Finding Teddy 2 Review

Many modern games take heavy inspiration from the ones that came before. Some take on a stylised version of 8-bit graphics. Some pay homage with borrowed gameplay mechanics. Some will even deliberately include misspellings and grammar errors as a nod to bad translations of the ‘80s. Then, a game like Finding Teddy 2 comes along which does all these things in a daring attempt to distil an entire decade of games into one piece of software.

Described as a “2D action adventure” by publishers Look At My Game, (thanks, guys; I'm doing it as we speak) Finding Teddy 2's story is centred on a little girl whose house has a connection with a strange ‘otherworld’ where monsters roam free. The beautiful introduction mimics an old NES game being played on an old curved CRT screen, giving us a recap of the first game – where the evil king of the otherworld, Tarrant, had no friends and found himself shunned by the public, so he stole a little girl's teddy bear and made it his friend. At the end of her long quest to find Teddy, the girl defeated Tarrant, and they became friends, but later on, the king was tragically killed. Now, Tarrant's soul lives on in the bear, and the girl and he must continue together on a new journey to collect four important MacGuffins to restore peace to the otherworldly kingdom. As madcap as that plot sounds, it's all just an excuse for some epic adventuring and old-school gaming action.

Finding Teddy 2 apes other successful action adventure games by curating the most interesting mechanics, and melding them into one. For instance, it borrows exploration and backtracking elements from games like Castlevania and Metroid, and item hunting/upgradable health from the Legend of Zelda series. Unsurprisingly, by stealing the greatest parts of already great games and mashing them together, a very enjoyable exploration experience is the result. You can easily continue with the main story, to go through the levels from A to B, but the real joy of this game is leaving no stone unturned. Checking every nook and cranny in other games can get very laborious, but here, you'll be smashing every pot and opening every door looking for more marbles(the currency of the game's world), keys, or important items – combing through every inch of the map quickly becomes addictive.

Aside from those elements, Finding Teddy 2 boils down to being an open-world sidescroller where, to progress, you have to fight your way through hordes of enemies, negotiate a bit of platforming, solve some puzzles, navigate your way through dungeons, and then kill off massive bosses. A time-tested formula, sure, and Finding Teddy 2 tries to make all of these things feel fresh instead of trite, but there are problems here. Your sword is frustratingly short, so getting close to enemies to hit them will likely mean you stand to take a hit or three in the process. The controls also seem a bit stiff; our hero never reacts precisely to commands, and before you're used to controlling her, you'll find yourself careening to your death or sliding too quickly into enemies. (falling into a pit or into water, thankfully, only amounts to the loss of one hit point) You'll get used to the controls after a little while, but in any event you'll be wishing that they were a touch more limber.

However, this game does do a multitude of things well. For instance, once you master the use of your sword and the running mechanic, slicing through enemies and traversing platforms at speed becomes a gleeful activity. I was also very, very impressed at the AI of some of the enemies – most of the time, enemies just stand there and take it, but in Finding Teddy 2, some are not dissimilar to human-controlled characters in that they block efficiently and attack you when you're open without leaving any gaps for offence themselves – a nice touch considering how the majority of video game enemies stand around waiting to die. Yet, the most appealing part of Finding Teddy 2 is the deep challenge it offers. I wasn't joking when I said this game is a throwback to games of the ‘80s as it's every bit as challenging as those aforementioned titles. The enemies pull no punches, and if you lose focus for even a second, they will not be afraid to swarm you or shoot at you during a risky jump over a wide gap. Finding Teddy 2 plays dirty, but truth be told, I like it as such – you have to scrape and claw for any small victory here, even as small as finding an item, but it all feels so satisfying when you ultimately achieve it.

However, forget the challenge or the limitless aspects of exploration; the true pinnacle of this game is the artistic presentation – and I don't use that term loosely, as Finding Teddy 2 truly is a work of art. This game uses a multitude of colour to bring the otherworld to life, however 90% of the time, the colours are muted, giving the world a dark, spooky vibe – it never truly feels safe, which makes it all the more wonderful when you get a wave of bright colour on-screen. Not to take anything away from the more dank and creepy places – these all look beautiful too, if a little scary. Also of note is the animation of on-screen sprites, which is very slick. Finding Teddy 2 imitates the 16-bit era, but doesn't copy any of the jerkiness that came with it; characters on screen have been animated so smoothly that you may believe you're watching a cartoon.

It doesn't stop there, though, as developers Storybird have scored a home run with the music as well. The score is a minimalist one that uses as little instrumentation as possible, in order to create a more haunting experience. I recall vividly how, when walking around the mansion(the game's hubworld), how all my hairs stood on end listening to the piano-inspired track as I walked the little girl and the teddy around. Finding Teddy 2's soundtrack is legitimately a thing of beauty, and I'm not just talking about to the listener. The sound engineers have also been really clever and given us a layered soundtrack – do you remember in Mario Kart Wii where, as you navigated through the menus, extra musical elements would be added on top of the existing track? Finding Teddy 2 does it smoothly and poignantly here; while you're navigating through a dark cave or the bowels of the palace level, drum and bass tracks get layered on to the music to create either extra tension or to get the player pumped up as they draw closer and closer to a boss. The effect is really inspired, and I'm in awe that I'm seeing it in this little indie game and not some flashy AAA title.

Finally, I'd like to commend the imagination of the Storybird team, as it is their creative spark that has truly brought this game to life. For instance, the game takes place in another world, and the creatures that live within certainly don't speak English or Japanese as one might expect. Instead, they speak their own language which was created by the devs that involves singing what you want to say. To fully interact with these characters, we need to learn the language by hunting for the 12 letters – then we can communicate using the 'musicom', a tool that facilitates the singing of the game's language. As creative as that is, it's not just a one-time gimmick; you use it to unlock new areas and convince characters to let you pass by – for instance, a large golem wouldn't let me continue until I sang him the “word magic”; that took me a second to figure out, but once I knew it was “please”, I translated it and continued on. It's little ideas like that which make a game feel much more complete. However, the absolute icing on the cake here are the spelling and grammar mistakes intentionally included by the developers such as “saving datas” and the rendering of the king's name as “Tarant” in the introduction harkens back to the days of poor quality translations on 8 and 16-bit consoles – just one of the many ways Finding Teddy 2 feels like a fitting tribute to that era.