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"Qualifier for Mensa applicants"

Lolo 2 is hard. This is the first thing I mention because it happens to be one of the hardest games I've played and beaten to this day. I've known challenging games before. Mega Man games are hard. The later stages in Frequency are very hard. I could name dozens of games that are difficult, but Lolo 2 has a distinct kind of challenge that separates it from any other genre. This is one of many reasons why I like this game…

THIS GAME
As before, you play as Lolo, the spherical blue hero out to save his girlfriend, Lala (it's nice that they're still together), from the clutches of the Great Demon. You know that saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”? For a character that's so smart, Lolo sure doesn't seem to be able to find a way to keep his girlfriend safe from the same guy who keeps abducting her. Anyway, this time, the Great Demon has constructed a much less elaborate- but sensible- fortress in the shape of a giant, flesh-colored… pole. I guess it wouldn't make much sense to have Lolo go through the same castle from the first game since he solved all the rooms already.

You'll go through 9 floors with 5 rooms each to get to the end…or so you think! A surprise location awaits you at the top of the tower! I won't spoil it here; you must work as hard as I did to get there… Each room is a puzzle. You must move objects, avoid enemies, and strategically plan your every step so that you may collect all the hearts, grab the jewel from the chest, then move on to the next room. A simple premise that remains unchanged from the first Lolo and gives you a clear goal in every puzzle. Once again, the how is the name of the game.

CHALLENGES
As expected, the game gets progressively harder as you move up the tower. However, this time, it gets much harder, much quicker. By the time you reach floor 5, you'll be spending 20 minutes on a single room. Reach floor 7 and you'll be scratching your head until you go bald or insane; the latter was the case for me. I am now legally insane… ; P Jokes aside, this game will drive you crazy if you're as stubborn as I, who will exhaust every single possibility and spend half an hour contemplating, before I eventually give up and look online for the solution. Sadly, I had to do this about 3 times in Lolo 2. But hey, 3 out of 50 puzzles isn't too bad, I think.

And think I did, because more than any other game I've ever played, I had to sit down and patiently analyze all aspects and contingencies on the screen. What consequences my actions would have, what each enemy is likely to do, how to maximize every single resource at my disposal, and what the designers' (HAL America) intentions were. In the first game, there were some tricky solutions to find, but in this, the sequel, the designers decided to use every possible challenge they could think of. Some rooms have additional objects that hold no meaning and are simply there to throw you off, but in the case of most rooms, every object has a purpose, whether it's to block your path in case you tried to solve the puzzle this way, or as a hint to what you need to do. Some puzzles are timing-based, in which you must move at the exact moment to avoid getting hit or to run across the room. Other puzzles are preparation-based, which require you to figure out what all the inactive enemies are going to do once you grab all the hearts and how to stop them from defeating you. I usually think I'm so smart and believe that I thought of everything, only for an enemy to shoot me just as I grab the jewel from the chest.

Lolo 2 is not above using tricks, and this is my only complaint about the game. In some rooms, when you kill a worm and place a block where he is to re-appear, he won't come back and nothing will happen. But in other rooms, if you do the same thing, the worm will appear somewhere entirely different, which happens to be the key to solving the room. The first time this happened, I had to find out online what to do. I was pretty upset. But who could blame me? The reason I hadn't tried that idea was because I had tried it in another room and it didn't work, so I figured the rules were the same from room-to-room. This only happens in the later stages and in only about 4 rooms, but that's officially unfair.

As for the rest of the stages, the solution is often in between spaces. What does this mean? Well, pressing the d-pad once in any direction will move Lolo one-half space. Most puzzles are solved using Full Spaces, and since there aren't any objects that are a half-space wide, most people seem to share my single-spaced way of thinking. This could have been HAL's plan all along. Many puzzles seem impossible because you can't move a certain block through a space, until you realize that only by moving it a half-space can the room be solved. This tricked me several times until I started looking for it. Speaking of half-spaces, something that repeatedly caused me to hit the suicide button (Select) was accidentally moving a block a half-space too far, resulting in complete failure. Getting used to the controls helps, but isn't always easy.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
The graphics have marginally improved. Things look more like what they are supposed to and several things got a spruce-up. Stages don't look as linear as before and now sometimes resemble their real-life counterparts. The intro is one of the best I've ever seen in a video game, and certainly among the greatest Nintendo intros in its history. The developers were able to capture the look of terror on the face of a pink ball with big eyes and a bow on her head. It's amazing. The ending is good, too. Specifically the final room and challenge, which is a big improvement over the first game's finale.

The music is good for the NES, but once again, remains unchanged in every room…I think. I'm pretty sure I'm right, but I muted the game and played my own music for most of the game, which eventually became a distraction, so I eventually just played the game in silence. You're going to need every bit of concentration to solve some of those puzzles.

In my review of the first Adventures of Lolo, I described a feeling that comes along with beating each stage. That feeling is one of triumph; that you are the smartest person alive and nothing can stop you. With a higher degree of difficulty, this feeling is naturally heightened and can even be described as elation. Sure, it felt good to get to the end of Jackal and blow up the big tank. I felt victorious having gone through a tough game and make it to the very end. In Lolo 2, you get that feeling constantly. Every time you beat a difficult room that you never thought you'd be able to solve on your own, you are suddenly a Wise Man, a genius strategist. I'm not sure about other gamers, but this feeling carries over into real life for me, and suddenly, I can solve anything. By employing the same practices of problem-solving that I used in the game, I can fix situations that come to me at work or at home. I can't really say that for very many other games. Well, except for maybe The 7th Guest…

FINALITY
What I said in the subject heading of this review is that this game “is a qualifier for Mensa”. I'm almost serious. I own a book of Mensa puzzles and many of them are just as hard as some of the rooms in Lolo 2. The game is very well made and I have no more complaints to bring it down with. It can be a fun game if you have the patience to sit and stare at a screen for minutes without doing anything (though a pointing device helps illustrate your thoughts). Even though I consider myself to be patient, I sometimes felt the desire to drop the game and pop in a mindless shooter. This is certainly not a game to beat in one sitting. With passwords for every room in the game, you can play it at your leisure. Not exactly easy to get a hold of, but if you can, and are up for some brain games, pick it up, buy a new thinking cap, and enjoy.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/09

Game Release: Adventures of Lolo 2 (US, March 1990)