Happy holidays readers, I have an early Christmas present for you. It’s 1000G for around 10 minutes of work. That’s right, Xitilon and grin robot are back with their latest platformer, 2 Synchro Hedgehogs, a sequel to Synchro Hedgehogs which was released just a few short months back. You could say it’s groundhog day (I thank you).
To be clear, 2 Synchro Hedgehogs plays pretty much identically to the first game, and similarly to the previous two Butterfly games. Here, you once again control two hedgehogs at once as you aim to collect all the apples within each stage to clear it. There is no option to jump, so you will need to plan your route through each level carefully because it’s easy to go past the point of no return, and then you’ll have to hit Y to start over.
In terms of controls, you only need to use left and right on your thumbstick or D-Pad to play. Gravity will do the rest, as you need to figure out how best to use it to get from ledge to ledge. Once you collect the last apple, the level will immediately end and you will proceed to the next one. Thankfully, this time around the number of each level pops up in the bottom corner of your screen, so you can easily keep track of where you are up to.
The yellow and blue pipes return from the previous game to help your spiky duo get around. The bouncy jelly things are back also, and this time the red ones propel you even further into the air. “!” blocks are once again wiped out when you stomp all the yellow flies, although there are a lot less of them around this time. The locked green blocks also return, and you’ll need to collect all the keys to clear them.
Instead of using little platforms to cross the waves, your hedgehog can now hop on board sailboats which will fix them in position. There are a lot more opportunities to do this in 2 Synchro Hedgehogs, whereas before you had to use your head to find a way of preventing one hedgehog moving whilst the other travels where it needs to. Because of this, it actually makes the levels easier to complete, because once you are controlling a single hedgehog you don’t have to worry about accidentally sending the other plunging to a premature death.
Visually, 2 Synchro Hedgehogs is identical to the first, in every way. However, I’m not quite sure why but the soundtrack is much more memorable this time, providing a nice bop to accompany the action. Each track doesn’t mix into the next particularly smoothly, but it’s a rough edge that’s easy to forgive.
All in all, 2 Synchro Hedgehogs is very similar to the first game, so rather than a sequel it’s probably more accurate to think of it as an additional pack of levels, of which there are 33. These, again, are pretty straightforward on the whole, meaning you will fire through the lot in an hour or so. However, admittedly there was one level which stumped me for a few minutes before I finally figured out the correct sequence in which to collect the apples.
As a result, this is another easy game that lacks any real challenge. On the upside, it’s cheap enough to pick up on the Xbox Store and as I mentioned earlier, a simple way to boost your Gamerscore total. However, be warned that I earned no achievements on my first play through. I had to reinstall the game and play the levels again in order to trigger the completion process. It’s a good job all 1000G is surrendered after beating just the first ten levels then.
Like it or not, 2 Synchro Hedgehogs (along with its predecessors) has carved a niche amongst the platforming games out there today. You don’t really need me to tell you what you are getting here if you have played any of the others. It does what it says on the tin. Again.
2 Synchro Hedgehogs provides more of the same straightforward, short lived, puzzle platforming action. It’s nearly identical to the previous games, but may well convince you to part with your pennies with the promise of trouble-free Gamerscore.
2 Synchro Hedgehogs arrives on the Xbox Store on Dec 15th
