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 actually made an impression on Gothenburg-based Bitwave Video games, the studio behind 2022’s Gimmick! Particular Version — a rerelease of the notoriously troublesome authentic for contemporary consoles — and its unlikely sequel. Not solely is the story behind the IP’s revival an attention-grabbing one, however we’re completely happy 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 fashion, refined management scheme, and improved degree design. It additionally makes beneficiant use of checkpoints and infinite continues to encourage gamers to have “yet one more go” getting previous its many high-difficulty challenges.
Gimmick 2 could appear to be a breezy, child-friendly outing owing to its brightly colored world and lovable inexperienced mascot, Yumetaro, however make no mistake, this recreation is laborious, 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 out a single line of dialogue, with gamers rapidly 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 correctly utilise the star is essential to development, and trial and error is crucial. When thrown, the star bounces round with life like physics, which means gamers should skillfully lob it in opposition to surfaces to activate in any other case inaccessible switches and work out use it as a platform to succeed in well-hidden collectibles, beauty gadgets, and secrets and techniques.
When you get the dangle 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 capacity to dash. You achieve velocity by making the most of sloping terrain to clear gaps, permitting you to simply wipe out teams of enemies by sliding, somewhat than bouncing, the star projectile.
Gimmick 2 excels at presenting complicated 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 working from a large snowball and hitching a journey on a whale add novel unpredictability to the outing.
Gamers can swap problem 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 follow, the sport might be crushed in round 90 minutes, however a first-time clear can simply take 3 to 4 hours or extra to finish if you happen to embrace exploration and trial and error.
To be clear, “Assisted” mode shouldn’t be “Straightforward” mode. Whereas it doesn’t diminish the sport’s problem, it’s the higher mode to understand 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 Reduce The Rope and a mellow soundtrack from former Uncommon composer David Smart, which provides atmosphere and immersion with out being intrusive, an vital design issue since looped music can probably get annoying when making an attempt a sequence time and again.
Although early Steam opinions had flagged some latency points, Gimmick 2 controls flawlessly on Change and we skilled solely minor framerate drops right here and there every so often, nothing that negatively impacted our playthrough. General, it’s a title that stands out for its polish and fluidity with no load occasions or penalties for loss of life, 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 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 advice is {that a} “increased than informal” talent ceiling is required to see the sport by way of.
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 follow, 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.