In The Dark 2 review — The Federation persists

One of the best things about the ModRetro Chromatic isn’t just how well made it is. If you’re curious about that, check out our review here. The team is actively publishing new games for it, and those will also work on your GameBoy and GameBoy Color, respectively. A launch title, In The Dark 2 arrived after starting life as a .io game with the first entry. While this might be the perfect platform for the sequel, I’m unsure if it holds up throughout the duration of the game.

You are Captain Ikalo Pann, who works for a galactic federation. On a mission, your crew infiltrates a stalled ship (the premise for the original), only to find a virus has corrupted the AI mainframe. The only way to spare the entire Federation’s network? A self-destruct sequence. Unfortunately, your friend and first officer Taxon is caught in the crossfire after wiring into the computer systems, requiring him to make the ultimate sacrifice. After watching Taxon die in an explosion, you return to the Federation to mourn, only to be met with a final message from him that necessitates investigation.

While I like the direction of this narrative, you only get bits and pieces of it. This is simply part of the design – as one would expect from a puzzle game – but I’d love to have seen a lot more in-depth storytelling. Most of what you get revolves around cutscenes that appear once you advance past a set of puzzles that opens your path forward. It’s a bit disappointing, because there seems to be a lot to the lore of this world, and it’s intriguing enough to want more.

Solving the puzzles to advance is simple, at least at first. This is a classic “Lights Out” game, meaning you’re presented with a grid that has different nodes lit up, with others off. As you advance from the initial 4x4 grid, there is some variation, with different shaped grids via removing some nodes, along with eventual 5x5 grid puzzles. Your objective is to end up with all of them off. There’s an optimal way to do this, which the game recognizes as par. The good news is whether or not you accomplish this in the par number of moves or not, you’ll still advance forward.

That said, where the early puzzles are easy, I never felt like I learned how it all works. Sure, it’s purely a pattern game, but my brain never caught on to the nuance of it. The further I progressed, the more it felt  like I was guessing correctly, and accidentally solving a puzzle doesn’t teach you the intricacies of it. This led to it feeling less satisfying than if I’d intentionally done it or if I’d used my knowledge through playing to conquer the harder puzzles.

Speaking of harder, while these aren’t impossible, the moment you get into the 5x5 grids, specifically puzzle twenty and onward, things get hairy. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was just pressing buttons, hoping I’d eventually get the right answer. As much as the gameplay of this works for what it is, the sharp difficulty climb can put you off of In The Dark 2. A hint system would be much appreciated in this one.

Even with my qualms, the ambience created by Gumpy Function & Pearacidic Games is on point. The visuals are wholly GameBoy, yet exist on a plane not yet achieved. I found myself wowed by the fidelity of the cutscenes, alongside how good each planet looks. It almost makes you wish you didn’t spend the majority of your time looking at a light grid. I’d love to see this team expand their work into a platformer or action game, because they’ve got the skills to make it work. There’s also an incredible chiptune soundtrack which perfectly sets the stage for a sci-fi adventure. I couldn’t be happier with the tone set through these mediums, a wonderfully done job by the devs.

If puzzles alone aren’t your thing, there is a fun little mini-game on the console inside your ship. This game is reminiscent of Galaga, although without a lineup of aliens to kill and a lot more going on as you progress. There are three levels available, each with a higher difficulty. It’s honestly a full-fledged adventure in its own right, even featuring a bunch of lore you can read as this is a simulator of previous battles in this universe. These are the kinds of additions that raise the quality of your game, and they’ve done that here.

There are also a few additional modes at the main menu, a challenge mode and a free-play mode. This allows you to experience the 4x4 and 5x5 puzzles outside of the main narrative, although they randomly generate in this form. Free play lets you just have fun, while challenge mode presses you to get par with a limited amount of resets for the puzzle. With some extra unlockables available, it’s a nice touch and lets you engage with only the puzzles if you want more outside the story. The unlockables boil down to theme customization for your screen, and some of them are a full blown rework, like a Candy Land theme that makes your lights into candy corn. I like when games offer little bonuses like this, especially when it’s not one you’d expect it from.