What you discover about life’s shell game is that it’s hardest to follow the pea when you’re the pea.
-Robert Breault
Call me lockdown-crazy, but my mind has been formulating some interesting questions recently. One of the more interesting ones, thanks to Awesome Pea 2, has been: what makes a great sequel? I thought about it for a hot moment and determined to myself that there are generally three types of sequel that I admire.
Firstly, the ‘More of The Same’ sequel, as in the case of Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, that offers the player more stages to play with greater challenges to conquer, giving the fans more of what they like. Secondly the “Bigger and Better” sequel, Super Mario Bros. 3 perhaps, which takes the core concepts and twists them a little, making something still wholly unique but retaining some key elements of familiarity. Finally, the “Burn It All to The Ground and Start Again” sequel, of which I’d probably cite Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island as a key example, where everything is re-written from the ground up to create an experience not wholly dissimilar but completely fresh.
Of these different formats of video-game sequel, everyone’s preference is completely subjective. After all, the debate over Super Mario World vs Yoshi’s Island is one that continues to divide critics to this very day. However, one thing that struck me as particularly unusual is that it took a little-known indie title to make me come to these epiphanies on the nature of sequelism.
Last year I played PigeonDev’s Awesome Pea during a train journey to Scotland. Now just over a year later I’ve played through the simplistically titled Awesome Pea 2 whilst stuck inside and unable to go anywhere other than for a thrilling excursion to my front porch. The jarring nature of these extremely differing circumstances was not lost on me. Nor was the lingering thought that diving back into Awesome Pea made me think of the good old days in the distant past. Only this time I wasn’t reminiscing about 1989, but 2019!
Surprised as I was to learn of the existence of Awesome Pea 2, I was not wholly shocked. After all, the first game had a lot going for it. The platforming was solid, the controls were responsive, the difficulty was sporadically high… I completely expected to see a sequel at some point. Considering the gaming landscape of June 2020, players finishing their epic adventures in Final Fantasy VII Remake and Trials of Mana are probably craving something simple to scratch the itch. Something that isn’t yet another hundred-hour RPG. If that is the case, then Awesome Pea 2 might just have been released at the ideal time.
This time around, the character of Awesome Pea himself appears to be a little larger on the screen. We can see a little more of his face and expression than last time, which adds to his overall charm and likeability in his lead role. The character design is also accentuated by Super Putty style morphing of the Pea’s shape during some jumping and landing animations. The little spherical chap now has a fun somersault animation and mid-air twirl; both purely cosmetic additions and don’t alter his jump-arc or trajectory, but it’s lovely to see the protagonist showing that he is, indeed, awesome.
The levels of Awesome Pea 2 are a leap ahead compared with the first outing, too. Once again, these range from caves to castles and a variety of different locales in-between. Some are repeated, which does feel a little bit of a shame, and there are still a couple of occasions where only trial-and-error could determine which parts of a level were platforms and which were part of the background. However, the quick-fire nature of each stage, coupled together with practically non-existent loading times make for a fast-paced and wholly enjoyable ride.
Visuals: 6/10
As with the original Awesome Pea, the most striking aspect of the game’s visual is that it attempts to emulate the look of an original Game Boy game. This was done to sometimes off-putting effect in the first game, however Awesome Pea 2 has a few subtle tricks up its sleeve that expand upon the visual style of its predecessor. Gone are the distracting two-frame waterfalls and dizzying parallax scrolling, replaced by mostly static backgrounds. These are, while not quite as impressive from a technical standpoint, a welcome rest for the eyes after scouring every pixel looking for sneakily hidden coins in the original Awesome Pea. Overall, a gentle improvement on a graphical format that already looked well suited to the game.
