Loading

“ Guacamelee 2 actually gives its referential humor substance this time around.

15 IMAGES

“ Drinkbox finds clever ways of playing with Juan and other characters.

Loading

Mucha Lucha

“ Guacamelee 2's platforming can be complex, but it never feels unfair.

Loading

Loading

“ The road to 100% offers several more hours of challenging, rewarding content.

Tag Team

Loading

Picking up with a helpful reminder of how Guacamelee ended (which I needed, because it was first released way back in 2013) the sequel returns with plenty of humor and a surprising but welcome bit of pathos at the start of its eight-hour adventure. I was surprised at how affected I was to see Juan enjoy a peaceful life at home with his wife, two kids, and a diet that has caused his fighting physique to be lost to time, only for his happiness — in every possible timeline imaginable — to be disrupted by a new evil, Salvador.Yes, Guacamelee 2 tackles the well-worn trope of multiple timelines converging and endangering all of existence, but approaches it through the clever lens of the Mexiverse. I initially groaned a bit at that name, but Guacamelee 2 is not content to let an amusing portmanteau be the extent of its joke. The central conceit of the sequel works so well because Drinkbox wholeheartedly tackles the idea of multiple timelines, playing into established characters from the first entry while also finding clever new ways to use those to twist the gameplay, like temporarily transforming the adventure into a simple, but amusing turn-based RPG. It feels like a natural extension of the dimension shifting introduced in the original, with both character and gameplay implications that often had me chuckling in between sections of challenging platforming.Guacamelee 2 does a great job of balancing all of this referential world-building with the beautiful, brightly colored style of the Mexiverse. I often found myself spending extra time in certain areas, flipping back and forth between the two realms just to experience the art styles of both the worlds of the living and the dead. From temples to the underworld to quiet pueblos pocketed by timeline-melding distortions, I adored watching the vibrancy of Juan’s world pop with earthy browns and forested greens in the land of the living and bright blues and shocking streaks of pink in the land of the dead.The story does miss a step in its exploration of the villain, Salvador, though. He’s initially set up to be a fascinating foil to Juan, but he only has a few paltry scenes in which to develop, including one incredibly exposition-heavy sequence that could have had so much more impact had Salvador and Juan interacted more often. That scene in particular sets up what should be a sympathetic character, only to end up feeling more forced than earned.Thankfully, the adventure is filled with a host of challenging and satisfying platforming and combat, all culled from Juan’s fighting style. It takes a little longer than I would have liked to reacquire his returning powers, which include suped-up headbutts, ground pounds, a reality-shifting ability, and more, but Drinkbox does a great job of peppering in a few new hooks alongside all of those moves.A series of skill trees do a nice job of forcing you to use the full gamut of Juan’s moves in combat, but I would have liked to have seen more variance in Juan’s human moveset. Because so much of it is carried over from the first game, it begins to feel like more of the same as the adventure wears on. The biggest mechanical additions are for Juan’s chicken form, including an aerial dash, which can hilariously be used to ping-pong a chicken up or down a corridor. A subplot revolving around the chickens of Guacamelee offers a hilarious explanation, and while it’s less essential to see that all the way through I absolutely recommend doing so.While it’s a joy to explore Guacamelee 2 thanks to the clever writing snuck into every corner of the map, it’s also a rewarding thrill to complete its platforming puzzles, which can be quite the challenge, but by no means impossible. More than once, rooms that had me dimension shifting to jump between walls while avoiding lava below and spikey gears working their way around the room tripped me up enough to require a few breaks and episodes of Steven Universe to clear my mind.Whether you’re overcoming a difficult jump or a hallway full of undead foes, up to three friends can lend you assistance if needed. I played a couple hours with a co-op buddy, and the presence of another player can turn into a difficult, synchronized ballet of flying fists and leaping luchadors. Figuring out how to properly hop, dimension shift, and punch our way through together made me think about Guacamelee 2’s puzzles in a new, fascinating way — he could handle dimension duties while I timed by jumps to his shifting, for example.That said, not all of these challenges are well-suited to multiple luchadors. Some of the most difficult parts demand perfect unity, and that… well, that’s really hard to achieve in the later and optional challenges. It simply became easier to let my friend die as I coasted through a difficult corridor rather than spend so much time nailing down timing on a relatively easy obstacle. It’s nice to have, but doesn’t add anything significant to the satisfaction of toughing out Guacamelee 2’s challenges alone.