It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a few weeks shy of 16 years since the original World of Goo barged its way onto Wii and PC back in 2008. Its wacky physics and endearing presentation stole the hearts of practically everyone who played it, and a re-release on Nintendo Switch back in 2017 reaffirmed its lofty status, but can its sequel reach similar, gooey heights?
The basic premise and structure of World of Goo 2 is essentially identical to that of the first: you have to get enough Goo Balls to the pipe to complete each level, and that largely means building a structure using said Goo Balls to shepherd as many Goo Balls as possible to the previously mentioned pipe. We’re going to be saying ‘Goo Balls’ a lot in this review, so buckle up.
You’d be forgiven (as we’d like to think we would be) for thinking upon booting the game up for the first time ‘Ah, yes, this is just how I remember the original looking’. It’s a classic trap we’ve fallen into before, but World of Goo 2 only looks how you remember the original looking. The reality is that this second entry has had a significant glow-up. It’s subtle at first, but comparing them side-by-side shows just how much prettier World of Goo 2 is. The colours, the art style, the way things jiggle. It's an absolute stunner.
The narrative continues over from the original as well. The anti-consumerist message has been updated to reflect the current decade, and whilst it's still more of an underlining than an integral part of the gameplay, it's got all the snark and charm you'd expect from Tomorrow Corporation. Similarly, the signs that oozed so much charm are also back, containing the same wit and sharp writing we loved before.
In truth, the whole game bleeds this same familiarity. It really is about as classic a sequel as you can get, building upon what made the original so beloved, but at the same time being instantly recognisable. The most distinctive development in our view is the new Goo Balls and Goo Ball-adjacent additions.
For one, alongside Goo Balls, you’re going to be dealing with the pure, liquid form of Goo a lot. This can be funnelled through our new favourite variety of Goo Ball, Conduit Balls, whose hollow structure and pumping action allows you to relocate liquid Goo anywhere within a structure. Liquid Goo can be used to wake up other Goo Balls, sprayed across a gap through a new squid-like Goo Ball (at least, we think it’s a Goo Ball), or even entirely reconstituted into one of several new and returning types of Goo Ball for construction, or completion purposes.
This one innovation alone is enough to really shake up proceedings. You’ll come across giant, jelly-esque Goo Balls that have to be processed into liquid Goo before they can be useful, expanding Goo Balls that grow the size of the structure they make up upon absorbing liquid Goo, and even a shrinking variant that does the opposite.
Unfortunately, those last two additions, whilst exciting, never really get developed beyond a few basic inclusions. It’s a shame, too, as we think there could be great scope for using these little beggars to change the shape of structures in interesting ways by incorporating them with other Goo Ball types, but alas, you’ll only stumble on them a handful of times.
What does get better use is these strange, almost cheese-like Goo Balls. They’re presumably more rock-like in nature, as they resist fire and lava, and can add to similarly cheese-like protruding rocks, allowing you to create permanent landscape changes within a level. They’re not dead common by any means, but they get just about enough limelight to feel satisfying.
And satisfying is the word of the game. There’s barely a level that didn’t fill us with joy when we completed it, or better yet when we overcame one of the in-level challenges. Just like the original game, achieving the basic goal is only the first step, you also have (mostly) three additional optional goals per level to aim for. One focuses on getting a higher number of Goo Balls to the pipe, another encourages you to use as few moves as possible, and the last is simply a time attack that gives us anxiety. As before, it's a neat addition and provides a surprising amount of replayability to every level in which they feature, which is the vast majority.
The levels themselves are also appropriately varied, introducing big set pieces, surprising new mechanics, and even a hard time limit in certain instances as a funnel of lava threatens to destroy your structure entirely, its ominous countdown ticking away no matter what you do. The first three chapters keep variety high, although our attention was waning a bit towards the end of the third.
Then came Chapter Four. We don’t want to go into any specifics and spoil things, but Chapter Four is unhinged. Our slightly lowered interest was immediately spun around, and we started to question a little more than we’d like. We're not going to say any more, we think it’s best you dive into that part as blind as possible.
But what was it that had caused our interest to dip? It wasn’t the variety, it wasn’t the gameplay, it was the controls. World of Goo 2 requires you to use Joy-Con motion controls or the Switch’s touch screen as inputs, nothing else. We understand that the cursor-like properties are a big part of what makes World of Goo World of Goo, but the Joy-Con’s somewhat inaccurate gyro-based pointing capabilities combined with its poor connection to the console from any reasonable distance made a lot of the game more frustrating than we’d like. Throughout our playthrough, we were plagued with frequent stuttering and repeatedly needed to re-centre the cursor using the plus or minus button.
It’s not a dealbreaker, but it is an absolute pain in the arse. At the very least, Pro Controller support that still required the motion controls to move the pointer would have been a big help, as its connection with the console tends to be considerably more reliable. You could argue that this is more of Nintendo’s problem than developer 2DBOY’s, but the choice was made to restrict the control options, and this is the result.
Luckily using the touch screen mitigates pretty much all of these problems, but introduces the minor issue of your big ol’ fingers getting in the way of the action, as well as being slightly less precise. It speaks volumes to the quality of the gameplay that we still pushed through despite all this, but we would be lying to you (and ourselves) if we pretended the controls weren’t a flipping nuisance.
Performance is also a bit shaky at times. When there’s loads happening on screen at once, the game can easily drop from its usual 60fps in quieter moments to as low as 20-30fps. Things are marginally more stable in handheld mode, but it’s clear that Nintendo’s hybrid console is struggling under the weight of this many Goo Balls.
Conclusion
World of Goo 2 is a fantastic sequel to a stone-cold classic. The new focus on liquids feels right at home, and the utterly bizarre fourth chapter elevates the experience to one of considerable excellence. It’s a shame that it's somewhat let down by limited control options, occasionally wobbly performance, and some underutilised mechanics, but its core is so solid, we can’t help but recommend it regardless.