Audio: 7/10
Awesome Pea 2 provides an up-tempo selection of tunes to accompany your journey through each level. This time, the different stage-types are backed by stylish chiptune-style music that doesn’t tend to grate as much as the repetitive loops featured previously. As before, there are encouraging plinks upon collection of coins and gemstones, although I believe the Pea’s signature ‘boop’ noise upon jumping has been removed. There was one moment in the cave levels’ music where the tempo seems to slow right down, which at first I attributed to there being a lot of coins and lava on screen, but it turned out it was part of the track itself. This happened a couple of times, causing me to adjust my jumps to accommodate for any ‘slowdown’ which never actually arrived. This felt like a bit of deliberate trolling on the game’s part, but it’s not a game-breaker in my opinion.
Gameplay: 8/10
Awesome Pea 2 plays to its predecessor’s strengths, once again eschewing story in favour of getting straight to the levels. This time most of the stages are scrollable, offering for a slightly deeper level of exploration, but most of them follow a very linear path except for a few detours for collectible coins. The aim is to reach the end of the level, naturally, avoiding all manner of obstacles in your path and collecting coins and gemstones which add to a total counted at the end. The map-screen (which is curiously less interesting than the one from Awesome Pea) gives a clear indication as to how many you may have missed. Much like the first game it’s an addictive little devil as, during my playthrough, I only missed one gemstone and felt compelled to replay the level again instantly to fully complete it.
Accessibility: 8/10
The game begins with a simple tutorial level, this time with no signage, just an expectation that when you reach a pit too large to jump, the player will attempt a double jump. Learning through play in this way could offer a spot of initial confusion for some, but for most it would more than likely serve as a reminder of how to play. Afterwards, the game is simple enough to comprehend with no further moves or techniques showing up that need any explanation. It’s a game to simply pick up and play, and in that respect earns a huge tick.
Challenge: 4/10
Awesome Pea 2 presents a series of tricky platforming challenges through its various levels, with spikes in difficulty presenting themselves sporadically throughout. The irritating bubble areas from the first game have been removed so that all levels feel fair and no deaths feel cheap. However, the levels themselves feel markedly easier in this game, and a lot of the stages can be zipped through super-quickly. There is a slightly increased element of challenge in the final pair of levels but with a little perseverance, these are certainly manageable in a few attempts.
Replayability: 7/10
Curiously, Awesome Pea 2 contains fewer levels than last year’s outing. This startled me at first as I really was expecting further world maps with more levels this time around. As with the first game, there are no hidden levels or secrets to uncover so once it’s over, it’s over. That said, it is a game I enjoyed restarting again from the beginning and playing through a second time. Its brevity is to its benefit and I really can see myself returning to it again for a quick playthrough when the mood to play a game of this type takes me.
Uniqueness: 2/10
Returning once again is the optional CRT Mode, switched on by default but can be toggled in the Options menu. This time around I opted to play through the game with it switched on and found it to be a much less jarring experience than in the first game. Where previously the CRT Mode stretched and warped the image leading to some poorly calculated jumps, in Awesome Pea 2 the filter only really affects the edges of the play-area so that the gameplay itself is undisturbed, much akin to the borders that the Super Game Boy device offered. Aside from this, the game sticks with the formula shown in the first game and, sadly, doesn’t really offer any new tricks or challenges.
My personal grade: 8/10
I played through Awesome Pea 2 twice, completing each level’s quota of coins both times, and found it to be a great ‘filler’ game before starting another major release. As a budget game, it certainly fills a couple of spare hours. As a sequel, it just doesn’t push anything forward or offer anything new or interesting to the formula to be considered revolutionary. If there is to be a third outing for the Pea, I really hope the developers look to other types of sequels for inspiration. The core gameplay is there… it just needs that little spark of imagination to push it from the simple-yet-supremely-effective Super Mario Bros. territory to the lofty heights of a Super Mario Bros. 3.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Awesome Pea 2. It’s certainly a better game than the first one, but at the same time the whole experience feels like a complete re-tread to play. That said, I’m invested enough in the character and the basic premise enough to hope for more in the future. I gave peas a second chance, and I don’t regret it.
Aggregated score: 6.3
The Regional Exclusive Mage is an avid video-game collector and literature enthusiast. When he isn’t educating the younger generation, he can be found sharing a wealth of obscure gaming knowledge as TeacherBloke85 on Twitter.
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