SPELUNKY 2

Lava-roasted turkeys! Teleporting axolotls! Fire-breathing rock dogs! Those [blorp]ing bats! More doesn’t always mean better when it comes to sequels, but for Derek Yu’s influential roguelike it works brilliantly. There wasn’t much wrong with the original, and so Yu has sensibly decided not to fix it, instead focussing on carefully refining a fresh, heady blend of new and old. The many, many ways its wideranging systems combine to create emergent chaos make this an irresistible – if still maddeningly tough – follow-up.

Drill down to its very core and Spelunky 2 is still essentially Spelunky. Your goal is still to keep heading downward, through several floors of procedurally-generated caves, jungles, temples, and more. You still use bombs to excavate new routes, reveal hidden passageways, and blow up enemies. You still use ropes to lower yourself carefully, or climb back up when you reach a dead end. And you still get an extra heart for bringing a damsel to the level exit – though this time it’s pugs, cats, and hamsters giving you an affectionate lick between stages. Yet even if you’ve put hundreds of hours into the original, enough has been tweaked to keep you on your toes.

GHOST TRICK

You’ll now find aggressive, tunnelling moles and rolling horned lizards from the first level. The ghost that hurries you along if you’re dawdling – while turning any gems it passes into diamonds – can now be introduced sooner for risk-takers looking to make a quick buck.

There are tiny adjustments to controls, movement, and enemy rhythms that are calculated to resist muscle memory. In other words, what’s new feels new, and what’s old feels new, too: veteran Spelunkers are as likely to be surprised as those seeing the walls shift for the first time.

After the opening caves you get a choice of paths, with fiery new biome Volcana proving markedly easier than the remixed Jungle. Ditto the gorgeous Tide Pool, which (despite the samurai crabs with extendable claws) is a relative cakewalk compared to the trap-stuffed Temple. At times Spelunky 2 can be brutally hard. Four moles and two lizards in 1-1? An off-screen explosion sending a tiny piece of debris into a shop to send its owner into a buckshot-blasting frenzy? Really?

Still, you’ll usually be forced to admit it was your own fault – hubris, haste, and complacency are all more likely to be your true cause of death. The cost of Spelunky 2’s procedurality is far outweighed by its capacity to surprise you.

The stories it generates might involve stupid or unfortunate deaths as often as exhilarating escapes, but you’ll remember the best and worst of them for months. A triumphant remix.

“THERE ARE ADJUSTMENTS TO CONTROLS, MOVEMENT, AND ENEMY RHYTHMS.”