Ufouria/Hebereke 2 was developed by a small team from a new development studio called Tasto Alpha, the heads appear to mostly be Grasshopper Manufacture alumni. From what I can tell this is only their second game, the first being a card-based RPG from last year. The sound director for Ufouria 2 was one of the composers on Godhand, the director was one of several planners on Rule of Rose. The game has a charming aesthetic, great new remixes of tunes from the original game, and a good sense of humor. It's structured less like the "search action" style of the original, and more like a scaled down Amazing Mirror with extremely lite Rogue elements. The game is about 3 hours long and the last chunk is mostly mirrored versions of previous levels.

2 months into 2024, this is the most fun I've had with a new game this year. In fairness, there are a lot of games that I would be unsurprised if I had more fun with them when I eventually play them, and some of those games are already out. Maybe I'll like Infinite Wealth more than this, but I want to play other games in the series first. Maybe I'll like Relink more than this, but when that game launched it wasn't on my radar.

A couple weeks ago Penny's Big Breakaway "shadow dropped". I don't want to be too hard on it, because it's definitely an interesting game, because I think I could reasonably speculate on what could possibly be going on in the games industry climate for them to want to rush a sellable product out the door as soon as possible, and because some of the issues I have with it could be patched. One of the main things I've found myself thinking as I try to make more progress through the game is whether or not I would care about the game's collision issues, audio problems, and general "jank" if it were a PS2 game. Next to the latest Nintendo platformers Breakaway falls a little short, but it's clear sense of style and sheer amount of content for a game of its type would have made it a must-buy a couple decades ago. It's the exact kind of game you could imagine Treasure making if they were still around today, but the standards a lot of players have today are likely part of the reason Treasure's future exists mostly in rumors.

Ufouria 2 is a much easier game than the original, but could a game with those kinds of expectations still appeal to the intended audience of the IP? We're stuck with a classic problem of bringing back a piece of media like this, is it hard enough for returning adult fans while being easy enough for the possible new generation? A longplay of the original NES game is about half the length of my playthrough of the new one; even if the game's semi-random level layouts offer a bit of padding, it's definitely of comparable length, probably just a bit bigger. If Ufouria 2 was an NES game, or a SNES game like the many Japan-only spin-offs, would we remember it? Does Ufouria: The Saga already give us the answer to that question?

Would I recommend Ufouria 2? Do I think you should wait for a sale? These are absurd questions. If enough small teams existed around the world making games of this exact scope that one game like this released every week, I know exactly how I would spend Friday night every weekend. I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less. I hope these guys were paid well.