My unbridled enthusiasm for video games has been labeled an obsession on a few different occasions. Super Mario Bros 3 was the first time, Street Fighter has certainly risen to the that extreme more than once, and seriously nobody loves Dr. Mario like I do! Hell, even Celeste, which only came out a couple years ago, had me absolutely raving about what masterpiece the game was.

“Obsession” is pretty strong word, however. The game that I’m obsessed with is Spelunky. And this time, the obsession is very real.

If you have the Udjat Eye, you can use it to activate this drill in Volcana.

If Spelunky HD was the perfect video game—and I’ve argued that is basically was—then Spelunky 2 is the perfect sequel. With the exact same setup as the original, Spelunky 2 manages to greatly expand on the adventure. It’s Spelunky again, but now bigger and better: more areas, more enemies, more characters, more traps, more choices, more secrets, more everything. And this time you’re spelunking on the freaking moon, awesome!

The biggest thematic update in Spelunky 2 is that the star of the show is the daughter of the first game’s protagonist, giving it a “new generation” kind of vibe. Instead of the original Spelunky guy—now officially named Guy Spelunky (very clever)—the main character is Ana Spelunky. Ana wears explorer gear very similar to Guy’s, but with the yellow coloring of mother her Tina’s clothing. (Tina Flan was also playable in HD.)

Sorry Monty, there’s no rescuing you this time.

A similar evolution has occurred with the damsels the player can rescue along the way. While the previous game allowed you to save female damsels, male damsels, or doggie damsels in exchange for a life-giving kiss, this game opts to turn all damsels into pets. Now you can save Monty the pug, Percy the cat, or Poochi the hamster. (Alternatively you could sacrifice them to Kali for some big rewards, just saying.)

Gameplay-wise, the biggest change has to be new Sub Areas found in each level. Doorways now lead “into the background”, revealing chambers behind the main cavern you’re spelunking. This greatly increases the amount of explorable ground available in each area, and the amount of stuff that can be hidden at the outset.

There are also new fluid dynamics this time around—meaning that unless it is contained, water will flow downhill. But it’s not only water, LAVA will flow as well. And if you touch it, lava will f^*king kill you instantly, so setting off bombs below lava pools is not advised. But man oh man, do things get wild in Volcana!

Confession Time: I hold an unreasonably deep-seated grudge against Yang the turkey guy. He knows what he did….

Spelunky 2 also features mounts, animal buddies like Turkeys, amphibious Axolotls, and Rock Dogs, which you can ride. Mounts generally provide a double-jump, which is big boost to mobility, and each type usually has one more trick up its sleeve. Even turkeys, the most basic mounts, provide additional opportunities to recover (or add) hearts if you choose to cook and eat them for sustenance.

There are new items to use in the sequel as well, with my favorite being the Powerpack. Wearing this red mechanical backpack turns your regular whip into a flame whip(!!), allows you to fire weapons at a faster rate, and turns your bombs into huge XXL bombs! But be careful with any wearable pack though (Powerpack, Jetpack, Hoverpack, Telepack), because they are flammable and will explode if they come in contact with flame.

As mentioned in my Spelunky HD review, the Run button had been mapped to the R Button in the first game, but here the standard controls are set to make you run by default. Pressing the shoulder button causes your character to walk instead. This turns out to be huge quality-of-life improvement, as holding the R Button down basically the entire time used to make my wrist cramp up. Auto-Run is definitely the way to go, an absolute godsend for longer play sessions.

The first area in Spelunky 2 is called the “Dwelling”, and it’s a bit less lethal than the Caves had been. The vicious Tiki Traps from the first game have been replaced with Totem Traps, which forgo the deadly extending spikes for less-deadly extending boxing gloves. Instead of skewering the player in one hit, the new Totem Traps need to punch you twice in order to take your four hearts.

The Dwelling caps off with boss fight in 1-4, against the cavemen’s leader. Quillback, as he’s known, is a big dude wearing a giant, spiky porcupine hide. He will roll at you like Sonic the Hedgehog and, if you’re caught by this roll, it’s instant death. As threatening as that is, he’s actually quite beatable, even armed with only a rock. Just stay out of the way of that roll attack!

After Quillback, the end of World 1 gives you the choice of what area to tackle next: the Jungle using the exit on the left, or Volcana using the exit on the right. Depending on the type of equipment you have, or how you feel about flowing pools of molten lava, you’ll want to go one way of the other. I honestly think Volcana is the easier route, but if you have a Powerpack then you’re likely better prepared for the Jungle.

Tight quarters in the Jungle, and spiky too.

Unlike the Dwelling, the Jungle is basically as deadly as you remember it from Spelunky 1. You’ve got the boomerang-wielding Tiki Men, Witch Doctors, and, oh hey, the giant spiders are here now! Swell. If you want to find the Black Market though, it’s in the Jungle.

