Hylics 2

I’ve covered many bizarre games, yet few caught my interest as much as Hylics. It’s not that complicated; it’s a turn-based RPG made on RPG Maker, nothing special there. What sets it apart is that it was entirely designed in Claymation – there’s been a lot of hand-drawn games, but ones created with clay characters and worlds are rarer (Wikipedia's likely incomplete list of Claymation games has 25 entries).

Even the Wayne bedroom is weird.

The art style you could get used to; but then, there was the bizarre plot, and how it was presented. Most unimportant NPCs’ text bubbles were randomly generated, Mad Libs style, and made no sense. And when something plot-relevant was said, it made sense, but used archaic or uncommon words to convey the message, leading to a whole other kind of confusion. That game is an experience, I swear.

And if the first game is an experience, then Hylics 2, also developed by Mason Lindroth and released on June 22nd, 2020, must surpass it… while also being a good game on its own, a tough tightrope to walk with absurdism. Can it pull it off? We’ll see.

When even the title screen sets the tone...

An interval of renovelled tempestuousness

(…Yes. I’m gonna indulge in that silliness.)

Good boy. I bet you can't wait to have legs.

In the first Hylics, our main character was Wayne, a crescent-headed guy. This game keeps it ambiguous whether we’re following the same Wayne, or one from a new generation of Waynes. In this one, we’re introduced to an Old Wayne, a wise mentor (maybe the previous protagonist?), and to baby-Waynes that are slugs on the ground, which our Wayne can pet like they’re dogs. “Wayne” is just a species in this world, that starts and ends as slugs, and is human-shaped in the middle.

It's only gonna get weirder from here.

Oh no! You have encountered... checks notes
Silamvog... Cave Cineast... and Mycetic.
Those are NOT the weirdest names in this world.

The Wayne we play is the best of his kind, with all others struggling to keep up. Old Wayne says that the followers of Gibby the Moon Wizard (main villain of the first Hylics) are trying to revive him. Wayne goes to New Muldul, in the west, to warn its king, Blerol. While exploring, Wayne can find two of the party members from the previous game – First Pongorma, a knight in spiky helmet and armor, and later Dedusmuln, whose head looks just like two huge horns. King Blerol was kidnapped by a villain named Viewax, and needs to be rescued before we can progress.

Spinny flight in a straight line!

On the way, we learn new special moves (oh, sorry, Gestures) by watching TVs around the overworld. In New Muldul, Wayne obtains a Pneumatophore (…that’s a real word?), which allows him to Air Dash after jumping. I almost forgot about controls! Interact with stuff using the Enter key, jump with the Space bar, slap with X, and roll on the ground with C (after acquiring the Pneumatophore, C is the Air Dash button in midair.) The game has an indicator of where the ground is beneath Wayne, since terrain is so weird that you may not always figure out where, exactly, his feet will land.

The determinate ingredients of this recreational program

Let's see... Pongorma has Vulnerable, Dedusmuln is Poisoned,
and one enemty is both on fire and regenerating thanks to
a used item. That's 4 out of 21 status effects.

RPG-wise, you could win the original Hylics by sticking to Snaps, the base attack. Not so much this time around, as you’ll face multiple enemies at a time with access, just like the heroes, to moves inflicting status effects. This game has so many status effects, both positive and negative, that you’d  need a compendium to remember what each one does! Good thing Steam has one. Oh, and status effects stack, too.

Your party shares the Gestures learned through TVs, but each hero has one that’s unique to them. Wayne has Dissolution (inflicts poison-like damage each turn). Pongorma has Lightning (inflicts 175% damage, but stuns him for one turn). Dedusmuln has Foam Armor (increases the target's max HP – excuse me, here it’s called Flesh –, and removes and prevents negative status effects on them for a few turns). Somsnosa, found last, has Wave Artifice, which deals lower damage but hits all enemies at once.

Wavelets are the small attacks after Wave Artifice.

Sure, I'll try.

A move learned by all later is Charge Up, which can be used first by each character to power up their next action. As examples, Lightning will hurt a lot more and won't stun Pongorma; Foam Armor will protect the whole party; and Wave Artifice will launch two extra attacks after the first wave. Charge Up is learned on an island with a remnant of an ancient civilization of TV-headed people who collect Antennas. Dropped by enemies, antennas can be given to one TV-head to increase the power of Charge Up; attacks used after charging up will deal more damage.

