izigame.me

I love the original Supraland. I didn't leave a review since it was already a certified hood classic. SIU, on the other hand, doesn't even have half as many reviews on Steam, so here's mine. I played both games this year. After completing the original, I needed to play the follow-up asap cause it was just so fun. Despite rough edges regarding combat, it was a charming and challenging puzzle platformer metroidvania. The Crash DLC was quite lackluster, but not terrible for an add-on. As a brand new entry (call it a sequel or don't, it's still a standalone game), SIU is good, but not as good.
The abilities are kind of a mixed bag. You have half of the original's abilties, but the new abilities aren't as exciting or fun. The electric gun is not as fun to use as the gun from the original. Many of the movement abilties are just absent making for less exciting platforming. What happened to the triple jump and super stomp?
Combat is better in many ways. The enemy variety and new designs are substantially better without the AWFUL ANNOYING respawning from grave sites. However, combat is still just boring and not fun. It was tolerable in the original because you had a ton of upgrades that made your gun a killing machine completely mitigating any and all challenge. It's still easy here, but it's more tedious. I just never enjoyed Supraland's combat and I still don't. It's slow, shallow, and repetitive.
The level design is noticeably more condensed with essentially one hub with all levels attached to it by one path each. There's none of the brilliant interconnected level design of the original. I get this game is underground and I love that about it. The new setting is awesome and Cagetown is significantly better and larger as a hub then the Red Town from the first game. That said, the level design is still somewhat disappointing for just being too linear and more simplistic.
The simplicity is reflected in the game's puzzles too. Outside of the excellent optional puzzles in the side content and post-credits content, the puzzles are a breeze in comparison. Don't get me wrong. The puzzles are still great and arguably better if you include the optional ones, but the feeling of being stumped just isn't there with the main quest. Often times the solution to a puzzle is right next to it. This leads to a larger issue with the game just being so much shorter. SIU has the Animal Well approach of having the real game occur after credits. SIU's main story is about half as long to complete with a mediocre final boss fight at the end. By the time I reached the castle, I thought the game was joking when it told me this was the end.
The writing is still just as humorous and light-hearted as the original. However, there appears to be some effort to have social commentary on capitalism with the Cagetown's class system. It's not particularly deep or even all that clever. Just very on the nose observations about trickle down economy. It just seemed like an odd approach for a game that mostly just pokes fun at game design conventions and cliches which is where SIU is at its best.
Presentation is still excellent. Maybe it's just me, but SIU looks even better. I think it's the lighting looking better and making the colors look more vibrant. Levels are diverse and highly detailed. I loved them all. Cagetown's three level design each representing the social class is awesome and full of NPC's and puzzles. The factory town was very intricately designed and massive. Beach town was charming and chill to explore fully. Gotta give props to the excellent original soundtrack featured here.
SIU is still a great game for puzzle platformer fans. It's not necessarily superior to the original, but it holds its own in many ways with plenty of great post-credits content to hold your attention for even more hours. (8/10)