Gimmick! 2 is out now, which is great news for fans of difficult platformers starring fun lil' green guys
Starboy
Pssst. You into hardcore 2D platformers? And do you like lil' green guys, just like, gooby wooby lookin' orbs of green? Then I present to you Gimmick! 2, which has an unexpected exclamation point before the "2" and all of the above. It's out now and will no doubt please fans who've been waiting years for a sequel to the original Gimmick!, and possibly other platform enthusiasts who are after a decidedly different style of gap-hopper.
For a brief nugget of context, the original Gimmick! was a Famicom platformer developed by Sunsoft and released in 1992. Funnily enough, at the time it only ever got localised for Scandinavia, where it was called Mr. Gimmick (what all of the Demon Souls bosses should've been named… ahem, anyway). It starred a green yokai called Yumetaro, who embarked on a quest to save a young girl from evil toys. And it has since been re-released a bunch of times, most recently getting a 2023 remaster called Gimmick! Special Edition.
And so Swedish dev Bitwave and publisher Sunsoft have come together to release Gimmick! 2, many years later. It stars the same Yumetaro who embarks on a different quest, all in an updated aesthetic that has a Spelunky sheen. In it you'll hop and avoid spikes and do puzzles, like almost all other platformers. But what sets it apart is Yumetaro's ability to summon and throw a powerful star - his gimmick, you could say - that not only bounces, but also retains momentum from his movement. You can use it to activate switches, bonk enemies, and eliminate chunks of the map to reveal secret spots. Oh and you can trick enemies so that their heads form helpful platforms as they fall to their deaths, too.
Honestly, Gimmick! 2 looks like a tricky platformer, owing to the physics-y interactions between your little green goob, his bouncy star, and the obstacles you're trying to bonk or cross or flip. I imagine it requires a lot of precise movement and a lot of risk-taking, especially when it comes to surfing on that star in critical moments. But I also imagine it makes for some fun problem solving that doesn't just require some carefully timed air-dashes. There's an assisted mode if you want an easier time, otherwise you've got the Gimmick! mode for the "true-to-the-original" challenge.
You can find the game over on Steam if you're interested. Cheers to RPS commenter treelo for giving us the heads-up.