It's gonna be while before we'll be getting our hands on Death Jr. II, so Backbone Entertainment's Chris Opdahl has decided to shed some light on the game before release day. In his developer's diary, he tells us all about two aspects to this game that they've been tweaking come the sequel: the story-telling system, and (our favorite) the revamped ranged combat system.

There's more than one way to tell a game's story as it moves, Chris says, and for DJ II , the developers have decided to use an in-game voice-over style - as the player goes through some of the less difficult areas, the game's characters start talking in-game, leaving the player to continue on their adventure without having to suffer those oh-so-beautiful-yet-annoying-as-hell cutscenes that totally throw off our gaming mojo -  the MGS and Xenosaga franchise will be remembered for this.

And to add flavor to the play, the game's dotted with incidental dialogue - characters and enemies will be saying candidly funny non-plot stuff that provides you with the occasional chuckle as you go on your Grimm way.

More on the ranged-combat system and screenshots after this jump!