After three excruciating years waiting from the time this was announced, the sequel to the highly praised Spelunky is finally here. While I rarely visit the likes of Twitch these days, I was a rabid follower in my college days (almost a decade ago now, yikes), and Derek Yu’s game always had someone with a following watching. It didn’t take long before I was jumping into the game myself. However, making something so loved is hard to follow up, so the time between launches makes sense – how does he create a sequel that is both the same yet new? You need look no further than what he’s given us.

To avoid wasting your time, Spelunky 2 is absolutely worth buying if you enjoyed the first one. This brings so much from the original while injecting new qualities that makes the experience familiar but brand new all over. If you never played the original, you’re in for a wild ride of exploration. I thought my wife and I had played for about 30 minutes when it had actually been 2.5 hours the night it came out. This is what happened often the first time around, and it was nice to see the second had the same addictive nature. The original holds a special place in my heart, as my wife and I spent hours playing the game – it was typically all the console played for quite some time. It took an astonishingly long time to get past the mines, and it wasn’t consistent that we ever would back then, but playing multiplayer from the start was huge. You learn a lot by playing with someone else, and there are many benefits to doing so, although there are definite challenges as well. One misplaced whip swing can result in the run ending.

While we are hardly pro spelunkers, I was happy to see us at least reach 3-1 in that first night of playing. That was leaps and bounds above how long it took in the first, and she’s hardly played any games outside of Stardew Valley in the past few years since our daughter was born, so I was definitely impressed. This has also served as a way for us to reconnect, as we’re typically working when the other is not, or watching and playing with our daughter. Our one night out a year is typically our anniversary since she’s been around, and that was cancelled this year because of the pandemic. Finding time for us to have fun or just talk has been difficult, but we’ve made an effort to put this on while my daughter sleeps, and it helps get out frustrations and work through different topics. The nature of the game lends itself to that.

If you’re unsure what this is, it’s a roguelite platformer where your goal is to acquire the most gold possible while completing an excavation on the moon. No one is playing the game for the story, although there are a lot of interesting tidbits to find, amusing dialogue, and undoubtedly crazy secrets we’ll only learn about much later (read: Eggplant run in the original). As mentioned, there’s plenty from the original this time around, but there’s a lot of new things that shocked me. Mounts? A B-side to maps? Items being affected by the environment? I’ll never forget the first time I was riding a turkey and it got cooked into health by accident. It seemed to be a bit more edible than wall chicken. And seeing my ropes burn up because of lava opposed to letting me cross was shocking.

The original game had varying paths you could take, although these were typically hidden within the world, such as a worm’s insides, a robot spaceship type of deal, a city of gold, and more. While there are definitely one-off secrets this time around, there are also multiple paths starting out – simply going left or right in 1-4 will either bring you to a jungle type area like the first, or molten lava ruins. Multiplayer is less punishing with the progression this time too, as you can work towards shortcuts with a friend – if I recall correctly, this was only possible in singleplayer in the prior entry. While we rarely used them in the first game, I couldn’t help but want to get a feeling for what to expect this time around once we were able to access the levels organically, as our free time has been severely diminished. Figuring out what traps look like before dying immediately is helpful and cuts down on the potential stress and frustration.

In addition to the normal adventure mode, the game also brings back its daily mode and introduces seeded runs, which allows certain dungeons to be played opposed to being randomly generated each time. There’s also an arena brawler mode, which makes its comeback from the original; while certainly not why I’d buy the game, it’s nice to see its inclusion once again. With all the mistakes made in the adventure causing the other person to die, it’s nice to get some pent up frustration out by actually needing to hit them with your whip, bomb, or an assortment of weapons that the game offers. This can be played alone with bots or with up to four players and bots taking up the missing places. What’s unique to Spelunky 2 is the inclusion of online multiplayer, most notably in the adventure mode. While the original offered up to 4 players locally, it never saw beyond three on my console, and that was pushing it. Bringing it online is great, aside from the hiccups it’s suffered so far.

This may not be an issue at all and just me remembering the previous game incorrectly, but when attempting to defeat the same enemies from the original, I found myself having a more difficult time. It feels like the hit boxes have changed, or perhaps the whip works slightly differently. This is the type of game that you learn pretty intimately, so when something is off even by a few pixels or frames, you feel it. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, and it may be my muscle memory remembering incorrectly. Or I’m just getting old; I’m certainly not as good at games as I used to be.

Spelunky 2 is for veterans and newcomers alike. If you loved the original, this brings back pretty much everything you loved and turns it up to eleven, while newcomers will have the pleasure of learning all the game’s ins and outs from scratch. Even when you beat the game, there’s always a better score to be achieved, or a certain run to complete – for anyone that plans on doing everything there is, prepare for a long, frustrating, and fulfilling journey.

10 out of 10

Pros

• Replayability
• A Blast in Co-op and Alone
• Old Meets New with Mechanics and Content

Cons

• Online Issues
• Seemingly Different Hitboxes

Spelunky 2 was developed by Mossmouth and published in conjunction with Blitworks. It launched on PS4 and is coming to PC. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Spelunky 2, check out the publisher’s site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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