Based on a comic of the same name dating back to the 1950s, Marsupilami has seen many iterations in its lifetime. First a comic, then a series of different TV shows, and even a band named after them, Marsupilami has a storied history that’s pretty interesting in its own right. Back in 2021, the first Marsupilami game came out and proved that it could be both vibrant and tricky, skewing the notion that it was merely a simple “Baby’s First Platformer” that may have been gleaned from the visuals alone. Now, the devious little marsupial friends are back, but can they maintain something that sticks with you long after closing the game out and putting it away?
In Marsupilami 2: Salsa Palombia, the player takes on the form of three little folks: Hope, Twister and Punch. Each of these creatures leap and bound like you’d expect them to, but they also manage to have differing move sets as well. Hope can double jump and bounce on certain enemies that otherwise can’t be killed. Twister can shoot through the air and then hover down with their helicopter tail. Finally, Punch can turn into a bouncing ball and avoid damage from spikes, as well as break boxes that are otherwise at weird angles.
While Hope and Twister are sort of Swiss Army knives (good in a lot of different situations), Punch is less useful outside of the specific moments that call for them, which makes it hard to justify using them throughout a level. That is to say, they don’t feel as good to control, and will often be more of a nuisance than anything else. Fortunately, you can flip characters on the fly, meaning you can pop Punch in for a second and swap them back when they are no longer needed.
That swapping mechanic is used brilliantly here, as levels only provide you two of the three characters to use, giving you access to the characters you absolutely need. This may sound limiting, but honestly it reduces confusion and helps the player focus on knowing they will be using the right character at the right time. It helps even more that they all do some things, like butt slams and wall jumping, meaning you really only need to worry about having them with you during specially tailored segments.
The levels are really well designed too, using every move set to characters’ absolute limits before moving onto another. There are almost no cheap segments, with everything wisely fitting together to create a perfectly chaotic path to chisel through. The bosses, however, aren’t nearly as good. If a boss is meant to showcase the skills one should have learned leading up to them, the bosses in Marsupilami 2 fall short. It’s not that there aren’t breadcrumbs of learned ideas there, just that they aren’t the focus, and every boss feels more like a roadblock to be learned independent of the levels leading up to it.
Visually, the game is nice, but nothing to really write home about. Some of the levels have sort of atmospheric themes independent of the area’s larger theme, and these are definitely standouts. However, everything just kind of works. It’s not offensive, but it won’t change your life either. The audio, on the other hand, is very good, and Marsupilami 2 is musically fantastic (as one might hope).
