The Spelunker franchise has existed since the Atari days (the good Atari days). In 2015, a new version was released as Spelunker World, and was a free to play game on the PlayStation store. Now it’s 2017 and time for Spelunker Party for the Switch, getting rid of the F2P stuff, extra levels and a general freshen up. Grab your friends, put on your hard hats, and prepare to dodge a lot of bat poop.
Spelunkette and Spelunker have been tasked with going deep into the earth’s core to find out what has gone wrong – ghosts are appearing, and animals are going wild. You’ll be facing over 100 multi-section levels, spelunking through several different worlds, collecting gold, expanding your group of characters, finding pets and dying a lot. There is a story as you progress. It’s cute and silly and surprisingly funny during the still shot story moments. Ultimately, the story is unimportant and isn’t the reason to buy this game. The visuals for the game itself are also cutesy. The environments are generally clear to see, and traps are obvious. The different worlds are visually different enough to add some variety and throw in some new mechanics along the way, in the end it is still the same platformer through a series of mines.
Spelunker Party is a platformer set in a series of mines. You need a lot of stamina (in the form of a meter) to get through, enough that you’ll continually need to refill it at checkpoints. It ticks down constantly, even more so when you use the portable fan for getting rid of ghosts. You’ll be jumping to and grabbing ropes, jumping over small pointed rocks, collecting gold, Litho-Stones and keys, levelling up your equipment, and lots of dying. If you haven’t played any Spelunker before, then you might be in for bit of a shock initially. It doesn’t have the feel of your traditional platformers. In Spelunker almost everything kills you; jump a pixel too early off a rope, DEAD. Jump where the ground dips TOO HIGH, YOU’RE DEAD. The game also has the classic death by bat poop (and there is a comical amount of bat poop in this game).
Spelunker Party is punishing when you’re adjusting to the game mechanics. In most games you wouldn’t expect to die by the smallest fall, but if you even jump off a rope a little too eagerly, you’re going to be down one of the five lives you get to survive the multi sectioned levels. The way around this is to play a lot more of the game. Through much trial and error, you’ll be able to feel out what’s a survivable jump, how long it takes to disperse a ghost, and encounter all the hazards (killed by many of them for silly reasons). Even when you do know how to avoid things, the game can throw enemy (or bat poop patterns) you can’t necessarily avoid. When you do get the hang of the game, it is much more enjoyable. The swearing settles down (yours, the characters in the game don’t talk), and you can buckle down and start getting more items to wear on your Spelunker on the way to the earth’s core.
As you progress, you’ll be collecting gold which can be used to send a dog into the mines to pull you out a variety of items (there are 200 of them), and Litho-stones. Litho-stones are glowing rocks that are pieces of a wearable item. You need to collect all the pieces to unlock that item. The items help make your time in the mines easier. It could be a helmet that protects you from bats, or a better fan for dispersing ghosts. Getting all the Litho-Stones is where the need for at least a second player comes in. The majority are findable alone, but some require a second player to stand on a switch or to help lower a rope, so you can grab those out of the way stones. It was a disappointment to find that the multiplayer aspect purposely keeps you from being able to 100% the game yourself, but I guess that’s why it’s a Spelunker Party. The parts that do require another player are minor sections of each level, where you’re just opening the path for the other person to get the last collectables. Multiplayer can be fun, just make sure your friends have also played Spelunker to save all the swearing and stress of dying when you jumped that millimetre too high.
There are offline and online modes, and you can have one player per Joy-Con. Four players can join overall. Your enjoyment of this mode will mainly come from how much you and your friends enjoy tough side-scrolling platformer games. When you go online you can either make your own party, join a friend or search worldwide. Joining a friends party is easy enough, although you both have to have already beaten the levels you pick which is an annoying restriction if you’re not on even progress. When it came to looking for a worldwide online game I only ever came across one game and it was in a side level that I hadn’t accessed at that point; I wouldn’t rely on finding online games with strangers if you’re after every last Litho Stone.
While there are plenty of levels to play, Spelunker Party also contains quests. These give you a bit more to do and gives some incentive to revisit past areas, or perform certain actions to earn an item or gold. The quests are fine, and the rewards are decent, but once you do unlock them there are a handful that requires you to go back to past levels. However, you can only pick one quest at a time, and unless you memorise all the levels you’ll rarely know which one to pick to fulfil the quest, and if you do clear it you won’t find out until you check your quests. As well as the main levels to clear, each world also has several side levels. I usually found these to be more challenging, but at the end, there would often be something worthwhile, like a new pet. These side levels, along with the main game, could easily keep you Spelunking for well over 5-7 hours.
If you’re a fan of Spelunker, then you likely have this game already. There is a demo if you’re on the fence about it, and if the demo isn’t a good fit for you then you should know the full game is a lot more of the same. Once I got used to the punishing mechanics I enjoyed the game more, but its platforming isn’t for everyone and the game makes no effort to help you get better at it. I recommend playing the demo first. Overall, Spelunker Party is a decent addition to the Switch if you’re willing to spend the time to learn it.
Rating: 3.5/5
