Spelunker Party!

I like this game. It's definitely easier than Spelunker HD, which is what I wanted as difficulty. But I think it's hard enough for me to like playing it.

There's a game-breaking bug on Level 1-H (Heart of the Mines) where the game will randomly freeze all visuals, but still play sound. It renders the game impossible to complete.It's a shame, because this game is quite a lot of fun otherwise. It's punishing, but fair. Once you accept its harsh rules, it has some clever level design.

I loved the original spelunker world, I was very sad when it was shut down. I found this game out about 2 years later, and though it might not be as good as the original I still love it very much, It is a very good game!

Spelunker is a great multiplayer game that sadly doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Explore caves deeper and deeper as you progress through the levels. Each world introduce new mechanics that make the game more difficult and more complex. Collect items and equipment as you level up, and make your ultimate spelunker!!

Very recommended.

Admit it: either the original game's PS3 HD version, the PS4 free-to-play version of this, or the two maps in Megadimension Neptunia Victory II got you into this, not the original Eighties version. In my case, it was Neptunia. Yes, the character is regarded as the weakest in video game history, but isn't this what the platformer genre is all about? The most annoying part is keeping track of everything unlocked. The game tells you which stones are missing, but not where; the general hint in which section of the map would've been nice. Otherwise, it's the premium version of the PS4 version, Spelunker World; no pay-to-win.

OK so i wanted play with someone but im not kidding NO ONE PLAYS THIS GAME ANY MORE i can only play offline but this games is fun and rilly recommend it

This game is amazing. A true masterpiece of modern gamer experience in a box. If you are a fan of dying to fall damage this game is for you. There are pets and that is epic mode. I think everyone should play this game with the homies. Currently me and my boy are the ONLY 2 people who play this online and that is WACK. Would be OPPA GANGNAM STYLE if more people would play with us. DM ME.

Just as good as Spelunker World was. If only they'd bring back the events and special outfits to this game then Party! would be perfect.

Overall- it's good but not great. Spelunker HD on the PS3 is a *much* better take on this formula- it's apparently getting a PS4 port in Japan, which will hopefully get an English release, maybe even on PC (though I get the feeling this didn't sell all that well...).

Spelunker is a classic kusoge (literally translated as "sh*t game"), the kind of game where it's more of an inside joke that you either feel in on or don't. I would refute that a little bit- it's very finicky and particular (you infamously can't fall more than like half your body height without dying), but it makes its own ruleset and follows it well. It doesn't play even a tenth as fluidly as most other platformers, but that doesn't make it poorly designed. It knows what it is and how to properly construct challenges around the limited mobility. Calling it outright bad or poorly designed is the same kind of thing as saying the jumping in the original Castlevania ruins it. Both are built around their own internal logic and the level design compliments it perfectly.

That's for Spelunker HD at least. Spelunker Party was previously released as a free-to-play game called Spelunker World, and some of that freemium stench is still lingering on Party. You have equipment you can select that will give you lives, protect you from certain obstacles, or help you collect items, but what this immediately turns into is having to replay levels over and over with different equipment just to get one item you couldn't grab because you didn't think you'd need to have a specific piece of gear equipped. I literally made a google spreadsheet to keep track of all the item requirements for each level (and published it as a guide, which will hopefully save someone else from having to do it themselves). This feels to me like something built off of an energy meter in freemium games that only let you play a certain number of levels before paying to "recharge".

The level structure of Spelunker HD was 10-level sections that continuously flowed into each other, but Party chops that up into many more distinct levels with 1-5 smaller sections within them. It's not nearly as fun to explore, and kills the difficulty a bit- these smaller levels give you 5 lives to work with before equipment bonuses, which stagnates how difficult or long levels can realistically be. In the end it's either too easy, or by some later levels, unreasonably hard. And none of the level design even comes anywhere close to the glory of Spelunker HD's DLC levels, which gave you 50 lives to get through an absolute gauntlet focused on each of the game's mechanics. They really squeezed every last ounce of design and use out of everything they put in there, in incredibly frustrating but surprising ways. This game, if you're looking at it as a sequel, didn't really add anything.

