Hardest Modern Game (That I’ve Played) - Spelunky 2 Critique 

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This was an amazing video. There's not really much content on RU-vid for Spelunky 2, so I was happy someone made something as in-depth as this.

You are probably the only person i heard saying that tidepool is ugly, nearly everyone I hear says that it is by far the best looking zone in the game

Temple, fittingly, becomes more viable and the clear choice as you become more skilled. The Alien Compass which you get from Van Horsing directs you to the exit in the Cosmic Ocean -- way more valuable than it might seem at first. The Elixir protects you from afflictions like Curse and Poison, and doubles your healing from all sources. The Scepter makes most levels (and a crime run) trivial; you lose it by going to the City of Gold, but nothing _forces_ you to go there. You can entirely skip the questline (chain) by skillfully maneuvering through the lasers at the top of 6-4 Tiamat's Throne, allowing you to keep the Ankh and Vlad's Cape, with the benefits from Temple. Et cetera... This game has a very high skill ceiling. I think Temple is a pretty excellent embodiment of that. But I do still wish Tide was cooler.

This is my most played game (besides minecraft but idk how many hours i have) I cant help myself but see parts of this video and just think to myself "Wow he didnt know this?" "Why would he do that when he couldve done this?" I could talk about this game for hours. Its actually a masterpiece of game design and i still learn something everytime i play it. If a horned lizard eats a dung beetle and gets to one health, whenever he does his weird hoppy thing that he does at 1 hp, blood squirts from his eyes and can get you a lot of health with the kapala if you have the means of dodging him. 150 hours i went without knowing that. Moles can drop pickaxes to reflect their digging, Jiang Shi Assasins can drop spring shoes to reflect their anti gravity powers, bone piles can drop bone keys, royal yetis cant get frozen since they have freezing breath. This game is so intricate it makes you wonder how they come up with all of it. Theres a giant secret questline that i didnt know existed beyond its first half with a thief girl and you can do a heist in the palace together later in the game. Its amazing.

fun fact yang makes the turkey spawn rate go up so after you help him and he increases the spawn rate rost all turkeys.

Spelunky 3 gonna be like: *In order to reach the secret ending, learn ancient Hebrew and solve this riddle:*

Watching him stand there and do nothing at the 4-3 idol when he had paste and 22 ropes caused me immense pain

This is a great video! Just a helpful tip with the skeletons. You can tell if a skull is going to come alive if the black of its eyes is slightly larger than usual. For example, if you pause at 5:42 you could see that the skull on the right has slightly larger eyes and therefore it was alive. Practically it doesn't make much sense to specifically go out of your way to look at a skull's eyes especially when you're dealing with a bunch of harder things at once, but in general, there's more black in an alive skull and the futures look more defined. You'll also get more and more used to identifying it now that you know there's a difference.

I'm so glad to see someone making videos about this game, I feel like it was incredibly slept on because of the difficulty. This is the most rewarding game I've ever played, every frustration you mention in the video is so valid, but there are really concrete answers to all of them! Not always easy to find, and sometimes still really hard to execute once you know what to do. Figuring out strategies, secrets, and nuances to the game is just an endless source of fun for me. 500 hours in and years into the game's life I'm still learning new things. I've played other roguelikes, there's nothing like this

I already considered Spelunky HD to be the hardest game I've ever played, and I've played those games mentioned in the start of the video, so you can bet that I was surprised by how much harder the sequel is. Haven't finished it yet, got to Tiamat tho

24:45 it’s not a bug it’s a feature. When the game was first released Olmec was changed many times. Originally Olmec never stopped shooting bombs, so most people just waited on its head for it to blow up the whole level. Horrible pacing for the game, but it was the most optimal thing to do. Also, great vid btw.

