This is not a game for 95% of people and/or gamers. It is for the sickos and freaks who can live with constant, consistent failures. People who enjoy the journey, no matter the pain it causes. It will take most people hundreds if not thousands of tries to get a win. It may take a lot more than that to get to the true ending- and even more than that for the game's truest final challenges.
In terms of rogue-like mechanics, everything is perfection. No saved progress aside from character unlocks (essentially skins) & the hub growing as the player progresses.The item rarity is perfect, with no item really being useless but if you want to weigh juggling the items/damsels - it will take some planning and coordination to reap all of the spoils in some floors.
You can go as slow as you want, but you always have to maintain speed to get through the 3 minute timer. I wouldn't mind a free play mode without the ghost tbh, but also I would consider the 3 minute timer to not matter on 90% of floors. It is the Fortnite circle closing in, not so impending to cause stress- but once it does close in it is terrifying but manageable.
The game has several bosses that consistently spawn on certain floors. One example of this is Quillback, a boss that appears at the end of the very first area - Dwelling- with near identical layouts each time for his level. I enjoy the Quillback level for what it is and the branching path that it helps to create. The variety it provides is the core reason this game truly bests its predecessor. The run is built by the player, ultimately - not just by chance.
The choice between Volcana and Jungle can be run defining, yet also determined by what the player is aiming to do. Back when the game came out in 2020, I loved a Volcana - Abzu run. However, the riches of the black market as well as a good chance at sticky bombs makes Jungle appealing if the player has the items to navigate safely.
Aside from the roguelike mechanics, I would also like to state that the game feels incredibly smooth to control. While Spelunky HD was a little floaty/laggy, due mostly to being an Xbox 360 game - Spelunky 2 is a masterclass in platformer control. While there are a decent amount of mechanics that may feel awkward at first (crouching to pick up items, aiming throws with movement controls), they can be pretty easily mastered with some quick fingers and attention-to-detail. The game had some performance issues for me on PS4 at release but then the PS5 came out and I kind of forgot those ever existed. Also runs well on Steam Deck. The smoothest version by far is definitely the PS5 version which shadow-dropped some time last year.
I've invested about 400 hours into this game over the past 6 years and I believe it is everything I dreamed of when the game was first announced back at E3 2017. At this point, I have done almost everything this game has asked from me - except some of its true toughest challenges. I also have a speedrun for Any% No Teleporter where I am ranked 347th in the world as of this edit. Still waiting for my 347th place ribbon in the mail.
I could genuinely play Spelunky 2 every day for the rest of my life. Unless it makes me too mad lol.
Editor's (also me) note: When I wrote the first draft of this review, I had half the playtime I do currently. That draft can be found here: https://infinitebacklog.net/users/meepismurder/reviews/spelunky-2