It's a Marsupilami kind of Monday here at SuperPhillip Central. That's because it's time to check out the sequel to Marsupilami: Hoobadventure, a Donkey Kong Country-style game I really enjoyed. Check out that game's review from August 2024, if you'd like, HERE.
Otherwise, sit back and enjoy this new review of that game's recently released sequel: Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia. HOOBA!
Pure Palombian Platforming
My knowledge on Marsupilami is admittedly quite narrow and limited. Really, I only knew of the yellow, long-tailed character from the Disney-produced series of the 1990s and a little-known Sega Genesis game. However, Marsupilami goes way beyond that as a franchise, debuting in Belgian comics in 1952. Since then, the character's popularity mostly sticks and is situated in Europe, more specifically in France and Belgium where the character originated. That said, Marsupilami has taken quite a storm as a multimedia franchise, appearing in cartoons, movies, and yes, video games.
The latter I'm most familiar with, having played Marsupilami: Hoobadventure several years ago--a surprisingly enjoyable, highly competent and capable Donkey Kong Country-like platformer. Now, Ocellus Studio brings out a sequel: Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia, with a meatier adventure, three playable characters, and local co-op.
Right from the get-go before the gameplay even occurs, Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia doesn't hide its Donkey Kong Country inspirations and influences all that well. Whether that's intentional or not is up in the air. Nevertheless, even its simple story is reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country Returns, where a strange and mystic melody begins playing within the jungles of Palombia, the home to our Marsupilami heroes Twister, Hope, and Punch. This melody puts all of the local wildlife into what essentially boils down to a trance making them all dance, which causes nothing but havoc all around the nearby islands. To put a stop to the melody and the one who started it, the Mummy Queen--villain of the first game--our trio of long-tailed protagonists have platforming adventures through four unique worlds ahead of them.
From there, the first level of the game, Palombia Skies, introduces players to the action. As I moved through the utterly gorgeous sunset-soaked skies of the jungle background and hear the boisterous flute main melody and tribal beats backing it, I was pretty impressed. The tutorial is limited to this level, showing button prompts for everything from jumping, rolling, ground pounding, wall jumping and climbing, grabbing and swinging, as well as a new mechanic debuting in Marsupilami 2, that of the different playable characters.
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| Our heroes' lengthy tails can grab onto latches, hooks, and swings, as well as smack down foes. |
In the original Marsupilami from Ocellus Studio, Twister was the main playable character, and even in this sequel, he's learned some new tricks. More on those shortly. With a press of the top face button, you switch between characters on the fly, one of two different protagonists. Each level automatically chooses the two characters you play as, while the third is temporarily left out. This is because all levels are designed for specific members of the Marsupilami crew. Plus, I imagine it'd be mighty confusing to have to cycle between three different characters on the fly, or at least quite a bit clunky.
Regardless, each Marsupilami has their own special abilities. Twister, our yellow-furred friend from the first game has those previously mentioned new tricks. He can dive forward and twist in the air, gaining some invincibility frames in the process to pass through enemies, and can also spin his tail after to slowly descend to the ground and hover across chasms.
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| Hope springs eternal. She also springs into action in this Rail Graveyard level! |
Meanwhile, Hope has no power of flight (or hovering, as it were), but can instead double jump. She can spin in the air to slowly make her descent, as well as spin off the heads of the Zinger-like bat enemies in the game, that would otherwise harm her and any other of our heroes. Last but not least is the decidedly unwieldy Punch, who can wrap himself into a big ball and bounce about. Spikes and thorns are no danger when in this form. Controlling this bouncy ball of Marsupilami isn't the greatest aspect of the game, as there is quite the learning curve.
At any rate, with two Marsupilami able to be cycled between with the press of a button, it opens up the level design quite a bit. There is more complex design to be discovered in this sequel to Hoobadventure, and to be fair, Salsa Palombia's predecessor wasn't exactly weak in its levels. But here, in this sequel, there are a lot of fun ideas, challenging platforming here and there, and plenty of well-hidden secrets, too. One level you'll be avoiding the snapping jaws of carnivorous plants within the jungle, while another you'll be evading and sometimes even using traffic to your advantage to reach hard-to-reach areas in a beautiful city setting.
Whatever level you find yourself in, you're due for a rather breezy challenge to start, but by the endgame, the platforming gets a little taxing. It's never so much that it seems like a giant difficulty jump either. Salsa Palombia does a great job in easing the player into its platforming challenges.
And sure, running, rolling, and jumping through levels is simple enough. If you're going straight from start to finish, the levels might not trip you up too terribly much. With that said, you're not only cheating yourself out of the myriad secrets and collectibles to nab in levels, but you'll probably hit a roadblock, too. That is because each island's boss in Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia requires at least 40 Musical Notes to unlock. It's similar to Super Mario 3D Land or 3D World in how you needed to collect a certain amount of Star Coins or Green Stars respectively to open up levels, or else you'd be blocked from progressing until you gathered the required amount to continue. That's the case for Salsa Palombia as well.
