The thing that makes The Impossible Game 2 so special isn’t that it’s impossible. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Sure, this is a super difficult game, but all of the challenges it throws at you are conquerable. And somewhere, deep in the back of your brain, you know that.
That creates an almost compulsive desire to keep pushing on, taking that twentieth, hundredth, thousandth attempt to make that leap and avoid those spikes and get to that checkpoint. And that’s pretty darn impressive.
The game is a simple, one finger platformer. You poke the screen, the cube you’re controlling jumps in the air. Hold down your finger and the cube keeps bouncing. Easy, right? But you need to time those leaps perfectly, stringing together combinations of taps and presses to dodge through spikes, saws, robots and all manner of other obstacles.
Then the game starts throwing in new mechanics. There are double jump boosts you can pick up, platforms that move when you jump, enemies you need to use to get to otherwise inaccessible areas. It’s kind of like a puzzler, but at break-neck speed and with no margin for error.
Luckily the checkpoint system means you don’t have to learn the whole level by heart. Instead you put together the moves you need to complete each section, cracking each obstacle through a process of trial, error, luck and dexterous digits.
There are boss challenges, multiplayer battle royale modes, and a level editor that you can unlock with an IAP. But the core of the experience, that grinding, glorious progression from A to B, is the real star here.
This is a game that’s packed full of little moments of victory, fist-punching celebrations followed by horrified laughter as you plunge to yet another death. The Impossible Game 2 isn’t impossible, but it’s almost impossible to put down.
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