XBOX REVIEW | Beyond The Ice Palace 2

After an incredible 35-year wait, the sequel to the 1988 classic has finally arrived. While so much has changed in the world of gaming during this time, the key ingredients for a great game remain timeless: engaging gameplay, an immersive story, and polished presentation.

Beyond The Ice Palace 2 is a side-scrolling action-adventure platformer that puts you in the role of the Cursed King. The tale begins as you break free from the chains that once held you captive, now wielding these very chains as formidable weapons. You must navigate the treacherous ruins of your shattered kingdom, battling enemies and overcoming perilous terrain. Driven by vengeance, your quest is to reclaim your stolen throne, leaving destruction in your wake.

As you venture deeper into your crumbling realm, you’ll uncover hidden secrets, gain powerful new abilities, and collect items that amplify your strength. Your goal to banish towering demons from your lands and restore order to your kingdom.

Things I liked!

• Visuals | I was thoroughly impressed by the pixel art graphics; there’s plenty of detail that makes everything stand out beautifully. The variety of enemy types is easily distinguishable, which is particularly helpful, as some enemies need to be banished; otherwise, they resurrect after a few seconds. The game also includes numerous impressive graphical effects, such as the fading outline of a boss after its defeat. Despite the setting, which often appears quite grey and gloomy, there is still excellent use of colour. Lanterns shine brightly, and certain background visuals glow with a fiery red hue.

• Sound | The music is a standout feature for me in Beyond The Ice Palace 2. It evokes a sense of grandeur reminiscent of a Lord of The Rings movie, with the gothic tones of organs playing and drums beating. The music intensifies as danger approaches, particularly during boss battles. As for the in-game sound effects, the clunking of chains as you whip enemies and the distant roar of thunder in the background greatly enhance the immersion as you play.

Mixed & disliked!

• Difficulty | While I did enjoy the general gameplay mechanics for the most part, I encountered numerous difficulty spikes that had me cursing at my controller. There are no accessibility options to speak of, so you cannot adjust the difficulty. Boss fights were particularly challenging; for the first boss fight, there is a checkpoint just before the encounter, but for the second boss, the checkpoint is much further away. This quickly becomes frustrating, as you are forced to repeat the same section every time you attempt to face him. I also found swinging on the hooks to reach higher platforms to be quite challenging. Additionally, there is no option to reset your ability tree, meaning that if you upgrade the wrong ability, you are stuck with your choice. There are some incredibly rare consumables to discover, such as the Blood Chalice, which revives the player to full health upon death. These items are vital during boss fights; however, if you use one and still fail to defeat the boss, you are left having to backtrack in search of another.

• Controls | I found the controls to be one of the weakest aspects of Beyond The Ice Palace 2, which is a real shame. I felt that if they were significantly improved, it would have had a much more positive impact on the overall experience of the game. The controls often feel clunky, and I frequently mistimed the propel launch ability. It took me a while to figure out how to use this ability correctly, as the tutorial only explains how to propel upwards. At other times, when trying to jump onto a ledge, sometimes I would latch on immediately, while other times it took several attempts. Often, this occurred at great heights; although you wouldn’t fall to your death, you would have to spend time climbing back up, negotiating other obstacles. While I appreciate challenging elements in games, this often felt more dependent on luck than skill. General gameplay, such as walking and basic combat mechanics, worked well. Most enemies could be defeated with one or two strikes. There are also enemies and objects with hooks on them that you can latch onto with your whip to pull them towards you. For objects, this is used to clear pathways and solve puzzles.

CONCLUSION

Score: 60/100

With beautiful pixel art visuals and a haunting soundtrack, I really wanted more from Beyond The Ice Palace 2, the frustrations with the clunky controls and lack of a proper tutorial explaining how things work was disappointing. The presentation at the beginning which covers the story so far from the first game was helpful as it was not a game I had played before. The one-way fast travel points were also a little annoying, you could travel back to purchase new abilities but then would have to make your way back to where you were, enemies would also respawn making it more difficult. I would have liked to have seen various difficulty settings, such as easy, normal or hard which is standard for most games these days, that said it would not have made the controls any easier. The story in Beyond The Ice Palace 2 is one of revenge and unfolds through atmospheric cues with some environmental storytelling, which can make it a little hard to follow at times. There is very little dialogue or cutscenes. If you are a fan of the genre or enjoy really challenging games, then this may be one that you will want to try. However, for me, overall, it was far too frustrating with little enjoyment.