Smurfs 2: Prisoner of Green Stone Review

Weird how Mission Vileaf was a Mario Sunshine and Daxter styled 3D platformer, now with this sequel, it's basically a Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart clone although that might be putting it lightly, Smurfs 2 enters more into the realm of borderline "knockoff". I am not entirely against this however since Ratchet Rift Apart failed to break even and there isn't many third person action games that play like it, I'm kind of okay with the idea of a licensed game borrowing so heavily from it.

With all that said, I did enjoy Prisoner of Green Stone varying degrees after all I did make it to the end credits, but it's hard not to see Rift Apart's influences when playing it. You got a double jump, a dash that can be used during combat and platforming, lots of portals, the Smurfs move around and have animations similar to Ratchet, even the way the gun is aimed and the way the camera is positioned when doing it is very similar to Rift Apart. I do like Rift Apart a lot and like I said before, there isn't many games that plays like it so a game that reminds me of it even if it super on the nose about it is a good thing. If I was on the Rift Apart development team I would geniunely feel flattered.

However there are some problems have with it and if you are like me who likes Rift Apart and wishes there were more third person action games that plays like, then this alone is worth the price of admission. I was expecting a 3D platformer like Mission Vileaf rather than a full on genre switch up but it's a welcome change.

Before I go on the negatives, I do think playing the game on the hardest difficulty did provide a solid and decent enough challenge, it did make me had to avoid getting hit a lot more even if the game having health items scattered all over the arena did make even that mode a but easy but I argue the high damage and somewhat high HP of enemies cancels out the health packs being all over the arena. I also have more reason to use each Smurfs' special moves after hitting their weak points mutliple times to fill up the meter since larger enemies can be spongey on the hardest difficulty.

The puzzles and platforming do a decent job at breaking up the pace, they aren't going to blow your mind but they do an okay job at breaking up the pace of the action. I also like how it makes you switch between the different substances the Smurfs have since the CatchAll Substance was the secondary weapon I mostly used.

I might as well get to the negatives now, the CatchAll Substance was the most useful and dominant secondary weapon in the game, it has the best range, does the most damage and it had an area of effect that grabs nearby enemies and damages them too. The rest have limited range and require you to be close in order to reliably hit enemies. I wish you could carry all the substances instead of it being a pseudo two weapon limit but I am not sure that would make me use CatchAll any less.

The damage animations and weapon feel isn't that great and needs more polish. Sure Smurfs 2 is a kids game but games like the aforementioned Rift Apart, does a much better job at making weapons feel powerful and it shredding through enemies. Other less gorey and violent games like Metal Arms, the Transformers TPS games and Timespiltters do a good job at giving highly polished damage animations. Prisoner of Green Stone has enemies flash white and shots don't have satisfying imact when they land on enemies making combat not as gratifying as it could be.

This leads me to my final issue, the game is just too long and I wouldn't mind since highly polished damage animation and good feeling weapons can carry me through many shooters but Smurfs 2's levels can really drag, some parts have super long enemies waves that feels like they are supposed to bookend a level but instead the level keeps on going. The game also stops throwing new enemies and weapons at around the half way point so without polished damage animations and good weapon feel, and the dragged out levels Prisoner of Green Stone can get monotonous and not the kind that I can enjoy. It also reuses boss fights like the Frog and Stolas multiple times too adding more to the monotony, fighting the latter was fun the first time(he was rather broken on hard) but a few new attacks isn't enough to make the fights feel new and fresh.

Overall, Smurfs 2 is an okay attempt at aping off Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, if there were more games that attempted what Rift Apart did, I would be harsher on Prisoner of Green Stone but like with Forspoken was to Infamous, I welcome a game that tries to imitate a game I really like since the lack of those kind of games on it's own makes me open to other games that take heavy inspiration from those said games.