I would love a whole game like this too.

Beyond the RPG aspect, one clear goal was to combine the Claymation style with other gaming genres. To receive a key to Viewax’s fortress, Wayne needs to beat a 2D platformer, which is also made out of clay characters. (It use Hylics 2's existing moves; the Slap becomes a long-range attack, and Air Dashing is needed to jump over long distances.) With the stage beaten, the key is obtained, Viewax is beaten, Blerol is freed.

The king lets the team use New Muldul's airship, which gives access to every island. We can visit the whole 3D world, even taking upwards to the skies if we want. However, the airship can only land in specific landing spots. If your party dies and loses the ship, it can be called back at a smaller island near Waynehouse.

It's not a huge world, but it's nice enough as it is.

Tender that meat, and get stronger! Protein! Protein!

The most important mechanic returns, too: The Afterlife. When the party dies, it ends up there, represented by a small island. It has a warp pool that can take you back to any of the other teleportation pools you discovered. Its other feature is… a meat grinder. Defeated enemies will drop meat that you can shove into this thing, turning each unit into an additional point of Flesh for everyone in the party. You could say… this is this game’s version of grinding. Ayyy-!

Botherations and commotions

These slugs are where all the juice comes from.
Fruit? What the Heck is that?

The team needs to access the area where Gibby’s main follower, Odozeir, is looking for a sarcophagus of the moon wizard to resuscitate him. However, the site is blocked by a shield that must be turned off at the shield factory. We pass by the juice harvesting field, a place under assault from the villains, who snuck in by hiding in a slug egg. The party rejoins with Somsnosa and deals with the intruders.

This maze is huge. We're gonna get lost down here!

The enemies drop a key to the shield factory – and in there, we have a gigantic maze in the bottom floors that starts out completely dark, and appears as you run through it. This is another striking, memorable moment that twists the base gameplay for something novel. It’s good to fight the labyrinth's enemies for all the meat and items you can get out of it, too. The beast at the bottom of the factory is a… Fonthintrelpine (the names in this game, I swear), some ungodly mix between a worm, a squid, a bull and a hedgehog.

…YOU try to describe that thing! Wayne and his team destroy it, freeing the factory and allowing them to turn off the force shield. However, before the heroes can get there, Odozeir finds the sarcophagus, and begins the ritual.

I friggin' hate Poolmen and Poolmagne. Damn things steal
your focus at the start of the fight, and Poolmagne strike back
every single time you attack them.

This new dungeon, Foglast, is tricky; to progress, you must delete each shield by following the cord that leads all the way to its on/off button. The area is immense, I kept getting lost, and some buttons can’t be found unless you figure out where to air-dash to. Oh, and it’s home to Poolmen and Poolmagne, annoying enemies that love to multiply when left alone for too long. The only way to prevent them from doing that is to set them on fire; good thing everyone in the party has the Soul Crisper Gesture!

Odozeir the scholar, and his pet armored critter that looks
entirely made of spaghetti under the paperlike metal.

Once everything has been found, the path to Odozeir is easy. That boss fight didn’t turn out too tough for me; it’s just Odozeir, accompanied by an armored thing named Carsoro. They hit hard, but Odozeir isn’t protected much so he goes down fast, while Carsoso cannot be harmed until its armor is removed. After his defeat, the scholar claims that the ritual cannot be stopped. And when we check the sarcophagus, it opens to reveal a rejuvenated Gibby.

The restitution of the unbalanced planetoid thaumaturge

OK, but we all agree that when the Claymation art of this
game kicks ass, it really kicks ass. Like, damn.

You want me to explode some ruins in case we find
something awesome? No need to pay, I'll do it for free!

Upon its awakening, Gibby nukes the heroes and recreates Hylemxylem. The building unleashes a wave of insanity that affects the entire population. Ma, the NPCs are speaking word salad again! Ironically, being in the Afterlife when it happened protected them from the wave, so when Wayne and Co. return, they can continue the quest. Blerol is one of the few to have retained some sanity; he lets them take a Skull Bomb in the New Muldul treasury, to blow an excavation site further west. This unearths a new area: The Sage Labyrinth.