Not sure if you still read comments under this video, but there was an ending in Spelunky HD where you could kill King Yama with an eggplant, in one hit, but it is even more difficult than the eggplant ending in Spelunky 2, just wanted to let you know

26:28 did you just pick up that nugget of gold without triggering the trap? Thats some serious Spelunky 2 skill

What I love about the spelunky series is that it can feel like bullshit sometimes but it’s always your fault when you die, there’s always something you could have done to prevent that death. That level of mastery you get is like nothing else I’ve played. Spelunky hd and 2 are some of my favorite games ever.

I'm probably not the first person to mention this but you can change how long text boxes last for and their opacity in the settings

Incredible. Everything you stated, from the frustration of BARELY messing up your movement and paying for it severely; to the hatred of dwelling, lizards, skeletons, and moles; to mastering the game and still making beginner-level mistakes; to getting angry and then it making you perform worse and get even more angry and perpetuating the cycle of anger until you ragequit; it's ALL true for me.

So I was basically carrying the whole team in an online Spelunky 2 match I drop my shotgun to open a chest A hired hand grabs it and kills me...

I personally found the jungle to be significantly harder than volcana, the enemies (especially the ******* witch doctors) are just brutal and you have so little space to work around them. At least in volcana you can generally work out a safe path through the level and avoid dying completely - I usually take a hit or two from the fire bugs or magma balls but very rarely die to the lava. This was a brilliant video, great in-depth analysis. I’ve done all the side quests and have a pb of 7-22 in the cosmic ocean. Currently about 300 hours in and still loving this game. And yes the eggplant run sucks just as much ass as you predicted it would here!

You get like half a second of invincibility when walking through doors or pipes so I don't think it's really that unfair to have enemies at the other side waiting for you since you can also just go back through the door when there is a lot of stuff attacking at once. Also I think Temple is definitely worth it. The Elixir you get from the Star Challenge is one of the most OP items in the game (protecting you from Poison or Curse and also doubling each HP that you gain) and the Alien Compass is really really good for Cosmic Ocean. And if you decide to skip Duat you can have the Scepter and enemies shouldn't be nearly as much of a problem anymore.

Keep it up dude! I only saw you a couple days ago but I've already gotten so much enjoyment out of your videos!

I disagree with your critique of Tide Pool. I actually really enjoy the look of Tide Pool but I guess that is up to personal preference. But i find your critique of no new interesting enemies a bit flawed. Jang Shi are native to tide pool and they only show up in earlier levels for the unique level feelings but that doesn’t change that Tide Pool is their area. You also forgot to mention the giant samurai crab (which I forgot the name of) but that is almost like a mini boss and the octopy do charge like any other enemy but they also shoot ink which blinds you which is clearly unique. The hermits crabs hide in blocks and also are very useful for crates I just don’t get your criticism here? Otherwise the video is pretty good and an enjoyable watch

Temple route got buffed giving guaranteed Jetpack and the challenge potion also got a special buff.

Weird that you're not a fan of tide pool, I've pretty much never seen someone dislike it. Its my personal favorite level in the game, I honestly like how it essentially reuses many features of the jungle from the first game, since that was my favorite level in that game. Edit: I've also never seen anybody critique the visuals of tide pool, that was the most shocking part of this video for me. I absolutely adore how this level looks, personally. I think its gorgeous

18:02 Tip I found out by accident on those annoying mosquitos: you can duck and they will pass over you, leaving you unharmed!

RU-vid just recommended this video to me. A retrospective on Spelunky? I'm in. Hopefully I wasn't the only one who got this recommended to and the RU-vid algorithmic gods are in your favor ! Subscribed.

I have many hours in this game but I didn't know you can whip enemies diagonally from one block lower.

Fantastic analysis. Keep up the great work.

Love your reviews, keep up good work

at 35:50, i think you didn't hit the coffin, you hit the corspe of the helping hand

I think royal jelly being given after kappala is a good move. By that point you probably have a good number of the basic items it would give and bombs. You'd also probably have a good number of health but some sources chunk your health down by 10 and you can still get instakilled so it's not like your invincible even with 99 health

26:48 I have seen 10 too many ways of how you can survive that

You deserve so much more recognition.

