The Smurfs 2 – The Prisoner of the Green Stone Review

The Smurfs are back with a new game in their platformer series – this time, it all starts with a magical stone that Hefty goes to steal from Gargamel's lab in order to perfect his new invention. His heist is not successful though, and from within the stone he releases a strange all-powerful creature, Stolas, who infects the Smurfs' village and the surrounding area with strange crystals and creatures. At least they didn't get caught by Gargamel! H probably catches them red-handed, but they eventually decide to work together to catch the creature and imprison it back in the magic stone.

Protagonists of the story are Handy, Brainy, Dimwitty and Storm who similarly to its predecessor, Mission Vileaf, are each playable for a part of the story. The story is divided into major and minor sub-chapters. Per Smurf you also change location, per location the challenges of the environment change while the platforming part also starts to get a little more difficult. The amount of time you'll play with each character is pretty much equal, so you'll enjoy everyone quite a bit.

The main weapon of the Smurfs is again the Smurfizer, but here the whole gameplay is not based on it. His functions from the previous game are available and this time his upgrades are different attacks and level ups, which are not shown or given in the game depending on where you are. This change made the game a lot more monotonous, as now the actual changes from chapter to chapter are really minimal losing the diversity of Vileaf, which felt like it was a new different track not only visually in the environments, but also in what you had to you do.

Μια ωραία νέα ιδιαίτερότητα είναι οι special upgrables επιθέσεις των χαρακτήρων, που αναγκάζουν τον παίκτη να μάχεται διαφορετικά ανά ήρωα συν ότι επιλογές έχεις κάνει για το Smurfizer, που επίσης έχει μεγάλες δυνατότητες προσωποποίησης στις μάχες. Σίγουρο είναι ότι πρέπει να έχεις ανεβάσει lvl αρκετά σε 2 τουλάχιστον από τις 4 λειτουργίες του ώστε να τα βγάζεις πέρα – όχι ότι δεν μπορείς απλά να χρησιμοποιήσεις 1 είδος αλλά θα πάρει αρκετό χρόνο παραπάνω και δεν το θες αυτό γιατί οι μάχες έχουν γινει λίγο πιο δύσκολες απο πριν. Φέρουν πια αρκετά μεγάλες ορδές εχθρών – στην πιο χαμηλή δυσκολία από τις 3 διαθέσιμες σκάνε κατά μέσο όρο 20 εχθροί. Όσο ανεβαίνει η δυσκολία, τόσο αυξάνεται ο αριθμός αλλά και το πόσο δύσκολα τους κερδίζετε. Είναι σίγουρα ένα σημείο που θα βασανίσει αρκετά νεότερους παίκτες και θα χρειαστεί υπομονή. Ακόμα και τα αυτόνομα Challenges, που σου δίνουν έξτρα boost στα resources, costumes, κτλ, βασίζονται σε μεγάλο βαθμό στις ορδές τεράτων που σκάνε ακόμα πιο επιθετικά και απο παντού απ' ότι στο main story. Θα μου άρεσε να έμπλεκε και λίγο πιο δύσκολο puzzle platforming μέσα, αλλά oh well…

Although visually the game is full of life, full of colors, strange creatures and plants and all kinds of locations, I can't say that I was satisfied in its interpretation part. I missed the story telling of the previous game, here everything was more mechanical and direct and the constant repetition of sounds from the Smurfs about everything they did, especially Storm, borderline irritated me and I turned the sound down to avoid hearing it. It was the same 4-5 lines over and over and over, every jump, every hit, coke.

On Xbox TV Shows X ran without any problem. Gone were the few drifts or wall steps I had seen in Vileaf.

The review was based on the digital version of the game, which was provided to us by Enarxis Dynamic Media.