I’ve been playing games for some time. I remember what it was like to turn on a ZX Spectrum, put a tape in the deck (a tape!), and have my dinner while I waited for it to load. I was gaming before there were consoles, when the Commodore 64 was the greatest piece of entertainment tech I had ever beheld. And I say this not as some kind of perverse self-burn, but to reinforce that even with nearly four decades of gaming under my belt, I’d somehow never heard of Beyond the Ice Palace.
Originally released in 1988, it was by all accounts poor even by the standards of the time – and so the idea of a sequel never saw the light of day. Until now, 37 years later. Quite why is utterly beyond me. Perhaps because Beyond the Ice Palace 2 is so similar to Castlevania that hitching it to an IP only a year or two younger than Konami’s vampire-slaying opus lends it some kind of credence. Though if it didn’t work in the 80s, it’s a wonder they expect it to work now. Only, well, it kind of does.
Perhaps because of the weird fascination we have with retro gaming styles, Beyond the Ice Palace 2 fits perfectly well in today’s market. Its existence may seem utterly improbable, and it’s no less a Castlevania-alike than the original was, but it’s mostly enjoyable regardless.
The first game cast you as a legendary warrior in silly green boots who saved the land from evil by aggressively hitting everything directly in front of you with a weapon on a chain that looks nothing like a whip, Officer, honest. After defeating Evil the warrior became King, and was then slain by his servants who wanted to rule instead. Now resurrected, this warrior is reunited with his chains and sets out on a quest for vengeance.
It plays fairly well, although the difficulty spikes quite massively on certain bosses, and the minute to minute gameplay is fairly perfunctory. There’s a few new flourishes such as being able to rip doors off their hinges with your chains, attack in all directions, and move blocks around to open pathways and find secrets, but anyone who has ever played a retro 2D action game will know what to expect at almost every turn.
It eschews the interconnected world and backtracking associated with Metroid games for a more straightforward adventure, though there are still secrets dotted around, hidden behind destructible walls or on high ledges. You can use the chains to swing and boost-dash around, though this mechanic feels imprecise and a little unruly.
Visually it might be a little too retro, with some muddy aesthetics that aren’t quite sharp enough to look modern. Perhaps some will consider it a victory that Beyond the Ice Palace 2 doesn’t look like a game trying to be retro; it looks like an actual retro game someone found on an old floppy disc somewhere. It’s also entirely unironic, played so straight during the opening cutscene that you have to wonder if the developer had received requests to make it, and believe they’re answering some decades-old call to action; which in fairness, might be the case.
The platforming is mostly fun though, and combat feels crunchy. Some enemies will crumble into piles or heaps and need to be finished off with a hearty stamp. Health is restored by picking up food, because of course it is, such as vegetables, fruits, and the inevitable roast chicken. You’ll use acquired powers to keep pressing forward, though there’s little rerunning of areas thanks to a handy teleporter system.
Make no bones about it, though: Beyond the Ice Palace 2 does not look, feel, or play like a modern game. It’s unashamedly retro and fairly derivative, but it’s also quite enjoyable to play if you like a stiff challenge and a deliberately limited art-style – but good luck getting hold of the original if you do happen to fall in love.