I would say the big appeal for this iteration was meant to be multiplayer, but unfortunately the online for this game is dead on PC and I never found another person to play with. I could see it being fun with friends, and Remote Play Together does offer that option for those who have friends who are also interested in weird modern Japanese adaptations of 80's English computer games. A glaring flaw with the multiplayer though is that you can only select an adjacent level on the world map after completing a level in co-op, and the map is literally designed with dead-ends. You will have to drop your co-op partner quite frequently if you want to do anything but the very, very basic numbered levels in each world, which won't even unlock the final world for you since you'll be missing required items from the branching, dead-end paths. I'd have to imagine this could get really tedious for those co-opping the whole game.

So, it's fun but not particularly interesting for those who aren't Spelunker fanatics like me. Hopefully we can get Spelunker HD soon and I can really rave about it. This is a sideways thumb for me, leaning up.

I played this as a kid and it gives me a real nostalgia boner to revisit it. The pricing i find to be a bit much as it was free when i played it when i was younger, but the coop feature is a lot of fun.

Such a hard game to review. I mean I love it and it's well done for a remake. But it's also Spelunker and if you know Spelunker, you know how this game can be. At first glance you might think this is some kind of Mario run and jump kind of platformer....it's not.

Spelunker is a very rigid "do it this way or suffer" kind of game. It required a lot of planning and scouting before finally trying to tackle a level. I guess that's where the fun part is. In a way it's very much a puzzle platformer and that's very much why I recommend it. You'll get frustrated but you'll also want to try again and again.

The game features a multiplayer mode but no one in my circle of friends or family is patient enough to learn Spelunker so I can't really tell you how that works.

I am well aware this a retail repackaging of the f2p Spelunker World, some of my judgements of the game will be based on that.

A great entry into the spelunker series so long as you have people to play it with. The game is very true to entries of the past with its feel and mechanics. Nearly every stage throws something new at you to keep things fresh and challenging.

Its biggest problems are lingering effects from the f2p. Let me break down some of these things.

Litho-stone collection

Outfits and Damage mitigation

Pooch and gold

To be clear, this review is going to be a comparison between Spelunker World (A game for the PS4) and Spelunker Party, and is meant for people who have played a lot of Spelunker World and are interested in Spelunker Party (as I was).

Item Acquisition
If I had to describe Spelunker Party (SP) to someone who has played Spelunker World (SW), I would describe it as a SW sandbox. A lot of “branching path” sets of levels lead to one of the many pets in the game, giving you them for free after completion of the last level in those “sets.” Doing this by the end of World 2, you will have ALL CHARACTERS AND ALL PET ARCHETYPES. This is especially frustrating for people like me who went through the trouble of getting Spelunkette’s Sister in SW, having to collect the daunting 300 stars. Litho-Stones function differently in this game: They contain a guaranteed set of items, and once they are picked up from a level, going back to pick them up again will result in them being replaced with upgrade stones of varying quality based on their litho-stone quality (blue - bronze, silver - silver, purple - gold). Doggy Digging has been completely removed and replaced with the Pooch option visible from the menu unlocked about halfway into World 1, where you can send the dog into a cave for a varying amount of in-game coins dependant on which cave you send him into. He has a chance of retrieving an item, or an exorbitant amount of silver upgrade stones (50 to 150). As there are no item event stages, or events at all, promotional items referencing characters from other games do not exist in SP (RIP Ace’s Cards). The only new items in this game are the four 4-star capes you can collect (one for each world). One last thing I will briefly touch on is the Quest system. Not much of note here besides a range of tasks you can complete for a variety of items from just coins to basically free 4-star items early on which ends up being really nice. My only gripe with it is that you can only have one quest active at a time, despite a lot of quests being seemingly overlapping. I.e “Destroy 10 breakable walls in World 2” & “Collect 20 Miracles” could easily be completed side by side as you play nevertheless you’re forced to do one before the other. But I cannot go any longer without talking about the item system.

