Hotel Dash 2 Review

Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries is one in a long line of popular Dash titles. These games have remained popular over the years for a reason; they offer some of the finest examples of what the time management genre has to offer. Is Hotel Dash 2 a worthy addition to your gaming library? Read on to find out.

Meeting Everyone's Needs is a Frenzy!

Be prepared to click like mad in order to keep up with the wants and needs of hotel patrons. Hotel Dash 2 will give players a new appreciation for the hard work and dedication of hotel staff in real life as they rush to deliver room service, towels, pillows, luggage and more to tired, impatient guests.

Having the ability to queue up tons of different commands in a chain is really what makes this fast paced game work. Flo is dashing around the screen without stopping most of the time during gameplay, yet the queue continues to keep things in order as long as players can keep track of what they're doing.

It can be frustrating to have Flo run by a pile of dirty bedding while on her way to the washing machine, but there was really no other way to program the game while keeping things fast and approachable. The ability to insert new tasks into the existing set of user created commands would have been nice, but it would have vastly over-complicated the controls.

Funny Storyline is Sure to Please Longtime Dash Fans and Newcomers Alike

The introductory cutscene is presented in comic book format and is skippable for players that are uninterested. In this scene, we see the mayor and Flo talking about a major predicament. Flo apparently managed to talk the mayor into building a convention center for his city, but he didn't spend his funds wisely. He sank the entire budget into the convention center itself without accounting for the fact that he had also agreed to maintain 5 luxury hotels in order to accommodate guests to their city in comfort and style. The city will lose their bid for the International Fry Festival if he can't live up to the agreement, but the mayor has no money for new hotel construction.

Flo uses her ability to see the potential in situations to find a workable solution. Rather than building brand new hotels from the ground up she decides to improve and renovate 5 existing hotels until they reach luxury status. Fans of the series will notice that this is what Flo has always done from the first game on, and her constant personality is an asset to the continuity of the series.

Strategy is Key to Advancing

Scoring bonuses is crucial in order to reach the monetary goal required for advancement. Each guest has a color and bonuses are given for putting them in a room that matches. As patrons line up and end up impatiently waiting for a room it becomes more and more difficult to keep color chain bonuses going without losing customers. Resetting these bonuses is a painful choice that must be made in order to keep from losing guests altogether.

Another area that requires some careful thought is in upgrading. Players are given full control over the upgrading which adds tons of value to the game but also leaves players open to the potential of choosing an upgrade path that's less than ideal.

For example, I opted to max out the speed of the elevators, upgrade the cart to the largest size and also make renovations that would result in patrons being less impatient. As a result I never lost a customer, but at later levels I found myself struggling to come close to the minimum earnings to clear the level. If I had upgraded the quality of the rooms instead of the speed of service, this wouldn't have happened. I messed up, and it makes me happy. Why? I like games that give me control. I'll know better next time! Apparently balance, rather than speed, is key.

Quality Graphics and Pleasant Sound

The animation for Flo is cute and well done, and she's a pleasant character to play as. This is important since players will be seeing a lot of her over the course of the game. Overall, the graphics in Hotel Dash 2 are quite impressive. In this title, the designers never fully stray from the comic book type theme the series is known for, but they felt free to clean it up a bit and made it as bright and polished as possible. The result is a crisp, sharp looking art style that is on par with today's animation on television and on the web.

In addition, the effects are realistic and eye catching while still managing to blend with the comic book theme. The bubbles that billow up from the washer are a great example. It is a nice touch since we all know that good quality hotels do tons of laundry. The hotels in Hotel Dash are no exception, meaning that players will be doing lots and lots of laundry! The pollen that floats down from the trees of the first hotel is lovely looking too, all sunlit and glowing as it makes its way down to the earth below. All the beauty of nature without the sneezing. What could be better than that?

It's the details that set a game apart from all the rest, and Hotel Dash 2 got all the little details right.

Each of the 5 hotel themes is brilliant and stunning in its own unique way, making working through each hotel a treat.

It's the Same Old, Same Old

The customers in this game may initially seem new and unique but it quickly becomes clear that they are simply repackaged and easy to figure out. If players have played the first Hotel Dash game, they will have patrons figured out in no time. Spicing things up a bit with some surprising personalities would have been a nice touch that sadly wasn't taken advantage of.

Conclusion - A Good Choice For Fans of the Dash Series

Overall, this game is a total winner for any fan of the Dash series. Would it be worth purchasing if your game library contains a lot of other time management games? In this reviewer's opinion, yes. Additionally, this game will appeal to many fans of puzzles which require good memory skills since success in this game depends largely on the ability to anticipate the actions of hotel patrons from memory. Those who know they hate time management games would be wise to skip this title, but most other players will find it worthy of consideration.

Review by Alice Flynn Alice Flynn is a gaming enthusiast and journalist from Los Angeles, CA. She is currently obsessed with obscure foreign dramas, making tofu taste edible and the latest, greatest computer games.

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