There are plenty of times where I’m excited to play something totally creative and different in my down time. Sometimes though I just want familiarity and fun, to hold me tightly after a day dealing with humanity. When this happens it’s easy to go back to games that made you happy in the past, be they endlessly replayable Roguelikes or childhood comforts. I’ve found you can use new games to help with this too, just as long as they’re gleefully inspired by your faves and preferably a little bit retro too. Aggelos 2 was perfect for this, giving me all the joy of an old school Metroidvania in 2026.
In Aggelos 2 you play as an Aggelos, which is essentially a really top notch angel. There’s a story all about venturing through the kingdom of light and being hated by communities that once worshiped you, but it’s all very much in the background of action platforming and exploration. It’s an interesting and non-invasive narrative that sends you on your way to explore a dangerous world, and that’s all I ever really wanted.
One of my favourite ways to start a Metroidvania is by having basically no powers in a world full of dangers, and that’s what happens in the first few moments of Aggelos 2. While angel flying to your mission you get shot out of the sky, and when this happens you better believe all your powers from the first game go tumbling away. It doesn’t take long to start gathering a few abilities though, and once you do they just don’t stop.
Your first few abilities are more functional than exploratory, enabling you to hit things with your sword and fire bullets of light from afar. After that though you really start to unlock skills that’ll help you explore the world. Your wings returning allow you to hover across gaps with ease, and a grappling hook can be used to wall jump up all manner of surfaces. The rate of gaining new skills is great, and there are always obvious places to backtrack for extra power ups and trinkets (which you can mark on your map so you don’t forget them).
The main hook of Aggelos 2 though is one particular ability, which transforms you from an angel into a demon. While you’re an angel your attacks are more balanced and you have the ability to use vials to heal, whereas the demon is more of a powerhouse who forgoes healing to speed up and fight harder and faster. You can swap between the two at the push of a button too, which is especially helpful as you can slice through specific coloured bullets with each form. This all comes together in some seriously cool boss fights that had me sweating, and really tested my skills.
The two sides of the main character also come into play in the exploration. In classic Metroidvania fashion there’s a dark and light world in Aggelos 2, with portals that lead you between them. The dark world is expectedly more dangerous, but both have plenty of secrets to find and places to use your newly acquired abilities.
One aspect of Aggelos 2 I thought was really well implemented was the currency system. Enemies drop currency when you defeat them as you’d expect, and initially can collect a hundred of these orbs until your wallet is full. The world is packed full of wallet upgrades though, and eventually prices of a thousand or even higher will seem totally reasonable. It’s a great way to make you value the otherwise dull blobs you collect, and incentives spending and killing as much as possible.
Aggelos 2 was exactly what I wanted from a Metroidvania, but it has a couple of issues. There were a few times where I was completely stumped with where to go next, and when this happens it’s frustrating to have to wander around the whole map until something clicks. There are little markers leading to objectives occasionally, but if you’ve missed the ability you need to reach it then that’s not a whole lot of help.
Aggelos 2 is a good old fashioned Metroidvania, with a sprawling dual world to explore and plenty of abilities to get around with. It’s not going to set the world on fire with huge innovations, but with wonderful boss fights and some clever mechanics it’s well worth binging and reminiscing about the glory years of Metroid and Castlevania.
