It’s honest to say that Gimmick! 2 was a sequel not on many individuals’s bingo playing cards earlier than its shock announcement in June 2024. Its 1992 predecessor, a retro gem and Sunsoft’s tackle a mascot platformer, enjoys a cult repute as one of many rarest video games for the Famicom/NES owing to its restricted launch in Japan and, oddly sufficient, Sweden.
It definitely made an impression on Gothenburg-based Bitwave Video games, the studio behind 2022’s Gimmick! Particular Version — a rerelease of the notoriously troublesome unique for contemporary consoles — and its unlikely sequel. Not solely is the story behind the IP’s revival an fascinating one, however we’re comfortable to report that Gimmick 2 lives as much as and arguably outshines its 8-bit forbearer.
Bitwave’s sequel manages to be trustworthy to the essence of the unique whereas additionally carving out its personal id with a contemporary hand-drawn visible type, refined management scheme, and improved degree design. It additionally makes beneficiant use of checkpoints and infinite continues to encourage gamers to have “yet another go” getting previous its many high-difficulty challenges.
Gimmick 2 might appear like a breezy, child-friendly outing owing to its brightly colored world and cute inexperienced mascot, Yumetaro, however make no mistake, this sport is exhausting, and reaching its “true ending” requires mastery of its main physics-based, star-slinging mechanic. On the similar time, it’s additionally accessible sufficient to check your mettle with out extreme frustration.
The story is ready and not using a single line of dialogue, with gamers shortly thrust right into a magical world to rescue a younger woman kidnapped by a malign wizard. Yumetaro’s moveset stays extremely easy and consists of shifting, leaping, and conjuring a star projectile, which serves as a flexible software for fixing puzzles, defeating enemies, and well-timed traversal. Studying methods to correctly utilise the star is crucial to development, and trial and error is crucial. When thrown, the star bounces round with sensible physics, that means gamers should skillfully lob it towards surfaces to activate in any other case inaccessible switches and determine methods to use it as a platform to succeed in well-hidden collectibles, beauty gadgets, and secrets and techniques.
When you get the hold of the controls and the sport’s strategy to momentum, Gimmick 2 feels brilliantly fluid. Gameplay is commonly fast-paced regardless of Yumetaro having no skill to dash. You acquire velocity by profiting from sloping terrain to clear gaps, permitting you to simply wipe out teams of enemies by sliding, relatively than bouncing, the star projectile.
Gimmick 2 excels at presenting advanced issues with easy – although not straightforward – options. Its six worlds are meticulously designed with spikes to keep away from, pipes to enter, platforms to activate, and executives to slay. Whereas it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, sequences involving operating from a large snowball and hitching a journey on a whale add novel unpredictability to the outing.
Gamers can change issue settings on the fly with a friendlier “Assisted” mode or a true-to-the-original “Gimmick!” mode with fewer hit factors, narrower platforms, and extra frequent enemy encounters. With talent and observe, the sport may be crushed in round 90 minutes, however a first-time clear can simply take 3 to 4 hours or extra to finish for those who embrace exploration and trial and error.
To be clear, “Assisted” mode just isn’t “Simple” mode. Whereas it doesn’t diminish the sport’s issue, it’s the higher mode to know the dexterity required to surmount the sport’s many challenges whereas providing a buffer to frustration over perceived “low-cost deaths”, priming a participant for future playthroughs, speedrunning, and mastery that Gimmick 2 is clearly constructed for.
The sport boasts a extremely polished presentation with a clear, hand-drawn artwork type harking back to Reduce The Rope and a mellow soundtrack from former Uncommon composer David Smart, which provides atmosphere and immersion with out being intrusive, an necessary design issue since looped music can doubtlessly get annoying when trying a sequence again and again.
Although early Steam opinions had flagged some latency points, Gimmick 2 controls flawlessly on Swap and we skilled solely minor framerate drops right here and there from time to time, nothing that negatively impacted our playthrough. Total, it’s a title that stands out for its polish and fluidity with no load instances or penalties for demise, sending gamers again to the final checkpoint to strive once more.
Whereas we got here away with out confronting evident points or having main complaints, although extra enemy selection could be good. Some are divided over the sport’s artwork type; we discovered it well-executed although understandably it’s not to everybody’s style. The one barrier to broad advice is {that a} “increased than informal” talent ceiling is required to see the sport by.
Conclusion
Gimmick! 2 is a simple advice for followers of retro platformers and a no brainer for lovers of the unique. Its cutesy, feel-good vibes belie a trove of super-tough however cleverly crafted challenges which might be surmountable with observe, precision, and persistence. What’s clear is absolutely the reverence that developer Bitwave Video games has for the supply materials. Dispel any notion of this being a retro money seize; that is the sequel that the underappreciated and ahead-of-its-time NES basic has all the time deserved.
