Gimmick! 2

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

What the heck happened here!?

If you read my review of the Nintendo Switch release of the original Gimmick!, you’ll recall that I found it to be an excellent port of an absolutely miserable game, one that looked pretty but that featured terrible controls and absolutely punishing gameplay. With this being the case, I was dreading this sequel, released 31 years after the original game first came out, with a version of Gimmick! 2 releasing on Steam and Nintendo Switch in 2024, and then a port in 2025 to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. And yet… this game is actually good. No, very good. Extremely good. Seriously, what the heck happened here?

Okay, the easy answer to that question is that this sequel was developed by Bitwave Games, the developers of Wunderling, another game that showed a skill at taking a losing formula (in that case, an Auto-Runner) and turning it into a clear winner. Here, much the same is true: Gimmick! 2 retains the core ideas behind the original game, but reworks them into something measured, balanced, and frequently quite genius.

Much like the original Gimmick, your character can produce a star weapon that he can throw at an awkward downward angle and then ride if he can jump on top of it. However, this time around, the level design has been shaped to ease players into properly using this weapon, and gradually helping them to learn how to bank shots and time what they’re doing for maximum effect, with some of this game’s levels so cleverly-crafted that the game at times feels like a Puzzle-Platformer.

This time, the slippery movement of the original game is gone, and the difficulty curve is far more gentle (there are two difficulty modes here, and even the more difficult one still feels fair), with the lives system disposed of and checkpoints added at regular intervals. And while this game retains the original game’s healthy sprinkling of secrets strewn throughout, the level design here is more focused so you won’t be left wondering where you’re meant to be going next.

The other thing that was carried over from the original game was that it’s surprisingly gorgeous, with detailed, colorful 2D visuals with good animation, and an absolutely beautiful soundtrack by legendary Donkey Kong Country series composer David Wise, with some good examples being World Map, Swamp, Tadpole Temple, Lava, Arctic Ascent, and Warehouse Docks.

Overall, the main complaints I can make here are the issues carried over from the first game – the star weapon is still cumbersome and frustrating to use, and as much as this game’s designers have tried to work around that, it still remains true. However, I suppose if they fixed this issue, it wouldn’t really be a Gimmick! game, would it?

Overall, as I’m sure you can tell, I was absolutely stunned by Gimmick! 2. I don’t recall the last time I saw a sequel that was such a night-and-day improvement over the prior game. Street Fighter II, perhaps? In any case, Gimmick! 2 takes the concepts presented by the first game and transforms them into something that is not only a decent, playable sequel, but a truly great game in its own right, one that Platformer and Puzzle-Platformer fans should be eager to check out. And that is even if, like me, they absolutely hated the first game. I may have gone into this game dreading what I would find, but after such a surprising delight of an experience that Gimmick! 2 was, I can say with confidence that if there’s ever a Gimmick! 3, I will be eager and delighted to play it… as long as Bitwave Games is the developer again…

tl;dr – Gimmick! 2 is a Platformer occasionally bordering on Puzzle-Platformer that takes the core concepts presented by its predecessor and turns them into something truly magical. As a sequel, this is almost miraculous, following up an absolutely miserable game with a truly superb one. The solid gameplay, brilliant level design, and gorgeous presentation make this a must-play Platformer, even if, like me, you hated the first game.

Grade: B+

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