How is score calculated in Hotline Miami 2?

Solution 1:

I am referencing the Hotline Miami wiki for some help with this but you are correct that the categories are quite self-explanatory

Kills: Sum of your actual kill scores, different methods of killing foes give different amounts of points which can be seen onscreen, ranged kills are scored quite low (400), melee kills score better (600) and executions are worth a lot (1000)

Combo: Scored based on the length of your combos, the value per additional combo point almost seems exponential. This is the most important criteria by a wide margin, managing to combo every enemy in a stage by any means necessary is basically guaranteed to grant an S rating. Evan/The writer has a special property where he can pick up weapons to unload them for points and to extend combos

Flexibility: Scored based on the variety of kills employed, specifics are unclear as to how points are assigned but constantly changing weapons and kill styles will provide a high value. i.e. killing everyone using a pistol scores poorly and the theoretical strategy of swapping weapons with every kill maximizes this

Mobility: Scored based on amount of movement, the wiki states its improved by constantly moving. I had assumed while I was playing it was based on amount of the floor space traversed. Specifics unknown but suffice to say standing in one place and sniping enemies from afar will not improve this value much

Boldness: Scored based on enemies who have seen you, this is similar to the exposure event from the first game where you gain score for every time an enemy becomes aware of you and starts trying to chase you down or shoot you. You gain little from this if you mainly assassinate your foes before they notice you by sniping them or ambushing them from behind/around walls

Time Bonus: Scored based on how quickly the stage is completed. Starts off at some value and decreases the longer it takes to complete the stage bottoming out at 0 at some point. The time this takes into account is the time of the successful run not total time spent in the stage including retries. i.e. if it takes you an hour to physically beat a level but the sum total of time used in the successful run is a minute then the game calculates time based on a minute not an hour

Special: The wiki says this is character specific which I take this to mean if a character has special ways to score points it gets tallied here. e.g. such as Evan's ability to unload weapons for points, possibly Cory successfully dodge rolling under something lethal?

Score: Assigns grades based on thresholds of points which is based on the sum of the other criteria, unlike the first game where picking a mask and playstyle allows for different approaches to high scoring a level (e.g. taking Zack and attempting to get full combo or Carl and drill executing every enemy) you'll notice the combo value tends to dwarf everything else quickly for higher combo values which isn't to say the other criteria aren't relevant but a playstyle emphasizing stringing combos as long as possible and across screens is much more effective than attempting to optimize flexibility or boldness