Bro that jetpack at 22:33 🥲

Currently watching the video, gonna put time stamps to interesting stuff I learnt by myself or just funfacts that can be nice to know ! (I have 500h in total in both games, and I'm still bad xD So I'm passing down some knowledge I've got by watching the community or by trial-and-error on my own). Nice video with a lot of tips, also, by the way ! 4:12 - Doing it when you have one jump like that at the end of a level and have spare time helps practicing it without the fear of the ghost getting to you. But getting it consistently takes a long time, I still can't do it. 7:04 - Learnt that by myself. Once you master the physics of throwing stuff, it's really REALLY useful ! Can save you ropes in a lot of situations, and when you're low on health without ropes, it can save you too. 8:40 - It's actually really funny, but someone despises the climbing gloves SO MUCH they actually found a quilinn skip with the web gun. Nobody will use it, probably, but it's still a quirky thing to know ! xD 9:15 - Notice how he talks about the ghost with the ''She'' pronoun ? For those who don't know, it's a fun lil easter egg that was there since spelunky hd (Not sure for classic, haven't played it) where you can get the camera item and snap a photo of the ghost. It'll slow her down and she will pose for the photo with accessories that are clearly feminine. In spelunky hd, the ghost will have accessories that are obviously feminine (You'll understand why, if you check it out) and in spelunky 2, it's more like a traditional oriental culture ghost pose. 13:00 - Yang is an honestly under-used strategy. I use it when it's not too hard to do so (When he's not behind some shopkeeper for example. LOL). Reason behind it is, if you help him, you get an animal shop in 2-1 or 2-2 (Don't remember by heart, but around those levels) where Yang sells you back all 3 turkeys and 1 pair of ropes. I mean, can never say no to health, and when you want to finish the game, you slowly start to understand how much ropes and bombs are REALLY valuable and a lot of the time mandatory. After that, if you're a pacifist and have extra money, you can buy all of his stuff, or you can also steal or kill him. Pretty useful trick I learnt that saved my runs a whole lot when I could do it. 13:56 - Just something I find cute ! It's nice you put that in the video ! ^^ 16:23 - You have a few frames of invisibility when coming out doors. Use it to jump or whip directly against the enemy who aren't invisible. You can also just go back into the door directly. 26:01 - If you want to get into Tusk's palace (Without causing a scene), you need to get every item in that dice house. There's more item in that shop than any normal dice house too ! 29:10 - Spelunky music in general is always good, but in my opinion, on that one, HD has my heart. But Spelunky 2 music is also really good ! 30:27 - Only compass that actually shows you the exit in the cosmic ocean area. But since you're in temple, you won't be able to go to CO with the Ankh, so it really depends on which helps you the most. Also shows you the alien ''Base'' where there is the plasma canon, some lore (Shopkeepers), and an unlockable character if you haven't gotten it yet. Or you can be like me and use the shortcut and kill yourself in the void endlessly until you actually MIRACULOUSLY find it xD 31:34 - There's skeleton walls placed in a recognizable pattern (Changes each time, but it's easy to recognize) where he flies. Takes some time to see it and recognize it. 37:10 - Honestly in my opinion one of the coolest looking place in the game. I still can't clear it consistently tho. A tip I can give, is PREPARE YOURSELF to get LOADS of bombs to bomb most of your way out. 39:22 - Just 4 words : Pain in the ass. I hate that part in its entirety. Cleared both endings, need the CO ending, and MAN I hate that part. It screws over my runs 99% of the time. So, seriously, prepare yourself for that pain xD 39:56 - Approved. REALLY cool looking place, one of my favorites too ! Even if it's also deadly. Places I actually find good looking (Not in any particular order) - Temple, Tide pools, Neo Babylon, Sunken city, and CO. And shoutout to spelunky HD ice caves, my favorite place in HD (With honestly in my opinion, the best soundtracks of HD) Also sorry if my english isn't the best, english isn't my mother language ! Anyway ! Hope these can help people out ! If anyone has any other tips or things to say, don't hesitate to add them below ! ^^

loved the cruelty squad sound effect at 13:57 lol. would love it if you did a cruelty squad analysis!

