Guacamelee 2 was an amazing game, and the devs did a great job on improving and expanding the original game's concepts. I definitely recommend this for those that like beat 'em up style gameplay mixed with Metroidvania platforming, especially for those that played the original Guacamelee, Gold or Super Turbo Championship edition.

I remember getting into the first Guacamelee from watching a speedrun, so I picked up STC Edition in a sale and was not dissapointed. I was excited for the sequel when it finally came out, so I bought and downloaded this game day 1 of its full release. This was a great experience from start to finish.

The story is sorta... odd. The main plot of the game revolves around travelling into an alternate timeline to stop the Mexiverse (essentially the entire world in this game) from collapsing in on itself. I suppose a story like this was necessary anyways, since the orignal game ended with you defeating Calaca and rescuing the president's daughter (the good ending, of course). As such there's not really anything to build a whole game off of unless you put it in a whole new world.

Gameplay between this and the original Guacamelee is largely the same. All the old special moves return, albeit in a changed order altogether. At the start you're very barebones in your moveset, especially with throws. As you go through the game, you unlock a few skill "trees" that allow you to upgrade damage of special moves or some passive buffs like faster regeneration. Personally, I like using the dash punch in combat (learned very early as well) because it helps close the distance between enemies and is also great for knocking over a line of them.
There's only one new move for normal Juan, the Eagle Boost, which they definitely based some fast-paced puzzles around. I think it's a pretty solid movement skill, even if it's slightly cliche (hook on and boost past grapple points). Meanwhile, the chicken form has been fleshed out a ton. Major improvement over the original, where instead of a basic peck attack, chicken Juan has all the basic combat moves from basic punch/peck combos to the throwing moves. Included is also two new special moves just for the chicken, which actually warrants a reason to pull out the chicken form other than for squeezing in tight gaps. Even further than that, there's entire mini-dungeons littered through the game where you are forced to be a chicken (all of them grant you extra moves for the chicken).

The graphics are just as great as they were before. Even though the general setting of the game puts much darker color tones on everything, the game is still very detailed and each area is very different. The graphical differences between the living and dead worlds also makes them stand out. Music is still great too, with each track having two different styles to it to accompany each world. The game, especially in the major town, is littered with tons of references to the first Guacamelee, other games, or pop culture. The writing, even with the aftermentioned story, is still great. They managed to slip in some meta humor to some dialouges as well (like in at least one instance where Uay Chivo brings up the fact that this is a sequel game and we already beat Calaca in the last one).

There's also the return of 5 special tasks one needs to complete to achieve the good ending of the game. I actually found a couple of these to be very difficult and sometimes frustrating, but all of them feel different and merit their challenge. Collecting all 5 pieces actually unlocks a special dungeon that one needs to complete in order to get the good ending, and dear god is it a challenge.

I actually found late game to be somewhat challenging, especially some of the side rooms for collectibles required for 100%. There were a few fights in the final areas that I died numerous times on because of the difficulty of attacks you need to dodge or the execution required to beat each of them. Obviously this is to be expected, but I fear that those who are picking this game up for the first time will find these areas particularly frustrating.

All in all though, this game was a great challenging experience to play through, and I do suggest anyone that was a fan of the original game to pick this one up and give it a try. If you go in completely blind about where anything is, this game can take you a while (my first blind playthrough clocked at roughly 10-11 hours total.)

Guacamelee 2 was an amazing game, and the devs did a great job on improving and expanding the original game's concepts. I definitely recommend this for those that like beat 'em up style gameplay mixed with Metroidvania platforming, especially for those that played the original Guacamelee, Gold or Super Turbo Championship edition. I remember getting into the first Guacamelee from watching a speedrun, so I picked up STC Edition in a sale and was not dissapointed. I was excited for the sequel when it finally came out, so I bought and downloaded this game day 1 of its full release. This was a great experience from start to finish. The story is sorta... odd. The main plot of the game revolves around travelling into an alternate timeline to stop the Mexiverse (essentially the entire world in this game) from collapsing in on itself. I suppose a story like this was necessary anyways, since the orignal game ended with you defeating Calaca and rescuing the president's daughter (the good ending, of course). As such there's not really anything to build a whole game off of unless you put it in a whole new world. Gameplay between this and the original Guacamelee is largely the same. All the old special moves return, albeit in a changed order altogether. At the start you're very barebones in your moveset, especially with throws. As you go through the game, you unlock a few skill "trees" that allow you to upgrade damage of special moves or some passive buffs like faster regeneration. Personally, I like using the dash punch in combat (learned very early as well) because it helps close the distance between enemies and is also great for knocking over a line of them. There's only one new move for normal Juan, the Eagle Boost, which they definitely based some fast-paced puzzles around. I think it's a pretty solid movement skill, even if it's slightly cliche (hook on and boost past grapple points). Meanwhile, the chicken form has been fleshed out [i]a ton[/i]. Major improvement over the original, where instead of a basic peck attack, chicken Juan has all the basic combat moves from basic punch/peck combos to the throwing moves. Included is also two new special moves just for the chicken, which actually warrants a reason to pull out the chicken form other than for squeezing in tight gaps. Even further than that, there's entire mini-dungeons littered through the game where you are forced to be a chicken (all of them grant you extra moves for the chicken). The graphics are just as great as they were before. Even though the general setting of the game puts much darker color tones on everything, the game is still very detailed and each area is very different. The graphical differences between the living and dead worlds also makes them stand out. Music is still great too, with each track having two different styles to it to accompany each world. The game, especially in the major town, is littered with tons of references to the first Guacamelee, other games, or pop culture. The writing, even with the aftermentioned story, is still great. They managed to slip in some meta humor to some dialouges as well (like in at least one instance where Uay Chivo brings up the fact that this is a sequel game and we already beat Calaca in the last one). There's also the return of 5 special tasks one needs to complete to achieve the good ending of the game. I actually found a couple of these to be very difficult and sometimes frustrating, but all of them feel different and merit their challenge. Collecting all 5 pieces actually unlocks a special dungeon that one needs to complete in order to get the good ending, and dear god is it a challenge. I actually found late game to be somewhat challenging, especially some of the side rooms for collectibles required for 100%. There were a few fights in the final areas that I died numerous times on because of the difficulty of attacks you need to dodge or the execution required to beat each of them. Obviously this is to be expected, but I fear that those who are picking this game up for the first time will find these areas particularly frustrating. All in all though, this game was a great challenging experience to play through, and I do suggest anyone that was a fan of the original game to pick this one up and give it a try. If you go in completely blind about where anything is, this game can take you a while (my first blind playthrough clocked at roughly 10-11 hours total.)