Volcana has pools of molten lava, fire-spewing ladybugs, and Rock Dogs—a flame-resistant, fire-breathing mount from hell (literally). It also has walking molten man called “Magmars” who just crawl out of lava pools at random. But while the Jungle feels tight and claustrophobic, Volcana feels comparatively spacious. Plus, you find Vlad Castle’s deep in Volcana, so it’s usually my default route. (Love that Vlad and his stylish red cape.)

World 3 brings back the Olmec fight from the original game, though it plays out a little differently this go around. Getting past Olmec provides yet another fork in the road: go to Tide Pool or go to the Temple.

If you fight Olmec all the way through his three phases, you can reach the Ankh, an amulet of resurrection.

Tide Pool is, in my opinion, the coolest area in the game. A colorful, ornately decorated Chinese watery wonderland, Tide Pool is populated with Jiangshi (hopping vampire/zombies), spiky Octopy, poisonous Hermit Crabs, Flying Fish, and Pangxie—these beefy imperial crab-knight warriors. There’s a lake in 4-2 where you’ll find a sword in a stone (yes, that is Excalibur), and the Great Humphead: a very large, super aggressive fish. Then in 4-3 there’e a super secret path to area called Abzu, with an optional boss fight.

The Temple of Anubis is considerably more difficult than Tide Pool. Its Crush Traps alone are extra treacherous, but you’ll also encounter magic-wielding Sorceresses, teleporting Croc Men, poison-spitting Cobras, cursed Cat Mummies, and of course, the Egyptian god of death himself: Anubis. If you manage to kill Anubis though, you can take his scepter and just rain death on everything. The path to the City of Gold is also found in the Temple.

Tide Pool is so rad. Madame Tusk is looking fashionable as ever.

World 5 is the Ice Caves. This time around, the Ice Caves isn’t four stages like normal. Instead it’s one extra long, vertical level, with a Yeti cave right smack in the middle. You’ll encounter Yetis, UFOs, and Landmines—which you can actually pick up and carry with you if you’re careful. Sometimes you’ll even come across an alien piloting a mech suit, and you can totally take the mech and ride it yourself! Awesome! Things get even weirder after the Ice Caves, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Just like in the first Spelunky, you can unlock shortcuts so that you don’t always have to start from the beginning. The first shortcut places you at the end of 1-4, past Quillback, where you can choose to enter either the Jungle or Volcana. The second shortcut drops you into 3-1, beyond the Olmec fight. This allows you to go straight to Tide Pool, or expend all of your bombs to get down to the Temple. And the final shortcut starts you right off at 5-1, the Ice Caves.

In the audio/visual department, Spelunky 2 really nails the aesthetic that the original was going for, but never quite nailed. Spelunky HD has always been a little too dark and slightly too ugly, failing to fully translate the charm of Derek Yu’s art into its game assets. The sequel, on the other hand, is bright and colorful, just popping with cartoony life and a plethora of perfectly-rendered details.

Spelunky 2 is definitely the most Spelunky that a Spelunky game has ever spelunked, and its character truly shines through.

Similarly, the music in this game easily surpasses its predecessor. I think I failed to mention this in my review of Spelunky HD (probably because I was too busy heaping praise), but I thought it’s music was unfortunately pretty weak. Part of the issue was that its best tracks don’t come in until the second half of the game, a point by which the majority of players had already checked out. (Though honestly, I even thought the theme on the main menu was rather jarringly bad.) No such problem here though. The music in Spelunky 2 is far better—and far more varied—then anything we heard in the first game.

One thing I was very slow to pick-up on is that this game takes a lot of inspiration from Babylonian mythology. Kingu, Tiamat, the Tablet of Destiny, Abzu/the Cosmic Ocean are all Babylonian elements. (In hindsight, I guess having an area called “Neo Babylon” was actually pretty obvious.) And then there are the elements from Egyptian mythology as well: the Udjat Eye, the Ankh, Anubis, Duat, Apep, Osiris, and Ushabti. Of course, Olmec is Mesoamerican, while the Jiangshi and Qilin are Chinese, so perhaps Derek Yu just mashed together all his favorite stuff.

Oh, and then there’s whatever the hell THIS is. — Oh, and then there’s whatever the hell *THIS* is.

I guess that touches on a great strength of Spelunky games: they have an extremely deep well of secrets and easter eggs, multiple branching paths and meta-strategies based on a complicated chain of actions the player can attempt. And the kicker is that each and every piece of it is optional.

Spelunky is already fun just as a super difficult, exploratory 2D platformer, with its extremely well-tuned physics and procedurally-generated levels. The base game is more than enough to hold a player’s attention…assuming that they enjoy 2D platfromers, at least. But then the developers layer on secret after secret, strategy after strategy, and it becomes a game that you could literally play forever.

The end result being that Spelunky 2 is absolutely magnificent. And I just don’t know how they could ever top it.

*Duat, Duat… Sh-boom and hopin' we'll meet again!*