clickbliss

Finding Teddy 2 Impressions

By Omar (@neo_graphyte)

• Finding Teddy 2
  
• Developer - Storybird
  
• Publisher - Look At My Game/ Plug in Digital
  
• PC (Steam)

These are initial impressions for Finding Teddy 2. Further thoughts to follow.

It’s difficult not to make the easy comparisons in Finding Teddy 2. It wears its influences on its sleeves. From the jumping animations, the introductory text scroll, and the character designs, Teddy purposefully invokes imagery of early Nintendo games to the point of homage.

There’s not doubt of the reverence that Storybird has for Zelda II or Metroid, but for the most part it tries something different. While Zelda games tend to build their areas around the dungeon’s key items, Teddy gates your progress by testing your knowledge and observation. 

By finding runes to complete your Musicon, an instrument that acts as a communication device and key, you’ll unlock new phrases and be able to decipher markings throughout. It’s a smart addition, and it gives you a sense of learning how to “speak”, with short sequences of notes imbued with certain meanings that apply as more than keys to doors. It’s thematically resonant, drawing both on the drive to master both music and language. If there’s a reservation that I have about it at the moment, it’s that certain areas ask you to listen and repeat short sequences of notes, which made it inaccessible to someone like me who has trouble differentiating tones. So far these have been only for optional collectibles, however. 

Teddy very much leaves you to your own devices. Storybird draws no major attention to important details, and easily lets you miss crucial knowledge. It relies on you to piece things together yourself. To a degree this involves reading the intentions of the designer and understanding the patterns and structures imposed on you. Once understood, there’s a certain reliability to it, which at once feels both practical and restrictive. While it gives a strong sense of structure, it also feel at odds with the mystery and ambiguity present in the world otherwise. There are also times when there feels as if there is an odd amount of “dead space” that serves only to create a bigger space where it could have been compressed. 

Despite the criticisms, Teddy definitely charms. It has a lavishly illustrated presentation that ties its audiovisual elements together thematically. This carries it forward with an approach to world building and challenge that will likely appeal to those who prefer the more free form approach that Zelda I+II used, before the series’ tropes and structures became more defined with A Link to the Past. (I missed the first area’s boss entirely, only coming back to it right before my confrontation with the second). It’s a huge game, however, so I’ve not played quite enough of it to tell you where I stand. More to come.