YMMV / The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation

• Anticlimax Boss: Death Mwauthzyx could be viewed as one. His attacks are slow and well-telegraphed, and his robotic minions provide a steady supply of beer to heal yourself up. He's less challenging compared to CAT-209, Dark Onward/Invader, and definitely Fred Fucks from the first game. The Fuckotron 9000 is slightly more challenging in that the minions summoned are more varied and more dangerous (such as the instant-kill Leatherfaces), but it also drops power-ups that include Super Mecha Death Christ, which takes away a huge chunk of its health with each use and thus trivializes its difficulty.
• Awesome Music: ASSimilation keeps the trend of great music; this time every world even has variants of their themes.
  • The Nerd Room. See Suspiciously Similar Song below and the Shout Out page for why.
  • Nerd Gaiden: Hang Dong '97 and Raw Fish Rampage.
  • Browntown: Dookie Dookie Panic, God Kelp Us and Croc Conundrum.
  • Board James: Hippo Hell, You'll Get Caught Up and Two-Sided Die.
  • Area 52: Security Break, Slide Down the Shaft and WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhy.
  • Nostalgia Critic's Boss Theme: A Critical Battle and Final Showdown.
  • Final Tower: Virtual Insanity.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Sush'em Up" gives us J Li Tanuki, who serves as the Nerd's mount for the stage and has a long-running feud with Scrotoro. The Nerd is left asking what the hell all that was about when he hits the plunger to destroy (end) the stage.
• Breather Boss: The Nerdy Turd, which comes after a Down the Drain level based on the infamous dam level from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989). Unlike the other rival battles, which can be challenging due to their random jumping pattern, the Turd merely makes small hops back and forth, making it easy to jump over. If you have the Fukonami Swear N' Scout 9001, it becomes even easier because it reveals elevated platforms where it can't hit you.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • For those who hate The Post-The Review Must Go On version of The Critic for his many Kick the Dog moments, getting to kick his ass over and over again before he dies an Undignified Death having failed to steal The Nerd's glory can be quite satisfying.
  • Every non-boss level ends with the Nerd stepping on a TNT switch to blow up the entire level, often while spouting a Bond One-Liner. After all the frustration That One Level put you through (especially the final level, Virtual Insanity), it's satisfying to destroy the entire thing.
• Contested Sequel: While the sequel retains the humor, has less instant deathtraps, and adds several new features, the levels are considered less unique that the ones in the first AVGN game.
• Rated M for Money: The trailer of the game parodies this with only one content descriptor: Fucked Up Shit.
• Replacement Scrappy: Some fans dislike Fred Fucks replacing The Nostalgia Critic in the Updated Re-release (due to licensing issues), feeling that the Critic is a better fit as The Rival due to their long-running in-character feuds and guest appearances in each other's shows.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop:
  • There are less death blocks, several bosses provide healing items during the fight, on lower difficulties your lives are refilled after beating a stage, and you can find upgrades to ease the difficulty further. Also, “YOLO” mode was removed,^note Though the Deluxe version restores it as "One Credit Champ", fortunately without an achievement attached to it. and the other difficulty levels are toned down a notch (for example, the new highest difficulty, “Fucking Impossible”, now gives you two hit points).
  • The powerups are improved as well. "F Bombs" can one-shot most normal enemies from an elevated position where just blasting them would be difficult. Kegs, though you can only hold 1 at a time (however kegs do stack in the Deluxe edition), refill your health completely and can be used any time. Another powerup separate from the "sub weapon" system acts like the Super Scope from the first game in that you lose it if you get hit, but instead of increasing power it allows you to fire 3 spreading bullets at once, and it can stack with itself to increase the shots to FIVE at once. Finally, the rocks from the first game make a return appearance, but even THEY are improved, sporting increased damage and the ability to ricochet and hit the same enemy multiple times when used in the right way.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The Nerd Room BGM is admitted by the composer to be based on a MIDI track that was submitted as the Overworld theme for Zelda's Adventure but is blatantly not (there IS no overworld theme). That said, the MIDI track is itself Awesome Music so nobody is complaining.
• That One Level: Virtual Insanity. It's a gruelling gauntlet through the toughest challenges the game has to throw at you. Many players have trouble just getting off the ground floor, which makes you Wall Jump back-and-forth across a One-Hit Kill laser with spinning flames and death blocks and requires extremely precise timing to pull off, and even if you survive that, you still have to contend with buzzsaws everywhere, a huge monster gauntlet near the end, and the Nostalgia Critic or Fred Fucks (depending on version), who has no easily abused attack pattern and thus becomes a pain at higher difficulty levels. Though it's expected that a final level be difficult, it particularly exemplifies this trope in the Deluxe version where it's likely to be the one level preventing you from unlocking the bonus chapter, Tower of Torment. It's the one exception to the game's general Sequel Difficulty Drop, arguably surpassing anything from the original game or the Deluxe version's bonus levels.