Let’s see if it pays off
While I may have sidelined Spelunky 2 after finally earning the “Master” trophy and deciding that I’d need to recuperate before earnestly attempting to reach the real final zone (“Awakened”), that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching other people’s painful clips. Spelunky Schadenfreude is my jam.
This clip from Reddit user Kayzito is less about enjoying someone else’s misfortune and more about admiring their ingenuity when they’re backed into a corner by Spelunky 2‘s devious procedurally-generated machinations. You can never completely know what items and hazards will be thrown your way, and figuring out when – and when not – to seize an opportunity is so much of the fun.
I’ve done desperate things to reach the Black Market, but this method hadn’t dawned on me.
What do you do when you get far enough into the Jungle to find the hidden entrance to the Black Market but – oh crap – you don’t have any bombs left to break in? Well, if you’re packing 15 hearts with the Kapala, a handful of ropes, over $75K, and Hou Yi’s Bow, you’ll probably consider just about anything to avoid restarting your up-until-now promising run. It’s a classic Spelunky pickle – as is the inevitable crushing aftermath when you try and figure out “where it all went terribly wrong.”
In this case, Kayzito decided to sacrifice their jetpack in an entrance-opening explosion.
If you didn’t know, you can unequip wearable items like the jetpack or cape by crouching and pressing R1 (or whichever button you use to enter doors). The jetpack is volatile and it can be set off with a stray shotgun blast (as I’m sure all Spelunky 2 players know) or, in this clip, with a well-aimed arrow.
What happened next? (Location spoilers.) “I got spring shoes, climbing gloves, and several bomb boxes. I went Abzu and kept the ankh, took the yellow cape from the Sun Challenge, and got to 7-20.”
“…I died to an off-screen poisonous arrow trap into 99 fall damage in a Sunken City layout, yay.”
That swift and brutal outcome sums up why I ravenously played Spelunky 2 for a hundred-plus hours in 2020 without getting bored and why I’m relieved to be on hiatus right now. Love hurts. If you’re waiting for the sequel to come to Nintendo Switch this summer before playing, start mentally prepping yourself.
