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 popularity as one of many rarest video games for the Famicom/NES owing to its restricted launch in Japan and, oddly sufficient, Sweden.
It actually made an impression on Gothenburg-based Bitwave Video games, the studio behind 2022’s Gimmick! Particular Version — a rerelease of the notoriously tough authentic for contemporary consoles — and its unlikely sequel. Not solely is the story behind the IP’s revival an fascinating one, however we’re joyful 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 identification with a contemporary hand-drawn visible fashion, refined management scheme, and improved stage 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 could 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 difficult, and reaching its “true ending” requires mastery of its major 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 with no 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 transferring, leaping, and conjuring a star projectile, which serves as a flexible software for fixing puzzles, defeating enemies, and well-timed traversal. Studying find out how to correctly utilise the star is essential to development, and trial and error is crucial. When thrown, the star bounces round with sensible physics, that means gamers must skillfully lob it towards surfaces to activate in any other case inaccessible switches and determine find out how to use it as a platform to succeed in well-hidden collectibles, beauty objects, and secrets and techniques.
When you get the cling of the controls and the sport’s strategy to momentum, Gimmick 2 feels brilliantly fluid. Gameplay is usually fast-paced regardless of Yumetaro having no capacity to dash. You acquire velocity by making the most of sloping terrain to clear gaps, permitting you to simply wipe out teams of enemies by sliding, reasonably than bouncing, the star projectile.
Gimmick 2 excels at presenting complicated issues with easy – although not simple – options. Its six worlds are meticulously designed with spikes to keep away from, pipes to enter, platforms to activate, and managers 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 ability and observe, the sport will be crushed in round 90 minutes, however a first-time clear can simply take 3 to 4 hours or extra to finish in the event you embody exploration and trial and error.
To be clear, “Assisted” mode is just not “Straightforward” 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 fashion paying homage to Lower The Rope and a mellow soundtrack from former Uncommon composer David Sensible, which provides atmosphere and immersion with out being intrusive, an necessary design issue since looped music can probably get annoying when trying a sequence time and again.
Although early Steam critiques had flagged some latency points, Gimmick 2 controls flawlessly on Change and we skilled solely minor framerate drops right here and there every now and then, 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 obvious points or having main complaints, although extra enemy selection can be good. Some are divided over the sport’s artwork fashion; we discovered it well-executed although understandably it’s not to everybody’s style. The one barrier to broad suggestion is {that a} “increased than informal” ability ceiling is required to see the sport by.
Conclusion
Gimmick! 2 is a straightforward suggestion 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 are surmountable with observe, precision, and endurance. 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 at all times deserved.