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| An example of one of the many Musical Notes to find and collect for our Marsupilami friends. |
There are 13 Musical Notes available in each level of the game. Five of these are located within a given level themselves, two are rewarded from completing Donkey Kong Country-style bonus rooms within hidden portals in the levels, and up to three are earned at the end of a level depending on how much fruit you've collected.
Now, no doubt if you were counting along, you noticed that all of this doesn't add up to 13--just 10 instead. The other three are earned in a separate mode of Marsupilami 2, which opens up after its corresponding level is beaten. It's also the mode that based off Marsupilami 2's subtitle: Salsa Mode.
Salsa Mode replaces the time trials that were seen within Marsupilami: Hoobadventure. Though you still need to be pretty fast with your platforming and running through the levels nonetheless. This mode is all about collecting fruit as fast as possible to build energy in a meter. As the meter fills with fruit collected, you eventually gain a fruit multiplier: up to four times the amount of fruit grabbed. However, the multiplier ends if you take damage, if you haven't collect a fruit in a handful of seconds, or otherwise take too long.
The final three Musical Notes of the level for Salsa Mode are earned by meeting certain fruit total thresholds, much like the normal mode's levels, but here, it's important to not take damage while also being fast. I found I could lose my combo/chain/multiplier/whatever at least once in a level and not fail to meet the point goal I needed to reach to earn all three Musical Notes. That said, one obnoxious flaw is that if you find yourself failing in the middle of a level, you simply can't restart from the pause menu. Instead, you have to back out to the world map, and re-enter the level to try anew. A frustrating oversight.
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| The presentation and polish are somehow even greater than the original Marsupilami with this Salsa Palombia sequel! |
Apart from the standard levels and the extra levels that are unlocked by paying a fee of fruit, each of the four islands in Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia house dojo levels. These are like the bonus room portals of standard levels, but you have to complete three in a row successfully. These throw challenges at you such as collecting all the music notes in a room, smashing all jars, defeating all enemies, or simply surviving for a set amount of time. Needless to say, these dojo challenges can get quite difficult when you have to flawlessly pull off three in a row without taking damage or failing.
Generally, though, Marsupilami 2 is a rather breezy game. The life system of the original Hoobadventure is gone, so you have the ability to plummet to your doom as much as you'd like. Checkpoints are generous as well, so you're seldom ever having to redo large portions of levels. Even the last level that unlocks upon beating the final boss is gracious enough to include checkpoints.
Speaking of bosses, this is where Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia might turn off some players. They're not bad boss battles by any stretch of the imagination--you dodge attacks until you can lay waste to the boss's boombox. The fact of the matter is that the difficulty jump here is noticeable. While I didn't struggle facing the game's bosses myself, I can see that younger or more inexperienced platforming fans might find these fights frustrating. Fortunately, you can change the difficulty of the game, bestowing players with more hearts aka hits they can work with, if push comes to shove.
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| A boss battle awaits, and the challenge dial gets turned up a few levels! |
Marsupilami 2 isn't too lengthy of an adventure. It's certainly longer than Hoobadventure's base game before that title saw a free expansion in the form of a dinosaur-themed world. That said, in order to 100% the game, it took me about eight hours. For me, that was a perfect length.
One aspect of Marsupilami 2 I briefly mentioned but didn't go into detail yet about was the local co-operative play. You and a friend, or family member, can indeed play the entire game together. Each player is assigned a character from a given level's game-selected pair, and before starting the level, you can swap the two characters between players. Thus, if you have Twister and your co-op partner would rather play as them rather than Hope, you can swap and switch characters before the level begins.
The top face button doesn't change characters in co-op, instead it puts your current character into a New Super Mario Bros. Wii-like bubble--or in this case, an egg. This is good for those platforming sections of levels that admittedly don't work well and/or don't seem to be designed with co-op play in mind.
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| This particular level is essentially all about sliding along these icy rails. Hooba!!! |
In co-op, part of the Salsa Palombia experience is easier, while others parts are decidedly more difficult. For example, bonus rooms aren't failed when one player gets hit. Both players must take damage for the challenge to be failed. Conversely, in Salsa Mode, if one player takes damage or if one player is much slower than the other and is forced to "bubble" or enter an egg when they go off screen, the fruit multiplier immediately ends. On the matter of entering an egg, this actually can be abused. If you're about to lose all of your health, you can manually enter into egg form, pop out of it, and have a full set of hearts. Plus, if one player perishes in a level, they return immediately in an egg. Thus, all in all, the positives, I say, definitely outweigh the negatives, and co-op is an enjoyable addition to Ocellus Studio's Marsupilami series.
Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia is every thing a sequel should be: It improves upon pretty much all aspects of the original--gameplay, level design, and presentation--adds more features and content, and is just an overall greater adventure. The three protagonists play uniquely to one another, each have their own special uses, short detours and paths through levels they can access, and all I would consider useful to play as. The local co-op could be better, and Salsa Mode especially desperately needs a quick retry option--but otherwise, Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia certainly got me into a very good groove.
[SPC Says: B+]
This game was played via the PlayStation 5 version. Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia is also available on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.
