It’s been three years since GoNNER dropped on Switch, a game we thought pretty highly of. Bringing us a challenging 2D platformer with rogue-like mechanics, it told the story of Ikk, our altruistic blob-like hero that set out to help a land-bound whale called Sally. Placing us in a series of procedurally generated levels, no two playthroughs were ever the same. Looking to build upon this winning formula, developer Art In Heart have now released GoNNER2, presenting a slightly more colourful affair than its predecessor with 2-4 player local co-op. It likely won’t appeal to everyone — and the genre isn't wanting for alternatives on Switch — but this still makes for an enjoyable sequel.
Fans of GoNNER will be pleased to know that GoNNER2 remains just as challenging. That’s made clear from the get-go, when you’re told “Press Jump To Die” instead of the usual “Press A to Start”. Death shall indeed find you, both in the “Game Over” sense and the literal embodiment of the reaper. This time around, Ikk finds himself answering Death’s call, discovering that her lair has conquered by a mysterious presence and it’s up to him to resolve this crisis. There’s little guidance on what to do and no spoken dialogue whatsoever, leaving players to figure out this completely non-linear experience alone.
Entering levels requires you to jump into a snake-like creature’s mouth, finding a second one on the opposite side as your exit. You’ll travel across five different worlds here, each coming with different enemies and features. As an example, one land will be filled with enemy snails and flying eye monsters, but another is completely submerged in water, meaning you can swim as opposed to running and jumping. Defeating every enemy isn’t mandatory to advance but in a lot of occasions, you don’t have much choice.
Ikk’s moveset is quite basic, letting you double jump across to platforms or wall jump consecutively to reach new heights. As your standard attack, he can dash into enemies but Ikk can also pick up weapons. GoNNER2 offers various options to suit different playstyles, ranging from quickfire rifles to heavy hitting sluggers. As you unlock more gear, it becomes available to equip from Death’s lair before starting a new playthrough. Though the platforming works well, weapon aiming does feel imprecise at times and it’s all too tempting to just unload the full clip, hoping your shot finally lands.
You can equip different heads for Ikk, too. Though a standard skull does little more than give Ikk greater screen presence, additional options can be located like “Block Head” to ensure it remains in place if you take a hit, or “Dashing Head” for a second dash attack. To make your playthroughs more customisable, he can also obtain passive abilities that compliment your weapons, such as “XL mags” for increased ammo capacity or “Bouncy” to let bullets ricochet off walls. Consecutive enemy deaths build up a combo multiplier, increasing your overall score and downed enemies drop ammo/coins once defeated.
It only takes one hit for Ikk to lose a heart though, dropping his equipped gear in the process, so proceeding carefully is the order of the day, as evading attacks can prove tricky. To make matters worse, there’s no cooldown either, so enemies can strike again almost immediately upon respawning if they’re close by — something that can prove mighty frustrating. If you run out of hearts entirely, Ikk is revivable if enough coins are scattered nearby, requiring you to spam the jump button to collect them and fill up a meter. If successful, he comes back but if there aren’t enough, that’s your ticket back to the lair.
Predictably, most worlds end with a boss fight, though GoNNER2 is kind and offers access to a shop, using those coins to buy upgrades like new heads, various weapons, and more hearts. It gives you a fighting chance at taking down the upcoming fiend, but these battles are intense, with some turning into challenging bullet hell-style fights. There’s an undeniable satisfaction in beating them, knowing that your repeated deaths and playthroughs have paid off. Like GoNNER, it technically doesn’t take long to reach the end, but staying alive is another question.
After defeating bosses, floating eyes emerge from them and follow you between levels, attacking you where they can. Those eyes cannot be defeated, though attacking back can stun them. Once you’ve defeated three bosses, those eyes open the doorway to your final battle and upon completing this fight, you can return to Death’s lair and try again. Everything is complimented by an appealing visual design, one that’s minimalist yet expressive. Amidst the endless black backgrounds is a colourful contrast and it creates a unique atmosphere, backed up a gentle soundtrack.
Ultimately, flaws such as imprecise weapon aiming and that frustrating ability for enemies to attack instantly following a respawn does take the shine off the experience. The rogue-like/lite landscape on Switch eShop also looks very different to how it did back in 2017, and there's certainly no shortage of spectacular alternatives in the genre. Nevertheless, GoNNER2 remains a likeable sequel for players who enjoyed the first game.
Conclusion
It takes time to figure out just what you’re doing, but anyone looking for a strong challenge will find a lot to love with GoNNER2. It builds upon the original game’s premise well and by offering co-operative campaign play, adds significant replayability with friends. It's not a flawless game by any means, and players who prefer a more guided experience would do better to look elsewhere but, those caveats aside, GoNNER2 still makes for a compelling experience that comes recommended, if you're up for the challenge.
Comments 26
Dear indie developers, we do not need anymore 'rogue-likes', 'metroidvanias', '8 bit retro graphics', etc.... Be a bit more creative. Thank you
@nmanifold There are plenty of other games released regularly that are none of those things. Just play those instead of complaining about the ones that aren't for you.
@nmanifold Rougelikes are amazing though. I hope Spelunky 2 comes to Switch.
It's pretty much like the first one then. Which is fine. I'll probably DL.
@nmanifold There is a large number of several other type of genres too if you look at the sheer colossal number of Indies (?)
Gimme more metroidvanias
@nmanifold I need more sry
@BenAV I agree with your sentiment mostly but who has time to git gud at all these rogues? The genre is definitely over saturated to the point that I think developers would be better off creating 5 hour experiences over pumping up the play time with artificial difficulty and constant death. But so many people judge games by the metric of cost per an hour of playtime so all we get is rogues.
