The team members are represented by humanoid pegs, red for Kira's team and blue for L's, which each occupy a square. Each member of the team has a certain amount of movement points per turn and can take an action before or after using the movement points, generally. As Kira, the goal is to kill all major opposing enemies. As far as I can tell these are people like Matsuda, Light's dad, Ray Penbar, etc. There are some generic police that show up but they are not essential to kill (in my experience thus far). To kill the opposition, Kira uses the Death Note as a trap, which is placed on a square. Get an opposing team member to walk onto the square and the screen plays dramatic music and shows a picture of his/her demise. But Kira's job is not that easy. Kira must reach squares with "!" in them to further the story and he/she must kill the opposition within the respective amount of turns. Also, cameras are all over the city and they will reveal Kira's position to the police/FBI; however, Kira can break the cameras, which attracts police attention for better or for worse. Kira can also see all police members on the map.
As L's team, the goal is to arrest any and all Kira team members on the map. L's team cannot see the Kira members unless they are detected by a hidden camera. The Kira members usually break cameras which helps the player to figure out their position. Playing as L's team is noticeable tougher since the Kira team is hidden and only secret/hidden cameras pick up on their movements. Moving around is exactly the same, though it seemed like L's team could do less per turn than Kira could on his turn.
To move around the city, the player clicks and drags their team member to where they want them to move. To get from one side to the other, there are bus lines and subway lines that a player can spend points to use. For each stage, a certain amount of points are allotted to use for these transportation modes. To access the abilities menu, simply click on the team member to see their abilities, such as break camera, fix camera, place trap, and sprint ahead more spaces to name a few.
Graphics: The graphics are not anything spectacular. The city is just black and green lines with the streets where the action takes place. The team members are red and blue pegs. But, for those who like the anime and like gallery collections with their games, the game provides nicely drawn pictures of the camera broken or fixed, the characters dying, action and dialogue scenes and much more that get added to the gallery.
Sound: The music is a nice set of Jazz songs that actually works really well with the gameplay. The commercials for the game do not do the music justice. The music is noticeable at first but it blends into the background as the action picks up. It might get old after a while but when one has to concentrate on where they want to move, the music does not distract. It works well.
Conclusion:
I really like this game and I'm a huge fan of the series. If you're a fan of the series, definitely pick this game up, but maybe wait for a price drop. Sure, the game's in Japanese but a little trial-and-error and image guides (see gamebrink's review) help get the action under way. It’s an original experience, but the repetition and the language barrier will probably turn off most casual and non-fan gamers. Either wait for an actual US released (probably a long time away if ever) or wait for translation guides.