Lovely video mate, really well done

8:38 you can use the web gun as climbing gloves by spamming the shoot button while spamming j 24:30 this was a change made to prevent people from sitting on top of olmec and skipping phase 3, he drops three sets of bombs and this resets every time you break both purple things

I'm closing in on 400 hours in Spelunky 2 and I'm (still) trying to beat the Cosmic Ocean. Great video btw, keep up the good work!

Playing on a steam deck, I’m able to pause and return to my run with the deck’s suspend feature. It never occurred to me that this isn’t the case for many.

The regular compass doesn’t work in cosmic ocean so you need the Alien compass for that

I have used the web gun as makeshift climbing gloves once to climb up a floor.

awesome video!

How come you didn't bring up the Lavamander in Volcana? They're kind of rare but an enemy that shoots lava at you is pretty damn dangerous, and unless you drain the lava out from under them they're invincible.

I found this from the reddit post linking back to this video. I gotta say, this was a great watch! Sucks how it gets cucked by RU-vid algorithm like this. Wish you the best man, keep up the good work!

criminally underrated channel

36:22 The game freeze you describe is easily fixed by exiting fullscreen (alt + enter) and re-entering it. But I get your frustration because it took me around 6 lost runs to figure that out

Nice video!

I love when crucial chunks of the level spawn on the top left corner, behind Tusk's casino and a shopkeeper's treasure, completely outside my view, making me search through the whole level, hitting 3 minutes, dying to the ghost, finding the door, and then realizing i have just 1 rope. I fucking hate spelunky 2, it's the only game i've played in the last 2 weeks

I finished it but its a very challenge, keep it up dude you can win!

100% the hardest game I ever played.. and I absolutely love it. It’s a perfectly crafted game imo but you have to sink a LOT of time into it to get good. There are so many things to think about as you play, precise movements and whip attacks, where to place your items and where/when you can move, what clever exploit you can use to easily beat a boss or get past a level.. and the list goes on. This game is extremely difficult but imo that’s what makes it fun and addictive. The difficulty makes it so rewarding to leave a level with good equipment, lots of health, and lots of bombs.

The death grips then swans Really threw me for a looop

You can change how long text boxes stay on screen in the options menu btw.

With the web gun you can jump in the webs you can make so you can scale up a wall with the web gun

26:27 how did you not die to the bear trap there??! Also awesome video, I started playing Spelunky 2 this year and it has quickly become one of my favorite games ever

And after many updates, there's finally an actual reason to go Temple (tho Tide Pool still has better loot imo)

You deserve way more subs

I beat the game and I’m an old man.

I played it and loved how hard but naturally the game felt at throwing all this information but ultimately your death is based on how well you can control what to do next it took me hours to do but around 250 runs for me to “beat” the game i didn’t get to the cosmic Ocean (yet) so I’ve got work to do and my god the little tricks do play a lot into what you could do and what you now know you can do. For example whipping a dart trap to prevent an unbearable “unavoidable” hit and the climbing gloves stick to everything yes BUT whip to not stick 🤌 speed runners hold too much information that’s useful

22:29 Wang and Udjat never spawn in the same level ;)

It took me almost 90 hours to beat Tiamat without shortcuts. The run was less than 20 minutes.

I think the hardest games most people haven't heard of are: La mulana 1 La mulana 2 and World of Horror. A runner up is Diablo 2 Lod on hell. I want a la mulana 3. Also the upcoming dlc for Elden ring might be hard but I don't have a time machine nor is it June 21st yet.

