de Blob 2

De Blob 2 is the story of a cheeky, sentient blob of color trying to restore his home world to its former glory after it has been taken over by an evil corporation that turns everything gray. If you find yourself thinking right now ‘hold on, I thought that was the plot of the first game’, rest assured you are in fact reading a review for de Blob 2. Long story short: it is more of the same, plus/minus some issues. Thankfully, they fixed more than they broke and I can actually recommend this game, IF you are willing to put in at least two playthroughs (more on that below).
To go into further detail:
THE GOOD:
- Graphically, de Blob 2, like its predecessor, manages to make the most of very little, with a relatively simple cartoonish style that effectively uses color and the lack thereof to make environments either pop with joy and excitement or feel more depressed than a quarantined extrovert, respectively. The devil is in the details though, and compared to the first game, there is not only more going on on-screen now (flowers, small animals etc.), but also the lighting and effects were improved by miles.
- As in the first game, the soundtrack and sound design are outstanding, with funky synth tunes that go from ‘occasional blip as you nudge a lamp post’ to ‘full jazz number as you paint entire avenues’. Each color has its own instrument, each action its own, slightly different sound and that does help when there is maybe a little bit too much going on at the same time (trust me—sometimes the only way you’ll know you picked up a collectible/clock inside a chaotic fight is the small ‘ding’ you get for doing so).
- Blob has learned some new moves (most importantly, the ability to charge at enemies, if he has enough color), which are further enhanced by in-game pick-ups (boosts for your charge, health/color regen etc.) And a good thing too, because you will need them to beat many of Blob’s new enemies, some of which are worse than others (spikeys can go and get bathed in The Dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit). As a side note, what I believed to be a bug in the previous game—Blob just stubbornly sticking to walls sometimes no matter what I did—turned out to be an actual, intended mechanic, except the first game never bothered to explain it as such. This one thankfully did. Also thankfully Blob no longer instant-dies upon touching ink (though he does slowly lose health) and no longer loses health at all when entering water.
- Related to the new mechanics, you can now actually enter buildings, which will lead you into 2D platforming sections with various gimmicks. They are surprisingly enjoyable and a welcome change from the usual formula. Most of the time.
- Controls can still only be checked from outside the game, but at least there is now a targeting system for your jump/smash and the vertical camera in this game actually works, praise the stars.
- The checklist and compass from the previous game have returned and though they are not without their issues (more on that below), they are decent enough. Once you finish the main objectives of a level, optional challenges will appear in which your compass will guide you to every last unpainted structure and billboard, and after those, it will point you to Raydians, trees and destructable objects.
- Finally, three small things which I was sadly not able to enjoy to its fullest: 1) the final boss fight in this one is not on a timer, thankfully, 2) you start out without getting hassled by Arty, Zip and Whatever-They-Were-Called, and 3) the game introduces a new faction called the Blancs, Raydians who have elected to forego color and want the world to be all white/gray instead. Well… almost… except...
THE BAD:
- … some of the welcome changes introduced in the beginning of this game turn out to be red herrings. Arty, Zip and co.? They return halfway through the game to continue to annoy you. The Blancs? Only brainwashed by the Inkies. And speaking of which—your new arch nemesis? Pappa Blanc? It’s Comrade Black. You find out in level 3 or so and it’s literally the most disappointing plot twist since Kane’s goddamn sled.
- Remember how I said the compass now tracks trees and raydians? Guess what it does not track: the two NEW types of collectibles—inspirations, which can be used to upgrade Blob to allow him to store more color, use less color when charging, etc. and of which there are anywhere between 30 TO 50 PER LEVEL, and galleries, which I did not bother to look at because collecting was—once again, a chore.
- Levels once again take anywhere between 15 (if you rush and ignore all side stuff) to 75 (if you try to get everything) minutes. The developers thankfully introduced an autosave feature this time, which regularly saves the game so that even if you quit to the desktop you can pick up where you left off, and that’s nice, except… the last autosave checkpoint is after the last story mission of each level. Meaning if you still have half the collectibles to hunt for at that point, it’s really between you and lady luck, because unlike last game, Blob can only store 1 extra life unless you upgrade him.
- Every level now has points of no return which you are not warned about. Basically, any time you enter a building, you want to explore EXTRA carefully, because most of them are 1-time-only areas.
THE UGLY:
- Because of this ‘1 life only’ stipulation combined with the fact that this time around extra lives only give you 90 additional seconds instead of 5 minutes, it is absolutely possible to get stuck in a lose-lose situation if you do not reach the final objective of a level with at least 5 minutes to spare—you will go in with… say… 2 minutes left, run out of time, get a lousy 90 seconds in addition, run out of time again, respawn in the last checkpoint with those same 2 minutes + 90 seconds, rinse repeat—it can get utterly infuriating. I hate level 4 with the passion of a thousand suns now.
- This game must have had zero QA, as evidenced by mandatory tutorials being overlapping/cut off as early as in the very first level. Thankfully, I did not get stuck behind any level geometry this time.
- Unless you want this game to be utter pain, please, PLEASE do as I say and not as I did: do NOT try to get all the achievements in one go. It is technically possible (I did it), but it will make you miserable, because trying to go through the game without upgrades, on normal difficulty, while picking up everything will leave you constantly running short on time, color, and lives, and will turn every confrontation with more than one spikey (and there are many, many of those), into a decidedly un-fun adventure of strike-retreat-strike-retreat-strike-re—heavens, please make it stop. If you want to have any amount of fun with this game (and you can!) I recommend 100%ing it like this instead:
---Do your first playthrough on easy, with no upgrades, not bothering with collectibles or anything like that, in order to get the “Keepin' it real” achievement out of the way.
---Do your second playthrough on normal difficulty, focusing on collecting everything and making sure you upgrade Blob regularly using the Inspirations you pick up (especially reducing the amount of color needed for charging and the amount of color you can store). This will make the long, collecting playthrough SO MUCH more enjoyable.
In summary, I wanted to like de Blob 2. Is this game fun? It wasn’t fun for me, though that was mostly because half the novelties and improvements, especially where the plot was concerned, ended up being disappointing (in my opinion) and because my horrible experience with the first one made me so desperate to get it over with asap, I made things a lot harder on myself than it needed to be. Would I recommend this game to others? With caveats, yes: skip de Blob 1 and do two playthroughs if you want to get 100% achievements and you can have a good time with this game.

its been 10 years and im still playing it so what does that say about this game

Blob

Yes, the audio has issues on the PC port. Yes, the PC controls are horrendous, meaning having an XBOX controller goes from being an optional feature to a requirement. Yes, there are barely any PC settings. Yes, the story is absolutely a retread, and the bosses are copy-pasted. So why do I like this game? Well, everything else. Controls with a controller are butter-smooth. The level designs pre-color and post-color are marvelous. The art style is a massive improvement. Coloring things and transforming buildings is addicting and fun, even after four play-throughs. The Hydro-Plant might just be the prettiest level in a platformer, period. Playing without character upgrades on Normal mode transforms the game into a challenging, yet fun experience that I recommend everyone do. The soundtrack and sound design in general is top-tier (The last level's music is outstanding). This game stands tall and proud among my favorite games of all time.

sick beats!

I adore this game. Satisfying, cheering, relaxing and subtly political. Huge fan.