Sitting down to play Lumo 2, as a gamer of a certain vintage, I fully expected to be treated to a few touching moments as developer Triple Eh? transported me back to the sweet innocence (and unbelievable stupidity) of my gaming childhood. A few nostalgia button pushes and I’d be happy enough. Sit that alongside some decent gameplay, and we could be onto a winner.
Just as was the case in 2016’s Lumo, the point here is to give you short bursts of action-styles from classic adventures resurrected from the depths of computer game history. You know the sorts of things; in the first Lumo you had stuff like Knight Lore, Equinox and Head Over Heels, whilst this sequel serves up…well…to list them all would be spoiling things, but let’s just saying kicking off your game with a delightfully spot-on homage to Dennis Caswell’s 1984 classic, Impossible Mission, is one way to get me fully onboard very quickly.
As soon as I started tumbling (awkwardly slowly) over robotic enemies and waiting impatiently for trundling lifts to move up and down, I knew I was in dream town. And I’m not even being sarcastic. This plays exactly how I remember the game it’s aping, and whilst Lumo 2 does have some presentation issues on Switch – it’s a little blurry at times – the selection of game tributes it presents, as your huge-hatted protagonist bounds through and snaps up a series of satisfyingly tricky collectibles, are all on-point mechanically. Hooray!
Depending on who you are, though, it may be sort of a half-hooray. The homages are so on-point that they’re going to alienate some by their very nature. They’re tough, and this isometric malarkey is no joke — believe me, I fought in the original Isometric Wars. Lumo 2, just as was the case with the first, sticks to all the retro trappings. Your avatar is slow and cumbersome; that’s intentional. Deaths come thick and fast, sometimes because of the camera angle being tricky to judge at points; that’s also meant to be the case.
I think it’s great, but you see the potential issue! It’s not a game for everyone, by any means. You’ll also be losing out by not getting all the references, cameos, little nods and jokes along the way as you play through a generous helping of around 100 retro-inspired levels.
However, if, like me, you love a bit of the rough and tumble of proper old-school isometric stuff; stuff like Marble Madness or Ant Attack, whilst also getting blasted with the occasional side-scrolling/3D surprise, and with plenty of tricky rubber duckie collectibles and in-game achievements to tick off as you go, I’d say Lumo 2 is a return that gives us more of the very-satisfying same. Oh, and you can play it Welsh, so bonus points all round!
Conclusion
Lumo 2, just like its predecessor, does a great job of reintroducing players to a whole bunch of retro delights from the 1980s, and in small enough servings that they don’t outstay their welcome. There’s an impressive array of tricky isometric levels to get stuck into besting here, plenty of collectibles and achievements to tick off, some nice side-scrolling surprises along the way, and a general retro-british vibe that you can’t help but love infusing the entire thing. Whilst it may not meaningfully evolve its predecessor, Lumo 2 is yet more of the good stuff.