@RBRTMNZ I think a big part of the push for rogue likes is the relative ease of developing them. You're right that people often look at dollars per hour with games, but most indies don't have the means of developing games that are long while maintaining a high level of quality. A rogue like is the ideal project, then, as a relatively small amount of quality content can be stretched out over many more hours through randomness and high difficulty. Until game development somehow becomes cheaper, I don't really see this trend changing too much.
@RBRTMNZ There's a lot of them but I don't see that as being a problem as it's not like you have to play them all. It just means there's more to choose from when you do want to play one.
Aside from co-op, is this essentially more of the same? Because I have the original in my backlog from the last time it went on sale before this sequel was announced. I played it but not as much as Dead Cells, and want to know if I should stick with the original or if there’s enough of a difference between it and the sequel to warrant having both games.
@SwitchVogel I totally agree that developers make rogues because it is a cheap way to increase the game's runtime. I guess what I am suggesting is that the rogue genre is so saturated that a very tight 3 hour linear experience would have a marketing advantage over ANOTHER rogue despite the shorter runtime.
@BenAV You're totally right. There are more games I want to play than I have time for so it is not a huge loss to skip a rogue. It just sucks that rogues always seem to have the best art and gameplay. I'm tired of this loop...
Me: Lets check out this trailer!
Trailer: Amazing art
Me: This looks beautiful!
Trailer: Incredible gameplay
Me: This looks so fun! Definitely buying it!
Trailer: Never the same experience twice! Procedurally generated levels!
Me: Closes video
Unfortunately for me, I didn't enjoy the first game, so I think I will pass on this one. The art style has always intrigued me though.
@SwitchVogel I feel people really underestimate the amount of effort it takes to craft a well-balanced roguelike. Yeah, items are random, but the development process is not. I feel like that is sort of the connection people draw, "what could be hard about adding random things?". Try taming chaos in a way that makes it consistently fun for as many hours as possible, fair, challenging, interesting, rewarding etc. That is no small feat.
On-topic: Can't wait to play this game! Gonner 1 was amazing!
@StefanN I was about to post exactly this. It's still incredibly complicated and involved - at least, for the good rogue likes. After all, someone still has to design the individual rooms and areas, make sure that they can all interconnect in a meaningful and fun way, etc... It's certainly not always the "easy" way out.
That said, I do love roguelikes, metroidvania, and retro graphics... so perhaps I am slightly biased, but I just don't understand how one could say they love the look of a game, love the gameplay of a game, but won't play it because it's a roguelike. To each their own, I won't criticize those that feel that way as I have genres I don't like - but I still don't understand it.
@roadrunner343 I've been asking myself the same thing! How some people seem to dismiss Rogue-games even if they find them otherwise appealing. Well, but i also agree with the "i don't understand it" part, so i'll leave it at that, haha. For me personally, roguelike is somewhat of a turn-off as well ironically, just because i already got so many games that i love to sink time into, with Enter The Gungeon being my most played Switch game, haha.
First one was a lot of fun, but I don't really feel the need to play a sequel. I can always go back to the original. This doesn't look sufficiently different to warrant a purchase.
@nmanifold Yeah I have totally lost interest in this style of game a long time ago. Seems like they keep pumping these things out for the hardcore fans who can never seem to get enough of this style of game, like it's the only thing they play or something.
Personally, I can't get enough Metroidvanias. But I'd like to ask indie developers to make more games with attractive female protagonists instead of blobs and bricks and featureless orbs and the like.
I'm fine with certain kinds of rogue-likes, when I accept them as a new kind of 'arcade' game. Given that I grew up in the NES era when games didn't have saves all the time and a game could be beaten in an hour if you memorized it, I understand the appeal. It has the challenge of old school games, with replay value baked in with the procedural generation and the like. The problem is developers continuously think that these old school games were good -because- they were hard...when really, developers were still kind of learning how to make games and the difficulty rose up mostly from design flaws.
So I can tolerate the kind of rogue-like that has a sense of progression, not the ones where if you die everything is wiped and you basically start the whole game from scratch. It's also a problem when procedural generation is used as a bandage to cover up the inability or refusal to design actual levels, which often comes into play when a run is ruined by a bad level design or useless item drops through no fault of the player.
@StefanN I'm not dismissing rogues. I am saying there are already so many similar rogues with great gameplay and art that the market feels saturated. It doesn't matter how cool Gonner 2 and Hades look and play, I am not going to play either for a while because I just got Scourgebringer, I am still working on West of Dead, and I have Gungeon, Children of Morta, Risk of Rain 2, and Moonlighter just sitting in my backlog. Beating a rogue is a big commitment. I don't think I am alone in not being able to fit another into my play time so I was suggesting that developers would see more success making tight linear games.
@RBRTMNZ In case it seemed like it, I wasn't addressing you in particular. Anyway, I'm in the same boat as you! I can't fit in more roguelikes because I already got so many games, including roguelikes, that I can easily sink a lot of time into 😅.
Almost every genre is over saturated and you don't have to be a fan of every genre or every game in a genre.
This game is only 12.99. This to me is a great price to grab one day and play even if only for a few times.
The original GoNNER is a super favorite of mine, so I’ll be grabbing this very soon with the current discount. I’m so used to being F-Zeroed with many of my favorite franchises/games that this is a real treat 😄.
Would be nice to know how the weapons work. I heard this one lets you aim in any direction. Is it twin stick aiming?
@Dualmask attractive female protagonists
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