The skeleton enemies have a slightly larger eye socket making them easy to differentiate

this is 45 minutes of pure entertainment

Loved this video especially I have over 500 hours in the game and it’s so fun to just think, wow I could have done that better

this game is so underrated

Web Gun is like a weaker version of Paste and climbing gloves, with slightly more use cases.

hey, you can change how long the textbox's stay for in the settings

at first,i hated the horned lizard more than the mole but now? i can avoid horned lizard way more easily and heck,under the right regeration even use them for some profit by making a horned lizard trigger a shopkeeper next to bombs which kills him and allows me to steal the stuff that remained without being chased by angry shopkeepers

“Fuck the moles” I agree moles, bats, and the lizards all in the dwelling makes it the hardest level in my opinion

U can also get madame tusk on 4-3

High on Dark Souls fumes, I was introduced to Ikaruga and that's still the hardest game I've ever played

I agree that 2 is harder then 1 but i actually think that its more forgiving just because of turkeys. the ability to get more health out of the opening is a huge difference

3:13 I also hate the first place in all the spelunkies the most

I dont personally see how you could place this above SMB in difficulty as getting 106% in that destroyed me but I cant disagree, both main Spelunky games are incredibly difficult!

You have good music taste hahaha

Very good video

You can 100% react to every time you exit a door. The game gives you very generous s. As for scorpions don't throw pots right in front of yourself. I'm not saying Spelunky 2 is 100% fair but those two situations are very fair.

Skeletons and schools used to different Sprites you can tell them apart

26:22 jumpscare

ngl spider gun can save you from fall damage

Good video

No chance theres people in these comments trying to say that every death in this game is fair and preventable 😂

2:08 HMMM NOT SURE ABOUT THAT LINE...

temple gives you alien compass and elixer. Not sure if elixer was buffed when you made this video

Dood your fucking hilarious it’s upsetting you haven’t uploaded In a year or have a twitch channel

Felt exactly like this. Can do Hell Run eyes closed, but Spelunky 2 was bs.

This is a great video but unfortunately you said tide pool is a bad area and looks bad so I have no choice but to send an airstrike to your location. 👍

Late comment, but love this video. Spelunky 2 is the best roguelike ever made.

Currently about 40 hours into Spelunky 2. I keep dying at Olmec honestly considering quitting the game Im just too bad at it lmao

28:50 Wdym this looks amazing

12:51 why place a bomb when u have cape

In spelunky hd i died over 5130 times i think i have over 1000 hours played

This game is so hard, it took me TWO YEARS to beat the normal ending

This is a really good video! As a pretty experienced person in spelunky (reached the eggplant world and got to the 15th level of cosmic ocean) i want to add a couple advanced rounting stuff. In the first choince everyone goes volcana. Black market is just not worth losing vlads cape and also jungle is way more difficult, after you go volcana a bit its not hard honestly. In the tide pool and temple choice it depends. Tide pull has a big advantage, if you can affort to carry the clone gun to ice caves (which requires skipping quilin using a hard trick btw.) then in sunken city you can clone the sun challenge resources (you will get 96 ropes and bombs). Also tide pool is easier, you can easily skip ankh using some bombs and ropes, and you can gamble which gets you 5 items and 10 health in 6-3. But the temple has 2 huge benefits. The elixir which prevents Curse and poison and gives 8 hp (good!). And the alien compass, which works in cosmic ocean. Most people choose tide pool, but temple is a legit choice. EDIT: I rewatched the video and i want to say, killing quilback always worth using one bomb to insta kill him.

It took me one year to reach cosmic 😭

There are ways not to waste the ankh on tidepool

I got help from my friend so for me super meat boy was harder. He helped me get to hundun solo in less than a month of starting Edit: Don't get me wrong I sweat the game and got pissed so many times but I got lucky to have someone with 300+ hours in the game already

Im mad he blew up the jetpack

the mines is one of the harder biomes most of the biomes dont have as many spawns as the mines