Guacamelee 2 easy to fall in love with
GUACAMELEE 2 builds and improves on virtually every facet of its predecessor - the hugely successful and en joy ableGu ac am elee.Gua came lee 2 is loaded with endless charm, heaps of replayability and a satisfying complex but not obtuse control scheme.
Guacamelee 2’s premise is not exactly ground-breaking - multiple timelines converging are about as original as zombie games - but it’s done with enough charm and genuine hilarity that we can easily give the developers a pass on this one. The original Guacamelee was a tad-too heavy handed on the referential humour, shoehorning in some pretty contrived pop-culture references that came off more jarring than relatable. Guacamelee 2’s humour is a lot less inept, with even the multitude of references to other indie games never feeling overly forced.
While Guacamelee 2 might very well appear to be another groan-inducingly fashionable Metroidvania, it does bring enough uniqueness to the table to surmount any hand-wavey classification. The first hour or so will seem rather familiar if you have played the first, but once you gain some new powers, the controller input becomes a delightful dance of complexity and ingenuity. Better yet, there is a chicken form that has been carried over from the first Guacamelee that has, for whatever reason, been built upon greatly for the sequel. It is actually possible to complete a reasonable amount of the game as a chicken, which is obviously a welcome feature in any game.
Guacamelee 2 is by no means a long game and the average player should be able to complete it within eight-or-so hours of continuous playing. There is plenty of replayability, however, with a hard mode to bite down on and a very welcome four-player cooperative mode.
Guacamelee 2 is a game that is easy to fall in love with. The neon cacaphony of sound and colours all blur together into a dazzling maelstrom that will easily such away hours of your life at a time. A commendable sequel to a game that was already a near-masterpiece.