I started the first batch of licensed games with a Stuart Little game, and I’ll end it with a Stuart Little game, with a game number 51 being Stuart Little 2 for Game Boy Advance. The immediate question that comes to mind is: is this game better than Stuart Little: The Journey Home for Game Boy Color? The answer is…………….. yes...
…which isn’t a high bar to clear.

So, the problems. Do keep in mind that I played this on default difficulty, which is normal. There are only 2 difficulty options, so it’s gotta be hardcore. From what I can tell, easy only adds some guidance and more health pickups. With that being said, I can’t say that the difficulty is of fair variety. First off, you have platforming sections. The physics are basically Super Mario Bros. style, but somehow worse. Midair control isn’t great, it can be surprisingly difficult to make small adjustments or jump on a higher platform that is close. While ramming into walls and higher jumping from stand still are thankfully absent, the fall damage remains, and it’s pretty inconsistent. I really don’t know how it works, there are a few instances where you are required to fall down, and you take damage! That’s not fair.

Speaking of not fair, there are a few other play styles besides platforming. There’s top down racing, which thankfully only shows up once. The time limit is very strict, the controls aren’t very good, and it’s not aided by the screen resolution. Next, there are flying sections. Again, the screen free real estate doesn’t help, you’ll have to memorize the enemy or pickup locations. Okay, let’s talk about the elephant the size of a Stuart Little 2 GBA cartridge in the room. The game is heavy on trial and error. I think the best example is the drain level. You descend into it on a string and use a flashlight to scare spiders that want you dead. The problem is that they can appear from anywhere. Including on top of the player! And the level itself is pretty long and slow, which means redoing a long portion of this level. A cherry on top of this frustration inducing cake is the password system. The game doesn’t feature saving, but it dispenses a password after each level. The problem is that the password also saves your lives! If you beat a level with just one life, you’ll be stuck with a password that starts you with one life. This is a terrible design choice, especially since you can’t skip cutscenes, that means losing a single life you have, entering password, rewatching the cutscene, then repeat until success.

Stuart Little 2 is arguably a better deal than Stuart Little: The Journey Home. It’s longer for one, more varied and features higher production value, like voice acting during cutscenes that doesn’t sound too bad. Also, keep in mind that I played the GBC game on easy difficulty, which was the default, so I imagine playing this game on easy would alleviate some frustration. I don’t think it matters much though, Stuart Little 2 would still be mediocre at best. The easy difficulty would remove some trial and error elements, but the presence of those elements don’t equate to good challenge. The level design is nothing to write home about and I wouldn’t call it “engaging”. And lastly, the aforementioned flaw with the password and lives systems. I can’t recommend Stuart Little 2, unfortunately, this is another game that is rodent rubbish.