High on Life 2 Switch 2 Review

High on Life 2 Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

I quite enjoyed High on Life when it came to the original Switch, and even more so on my second playthrough with the Switch 2 Edition. Despite a few unscripted humour moments that made me feel like the writers had just discovered how to swear, the blend of narrative, comedy, and satisfying shooting mechanics ultimately came together to create a pretty great shooter. Now, High on Life 2 is here, aiming to take everything to the next level. What’s it like? Put on your bounty suit, grab your Gatlian, and prepare for a lot of F-bombs as we review High on Life 2 on Nintendo Switch 2.

High on Life 2 picks up after the events of the first game, throwing you into a montage of life as the famous bounty hunter who took down the G3 Cartel. It’s a clever way to reintroduce players to the world while doubling as a tutorial, using a series of quick set pieces to get you back into the action. The story then opens up during the first mission, where you discover that humans are once again on the menu thanks to the sinister Rhea Pharmaceutical Corporation. Before long, you’re tasked with systematically hunting down the organisation’s key figures in another mission to save humanity. I’ll leave the setup there, as anything more starts to venture into spoiler territory.

What I will say is that I think both the writing and overall narrative are stronger this time around. Much of that comes down to how the comedy is structured. The game still enjoys going off on absurd tangents, but it has a much better sense of when to end a joke. In the original, some gags dragged on well after the punchline had landed; in the sequel, those moments are used more sparingly, making them much more effective. One early highlight takes place on the planet Concon, where everything revolves around conventions, and your first objective is simply helping your crew find a car park. I won’t spoil the payoff, but it was delivered so well that I was genuinely laughing out loud while playing. There’s still plenty of vulgar humour that can wear thin, particularly from your Gatlian, Sweezy, who seems to delight in calling you a dipshit and dropping F-bombs every chance she gets; even so, the larger set pieces and comedic moments hit far more consistently than they did in the first game, making High on Life 2 the funnier experience overall.

High on Life 2 sticks to what it knows best with its first-person shooting, although this time around it introduces a major new traversal mechanic in the form of your skateboard. It’s implemented really well and even expands your combat options, allowing you to charge into enemies or press R2 to launch your skateboard at distant targets before it returns to your possession. It makes combat feel much more aggressive and rewards you for taking on groups of enemies with style. The enemies themselves are also far more exciting to fight than in the previous game. There’s a healthy variety in both their appearance and attack patterns, and combat encounters quickly become a ballet of bullets, curse words, and explosions. Pieces of enemy armour break away as you deal damage, while dodging or countering melee attacks with a well-timed press of R2 is consistently satisfying.

Your Gatlians’ secondary fire also returns and continues to play a major role in both combat and puzzle solving. Unfortunately, the puzzle design is where things begin to lose momentum. Much of the game revolves around using the Lugblob creature to power doors, Sheath’s electrical harpoon to activate machinery, or a combination of the two. The first few puzzles are clever enough, but the game relies on this formula so often that it starts to feel repetitive. Instead of breaking up the action, these moments frequently bring it to a standstill just as the combat is finding its rhythm. That pacing issue is made worse by some of the game’s deliberately obnoxious sequences. The low-poly world, for example, feels like it goes on far too long as you’re forced to sit through a financial wizard podcast, or being forced to speak to civilians to stop an execution. Regardless of what you do, the outcome doesn’t really change, and while moments like these fit the game’s absurd sense of humour, they can also become frustrating. I think these sections would have worked much better if the game had allowed you to choose how to approach the objectives rather than forcing you to do it both ways for the sake of some dialogue. The skateboard traversal puzzles, however, have the opposite effect. They’re fast-paced, fun to complete, and do a great job of keeping your momentum going as you weave through the environment.

Much like the combat and writing, the visuals have also been taken up a notch, thanks to Unreal Engine 5, a demanding engine that has produced mixed results on the Switch 2. Squanch Games has managed to create a visually impressive world, albeit with a few trade-offs to get it running on Nintendo’s hardware. The environments are bright, colourful, and packed with alien citizens going about their daily lives. The world hub, Arcadia, is particularly enjoyable to explore thanks to its personality and charm, while the other areas deliver that same distinctive style on a smaller scale. The performance, however, is where High on Life 2 struggles. It targets 30 frames per second and stays fairly close to that goal most of the time, but noticeable frame pacing issues can make combat and some of the larger set pieces appear choppy. It reminded me a lot of how High on Life performed on Switch 2 when it first launched. It’s certainly playable, but players hoping for a consistently smooth experience may come away disappointed. I also experienced crashes to the Home Menu roughly every hour or two during my playthrough, including one while I was exploring the accessibility options for this review. Those crashes only added to the technical frustrations. It’s a shame these issues hold the game back because High on Life 2 is bigger, bolder, and better than its predecessor in almost every other aspect. If Squanch Games can improve the performance and stability with future patches, this could become one of the stronger first-person shooters available on the platform. For a more detailed performance and graphics breakdown, you can check out our High on Life 2 Nintendo Switch 2 Graphics and Performance Breakdown on our YouTube channel.

For my bounty hunters looking into accessibility, there are several options here to make your time in High on Life 2 more enjoyable on Switch 2. These include subtitles, UI scaling, speaker indicators, aim assist, colour correction modes, and the ability to reduce the frequency of enemy and Gatlian chatter. High on Life 2 also supports Joy-Con mouse mode and gyro controls for players who prefer those aiming options. Surprisingly, however, gyro aiming is only active while aiming down the sights. Since the shooting mechanics don’t revolve around aiming down sights in the same way as games like Call of Duty, I found myself wishing there was an option to have gyro controls enabled at all times.

At just under $60 AUD, High on Life 2 hits a great price point for a 15-hour shooter-adventure that should be an easy recommendation for fans of Rick and Morty. There are plenty of collectibles to track down and secrets to uncover, giving completionists a good reason to keep exploring after the credits roll. High on Life 2 improves on its predecessor in almost every area. The writing is sharper, the gunplay is more engaging, and the new skateboard mechanics add another layer to combat and traversal. Sure, it stumbles with repetitive puzzle design and a few frustrating pacing decisions, but fans of the original will still have a blast playing it on Switch 2. The biggest issue with High on Life 2 is its technical performance. While the jokes and comedic set pieces are often hilarious, the frame pacing issues and regular crashes are no laughing matter.

So, What’s it Like? High on Life 2 is like High on Life, but bigger and better.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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