Bit Trip Runner 2 is a strange game. Even a cursory look at any of the flamboyantly colorful and imaginative backgrounds will make you laugh at it's inherent craziness. The creators obviously had fun with this game and after running, jumping, sliding, blocking, and kicking your way through every obstacle, you will too.

As you control hilariously designed characters ranging from a reverse merman to a giant pickle, you must hurdle, duck, and dodge your way through levels laden with bizarre enemies. While the first levels require only using the jump button, later levels integrate increasingly difficult combinations of acrobatics. Even though death is caused by one misstep in this game, the obstacles and enemies you must avoid are simple to understand so that you have time to react by jumping over them, ducking under them, or even reflecting them away with your shield. While the game steadily increases to a really difficult level, your deaths seldom seem unfair. With that said, there are several really frustrating levels that required dozens of retries to finally conquer. However, it should be noted that this sequel is much easier to get into than the original which did not contain the checkpoint system.

Beyond the side scrolling gameplay, there are many unlockable characters, character skins, and 'retro' levels to find that greatly increase the replayability of the game. While the new skins and characters are purely aesthetic, the retro levels are really difficult, have a chip-tune soundtrack, and have graphics that you would have found on a SNES. Finally, each of the worlds ends with a boss fight that provides an interesting variation to the platforming formula.

While the game's graphics are far from revolutionary, they are simple and charmingly effective. The characters you control react and animate immediately to your commands and the tight controls make every failure feel like your fault. The obstacles and track that you run on have relatively simple graphics, but they do a great job of communicating what action you must perform to conquer a given obstacle. The backgrounds are hilarious and can contain everything from dead sharks to a strange looking tree man that flamboyantly gallops behind you as you run. Finally, the menu has a great cartoony style that matches perfectly with the rest of the game.

The soundtrack to this game is amazing. Rarely do I find myself getting a game soundtrack stuck in my head, but I found that happening several times while playing Runner 2. More than being catchy, every jump, collected piece of gold, and ducked-under obstacle affects the music by adding notes or riffs to the background music. Larger plus sign collectibles change the music more dramatically when collected by adding a bass riff or drum accompaniment to the already exciting musical score.

Despite its childish exterior, I found several questionable pieces of content in this game. First, the names of the levels in the game are crude innuendoes. Additionally, some characters have crass names like 'Whetfahrt Cheeseborger.' One character, the reverse merman, has the impression of male genitalia bulging from his underwear. Violence in game is kept to a minimum and includes kicking mechanical bosses to destroy them. A dead shark is visible in some levels.

Despite those few questionable inclusions, Bit Trip Runner 2 is a solid game that successfully drives the player onward through skill based gameplay accentuated by a fantastic musical score. While some levels will take dozens of frustrating deaths to complete, the joy of persevering through the challenge will give you a feeling of accomplishment seldom felt in other games. I would recommend this game to teenagers and older who can accept the questionable moral content.

-ChanBearBeast