I wonder if anyone tried to chart this maze, make the maps.
Not easy, since it changes sometimes due to the switches
moving entire blocks and changing the layout.

One more switch in gameplay: This Labyrinth is explored in first-person, with switches to flick changing the layout. RPG encounters can still happen, and plenty of secrets can be found. The switch at the bottom of the maze causes another airship to rise from the sea. On it, the party can learn the final special move, Bombo-Genesis, to be used by a character who's Charged Up beforehand; it steals the entire party’s Will points and inflicts massive damage with them. However, to obtain it, we must get three Sage Tokens hidden in secret areas of the previous dungeons. They're hard to find, but pretty much mandatory; Bombo-Genesis is the best move to take Gibby down.

Gibby is on fire, and poisoned, surely we can mess him up
in more ways that won't let him summon more mooks.

Time for Hylemxylem, the final dungeon. It has tricky enemy encounters and puzzles that involve draining pools of water (that I first mistook for lava). At the top floor, Wayne and his friends confront Gibby, and a fight ensues. Gibby’s boss gimmick is that he summons a minion each time he is hurt by an attack, so you’ll want to inflict max damage each time. (So, Charge Up and then Bombo-Genesis, using your strongest party member.) With the right strategy, he's not so tough. When Gibby is defeated, Hylemxylem falls apart, and Wayne and Co. land on a stage to rock out to their victory while being celebrated by the population, which has returned to a normal state of mind. (…as normal as this world can be.) Roll ending and credits!

Effervescent refrains are a salient lagniappe
of postliminary ascendancy memorialization.
...Okay, I'll stop. After the next portion title.

Hindmost declarations

Final words: Oh, I had fun with this one. It has its more frustrating aspects, but its tone and style are like very few games out there, making it both an oddity and an experience to recommend.

"Weird" is just normal here. "Normal" is the weird.
Somsnosa has the most normal-looking humanlike face,
and that makes HER the weirdest one in this world!

The best way I can describe it is… disorienting. The Claymation art style is one thing, with creatures moving all their extraneous limbs and whatnot, and them being utterly indescriptible in their weirdness. Their names rarely relate to what they are. The terrain isn’t always clear in terms of depth and inclination, so the position marker is very useful to ensure you don’t keep falling off. At least, aside from constant use of archaic terms, the plot is fully understandable (albeit bizarre) this time around, at least until Gibby returns and most NPCs’ dialogue turns to nonsense; the most significant ones manage to keep their sanity, so the plot is never lost.

Time for a grand moment of tenderization.

The RPG reuses features from its predecessor, like the lack of levels or defense. Instead of experience, the meat you find increases your health in the Afterlife, and garb – gloves as weapons, and accessories for everything else – grant the stat boosts, aside from the attack-increasing Muscle Appliques you can find. Better than a slap on the wrist, the Afterlife is an integral part of gameplay, both to grind meat and as a teleportation hub. (You can also find a few items and one Gesture there.) Most items (sorry, Things) and special moves (sorry, Gestures) have special effects to them, so you must learn to use them wisely; Gestures can have plenty of bonus effects when used alongside Charge Up. And because enemies all have special moves and plenty of status effects to inflict on your party, most battles will stay tough.

I loved the inclusion of segments in other genres, like the two platform stages (which can be tough!), the flight of the airship, and the first-person maze. They help elevate Hylics 2 beyond just an RPG. We can feel the resulting improvements of moving from RPG Maker to Unity for this one.

There's actually TWO platformer stages.

This game is so absurd, you can never know exactly
what to expect. One boss battle is this thing, then in the
Sage Labyrinth, one enemy is just... a normal, giant fish.

My peeves with this one: The first hour can be a slog as you’ll lose every battle until you have found at least one additional party member. When all you have is Wayne, you can’t win battles on your own (even starter encounters have 2+ enemies), therefore, you can’t earn meat and increase your health. Air dash is a great feature, but the game has a hard time recognizing inputs when you jump while running; an input failure can mean falling into the water, which causes the party to wash back ashore, and having to run back to try again. Backtracking isn’t so bad, but a few late-game areas and key items are hard to find; I’m certain I wouldn’t have figured out the locations of two of the Sage Tokens by myself.

But aside from that? Yeah. That experience is worth it. Go and… uh… sustain the peculiarity!