There are plenty of retro-styled games out there now that imitate the look of 8- and 16-bit games, but not so many that recreate the pea soup green hues of the original Game Boy!  But now you can play one ironically starring a little green pea!  Awesome Pea 2 is a super hard 2-D platformer in the vein of other popular ones like Super Meat Boy.  I never played the original Awesome Pea, so I don’t know if the sequel has any significant improvements, but I’m going to make a guess that it’s just more of the same.  Awesome Pea 2 is available to download on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

Controls couldn’t be simpler.  Use the d-pad to make your little pea roll left and right, and press a button to jump and again in midair for a double jump.  And that’s it.  You must avoid fireballs, spikes, and spinning saw blades.  If you hit one, you must start the level over.  Coins are scattered throughout the level, and you must nab them all to get the trophies assigned to each stage.  There are around a couple dozen stages in all.  You can select and replay stages on a map screen, and that’s pretty much the game.

Since there really isn’t a story here, the stages don’t have any natural progression. So you go through a cave in one area and a castle in the next with no reason why.  But really the main problem is the game is just too darn hard.  An easy mode or checkpoints would’ve made the game more fun, but as it stands, only super pro gamers will see this one through and get the most enjoyment out of it.

Kid Factor:

Awesome Pea 2 is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  If you hit a harmful object, you just explode and that’s it.  No reading skill needed, but younger gamers may find it too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews