Finding Teddy 2 – Game Review

Introduction

Finding teddy 2 was an interesting game to play, on the website they state “Finding Teddy 2 is a 2D Adventure / Action game with a Pixel Art Retro finish. Help Tarrant in a quest, in which you will have to fight, use your sense of direction and hearing to accomplish your mission.” This is a follow on from Finding teddy, a point and click adventure game for Phone, Tablet and on Steam.
Made by Storybird, a french casual gaming and services for iPhone, iPad and Android devices Games. Published by LookAtMyGame, an expert of the VideoGame industry covering iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Pc, Mac, Linux and Web games and applications. Finding teddy 2 is available on Steam, so it has the added support of the community, Steam achievements and full controller support. I’ll touch on that a bit later for you.

Gameplay

If you’ve ever been a fan of old-school platformers, this is one of those games that will keep you entertained for hours. Gameplay wise it is less action and more puzzle, it feels a lot like older Zelda games. And this is something I really love, obviously with reviews we wish we could spend hours and hours playing the game. But we like to get a feel for the game straight away and write our thoughts down, and then build up on these initial findings with a bit more testing. The first thing that’s always a little odd is learning the controls for different 2d scrollers as they always seem to be so different, with Finding Teddy 2 I found the controls aren’t that difficult to pick up, I really liked what they had done, easy to use from the word go, nothing complex once I did find them.
While the story line seemed a little lacking as did the combat, the level design and some amazing animations made up for it. The combat is…’Meh’ at best, some of the enemies feel clunky to fight and there’s no knockback, once an enemy starts charging their attack there’s nothing you can do to interrupt it. While there are some great mechanics in the combat such as the shielding it just need something added.

With a maze-like approach to level design and, without the help of a map, you really have to use your brain to get navigate. It can be a bit of a nightmare because of this mapless system, however this add to the gameplay. It forcefully got me to explore things more than I already had and to also stumble upon numerous secrets and to gather more currency via slaying monsters to spend in the vendor’s shop

The game itself is far from easy, you aren’t given any directions. This is one of those games to throw yourself into and use your sense of direction to complete the game, puzzles are incredibly cryptic and at times frustrating  Simply cast out into the game with little to no information on how to proceed, its actually games like this that really excite me.

Audio & graphics

Obviously this is a 2d game, but the graphics are simply amazing for 2d pixel art. I think this is actually down to the fact a lot of textures have a nice gradient to them, or they are solid textures with vibrant colors. I was actually quite surprised to see some really nice lighting in the game which added an additional level of immersion. I’d talk all day about pixel art and 2d games, but the real bottom line is Finding Teddy 2 is a gorgeous game to play! Every detail has been well thought out, I didn’t feel like anything had been rushed which is rare in games these days, obviously this isn’t Crysis so we don’t expect tesselation and TXAA, but I really enjoyed playing this fun and vibrant game, from the simple corridors to the scary outdoor scenes I couldn’t fault it.

As for audio, it felt quite ambiet but trippy at some points. You go from almost platonic to edge of your seat stuff, but strangely it works well. The sound of your footsteps became a tad annoying after having played for a while but the soundtrack itself does try to distract you from this. In some ways when I was in the graveyard walking around, it felt like I was playing one of the earlier Resident Evil titles. Those footsteps sounded quite familiar.  However I think that is just the retro gamer in me coming out. I don’t know whether it’s me being a little hard but some of the audio in game felt like you could tell when it was looping. However once you get immeresed in gameplay itself, you don’t tend to notice it as much.

Conclusion

Bottom line – this could be one of hardest games you’ll ever play in your life. It brings back classic details I sometimes miss in the next generation games. There is no sense of achievement in a world full of minimaps and tutorials, and those helpful reminders that remind you to press “e” to heal. I would say this game is not for everyone because of how incredibly hard the game is in terms of cryptic puzzles. It took me a few hours to really get into the game but once I got to grips with the game it was a pleasant and relaxing game to play.

Another thing worth going into a bit further detail for is the support for the Xbox 360 controller, this is a nice touch and is sometimes a rariety for indie games. It felt quite easy to use, didn’t take long to master the controls and I soon felt like I was back in the 90’s. I only found out this worked because i’d left it plugged in from GTA V. But it’s a nice touch for those that feel both comfortable with a controller and keyboard/mouse.

I was definitely let down by the lack of a tutorial or introduction to the game as well as a lack of indication of what some of the powerups and collectables do. Improve this and i’d definitely consider a 5 star rating. However I still think that this game will keep any plaformer fan entertained for hours, so for that I give it a thumbs up and say go and check it out.