Spelunky 1 VS Spelunky 2

[Bloody Five]

Hello,

I have seen many players comparing defavorably S2 to S1 so I went back to the first game which I had not played for many years.

And the difference is striking.
SP 1 is challenging but it's a much more focused and deliberate game where you feel that failure is due to a lack of skills.

Whereas S2 is frantic, busy and chaotic.
Actually, going back and forth, I find playing S1 relaxing in a strange sort of way but S2 is really taxing and exhausting. I think it is due to the number of haszards on the screens and the busier environments.

There are many new things that I enjoy in S2 :
-the improved art
-the choices of routes
-the new secrets
But I feel that the game is a bit too much of a good thing and has some balance issues as well as some pacing problems (dwelling is way too difficult for a first level)

I don't know if these problems can be adressed but it's a shame because instead of building on S1, I feel that S2 suffers from the curse of the overachieving sequel.

How do you feel?

[Asandir]

Similiar. Spelunky 1 gives you a lot of breathing room between enemies/hazards, with the first stage having more enemies that are also very mobile (moles), I find myself having less time to take a breather and look at the hazards ahead and planning my moves.

By now the Dwellings have become easy but dispatching around 30 arrow traps and dodge easily dozens of moles just takes mental energy. Thankfully the Jungle and Volcano are way easier in comparison (and have a good density of enemies). What doesn't help either is how the Dwellings are always similiar (Turkey floor, Udjat Eye floor, 1-4 boss with the same layout), where I am just bored of the first stage - that never happened in Spelunky 1.

I would suggest reducing the amount of traps and enemies by roughly 10-20% and also add more crates to give some incentive to explore instead of bouncing to avoid slowly dispatching mutliple screens of 3 HP mobs.

[Not Anonymous]

As OP said!
I have the feeling this one was made to give a hard time to runners, leaving the rest of the mortals frustrated.

[Bloody Five]

Originally posted by Asandir:

Similiar. Spelunky 1 gives you a lot of breathing room between enemies/hazards, with the first stage having more enemies that are also very mobile (moles), I find myself having less time to take a breather and look at the hazards ahead and planning my moves.

By now the Dwellings have become easy but dispatching around 30 arrow traps and dodge easily dozens of moles just takes mental energy. Thankfully the Jungle and Volcano are way easier in comparison (and have a good density of enemies). What doesn't help either is how the Dwellings are always similiar (Turkey floor, Udjat Eye floor, 1-4 boss with the same layout), where I am just bored of the first stage - that never happened in Spelunky 1.

I would suggest reducing the amount of traps and enemies by roughly 10-20% and also add more crates to give some incentive to explore instead of bouncing to avoid slowly dispatching mutliple screens of 3 HP mobs.

I agree the dwelling feels repetitive on top of being way too crowded with tough enemies.
I also think that the next levels are too crowded as well.
Compare jungle in S1 to jungle in S2.
Like you said, it's harder to strategize and catch a breath.

[CMDR Shven]

I agree. I just had to write a negative review b****ing about this game. Breaks my heart because I love this series so much. But for a permadeath roguelike game it has far too many cheap deaths compared to its predecessor. I'd say maybe a full quarter of my deaths have felt like they were due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, while I can think of maybe half a dozen times in thousands of runs of Spelunky HD where my deaths were anything other than my own fault.

[CMDR Shven]

And as if to prove my point I played two runs since making that comment and they ended with me blowing up because a crab with a loot box on its back died, spawned bombs, and blew up said bombs and killed me all from one attack, and then me walking into a new area with literally 6 enemies on screen all moving toward me with different attacks stunlocking and killing me within half a second of spawning. Real cool game. Definitely feels fair and skill based.

[QcChopper]

I have the same general feeling when playing both except that Spelunky 2 being new, it's more exciting, you know the game is doing something right when it get your heart pumping like crazy, boy did that love/hate relationship come back with a vengeance.

Spelunky HD is such a great game though, I wasn't close to getting bored of it after roughly a thousand hours since Classic but now, I just want to play the sequel. Eventually I'll have a run once in a while of HD for sure.