Story:
The story laid out for In The Dark 2 is actually impressive for a Game Boy game. The story is that you play as captain Ikalo Pann with your job being to track down a terrorist that is determined to take down the Galactic Federation using a virus.
That’s the story in a nutshell, but what makes it really impressive is the writing is really well done, but also the animated cutscenes. They are rather impressive and though subtle, do an amazing job at helping aid in the telling of the story the game presents.
In The Dark 2 is a combination of Adventure and puzzle game. While playing as Captain Pann, you walk around various planets picking up clues about who the terrorist is and eventually leads to their capture. You pick up clues by walking around and interacting with the environment around you and talking with people that you meet along your mission.
When you not gathering clues and talking with people as a means to gather intel, you’re solving a series of puzzles. These are light based puzzles with the goal being to put out all the lights within the given move set for the most points and will get you through the vast amount of puzzles the game gives you.
In addition to the Adventure and puzzle elements, there is also a bit of a mini or side game you can play, which is the vertical shooter training sim. When you speak with one of your crew mates, you are given the ability to play the training sim which is a bite sized vertical shooter that is a bit fun, even if it is short.
This is the Story Mode of the game, but there are a few other modes that this game offers. The additional modes offered are free play mode, and challenge mode. As their names suggest, challenge mode gives you the option to choose the number of puzzles, difficulty, grid size, and if you want to allow for puzzle resets and how many. Once you select your options, you have to get through the number of puzzles you selected without going over the set of moves for that puzzle, referred to as par. Going over par, resets the puzzles and takes away from the number of resets your given.
Free play mode as it’s name suggests, lets you play a chosen amount of puzzles without the restrictions on the number of resets on a puzzle and how many alights you hit in an effort to get them all turned off and solve the puzzle.
The other things I will touch on briefly are the option to view logs and achievements. You are able to use the view logs option from the main menu to go back through the story if you wanted to read it based on how far you’ve gotten in the game. It’s a means to refresh yourself on the story in case you need it. Achievements gives you a list of achievements and what it takes to unlock them. It’s a neat thing that seems to be an increasing feature in these new releases.
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Graphically, In The Dark 2 is impressive. The NPCs and your character are rather large and very prominent. The planets you explore are of good size with lots of subtle animations in the environment. Walking animation and the animations of the environmental elements are surprisingly smooth for a Game Boy game. Where the game truly shines though is in the animated scenes that play out which help to tell the story. The animation in each scene looks like it would be something from an old PC DOS game and not a part of a Game Boy game. It really is a sight to behold and really something you have to see to appreciate how amazing it looks.
Performance wise, the game is an Adventure and puzzle game. Because there isn’t a lot of action per say, the game performs very well given everything it has going on. The smooth animations, the dialog, puzzles, and even the mini side shooter game all perform surprisingly well. The optimization in this release is impeccable.
The music of In The Dark 2 is not as impressive as its graphics, but still pleasant. The ship, each planet, the puzzles, and even the shooter side game, all have their own separate music tracks. Depending on where you go, the music changes dynamically and almost seamlessly if it wasn’t for the games need to transition between screens. Sound effects of lights are here as well as environmental sounds which add to the atmosphere. Though there isn’t much in the way of sound in your environment, the attention to detail here adds the immersiveness of this game.
In The Dark 2 is such a leap forward from the previous game that it’s hard to imagine this is a sequel. The first game doesn’t hold a candle to this one, though it’s still a great game in it’s own right. It is easy to see how much work and dedication went into this release.
If you’re a fan of adventure games, puzzle games, or even want to just play the side shooter game, you definitely owe it to yourself to pick this game up!
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided
You can purchase In The Dark 2 here.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.