Item System & Economy
For starters, 1-star items and bronze/brown litho-stones are completely removed in Spelunker Party. Only gear with abilities remain present in SP. In Spelunker World, you could collect multiple versions of the same item to power up the one you were using, and in the case of 3 and 4-star items you could infuse their abilities into other 3 and 4-star items to make entirely unique gear pieces tailored to your way of playing. That system has been all but COMPLETELY REMOVED from SP. In SP you are only allowed one copy of an item, and it can only be upgraded to a certain level. As an item in SP levels, it will gain all of it’s charges and uses until it hits its max level. You cannot combine items like you could in SW to create ultra-powerful 4 stars with perks from the best two items for that slot. Each 4-star item comes with its own two perks and that's that. Just leveling an item to unlock its full potential is instrumental, but I don’t think it was worth the trade-off of having completely unique 4-star loadouts thanks to ability infusion. This new system in SP makes leveling pets much more worthwhile because by level 10 they have all 5 or so charges depending on the pet and are at their natural max but they can’t be absolutely broken like in SW (notable example is how a Black Star Tom could eliminate all existing enemies from large levels just because of the sheer range ability infusion gave him).

Levels & Story
When it comes to the single player campaign I’ve never been a huge fan of it. I’ve always appreciated the gear system and making my own loadouts more; the levels were always just a nice place to test my loadouts to see just how effective/insane I could make them. All of the levels from Spelunker World are back in Spelunker Party, with the edition of a 5th "EX World" which is also just a bunch of event levels from SW. These are advertised as harder than the levels in the other 4 worlds but by that point you have pretty much every important 4-star item in the game, so they’re more of a pushover. As far as the story is concerned, it’s the same “saving the Earth’s Core” plot but with more focus on the effect it’s having on all the creatures of the earth as opposed to getting the gang together like it was in Spelunker World.

Multiplayer & Closing
Unfortunately, the multiplayer for Spelunker Party is all but dead. No rooms exist (at least on PC) at any given time. This makes how easy it is to get 4-star items and any pet you want a little bit more justified as its more of a single-player Spelunker experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially after the “Frown on Brown Litho-Stones” movement that took place in SW where people would become toxic/instantly leave and let others die in missions if you even THOUGHT about picking up the bronze litho-stones (this movement is why I personally stopped playing SW, as it was way too toxic and basically killed my enjoyment of the game). This makes the experience of SP a breath of fresh air for a veteran like me. As much as I would love to see a surge in this game’s popularity, I don’t expect one, as anyone with thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars poured into the original would never give that up for a game like this. But on the other side of the coin, if you only ever played SW casually or didn’t play it at all because of the inherent difficulty, you would probably get more enjoyment out of this entry in the series as you get to experience almost everything a Spelunker title has to offer with little to no challenge.

All in all, I would consider it more of a spin-off than a port due to the amount of fundamental changes to the system. I had fun with it, you might too.

Spelunker Party isn’t the best game in the Spelunker series (that title goes to the PS3 game Spelunker HD), but it serves as a decent entry point for newcomers. While I’m not quite a fan of the changes Tozai made to the series’ classic structure (gone are the lengthy gauntlet levels, now replaced by shorter levels and protective gear for stage hazards), Spelunker’s infamous platforming conventions - fall damage, ho! - are is still enjoyable here, with the shorter levels and new gear system making the experience more accessible for novices. If the third world wasn’t a complete slog I’d probably rate the game higher, but ultimately Spelunker Party is an enjoyable entry in the long running series that’s best experienced with friends.

It is a shame online is dead and they devoloper is busy with newer versions of the game on consoles. Good game that could have been spectacular. Also, the music is addictive.

Once you get past the fact that you can't fall more than 6 inches without dying it becomes fun. You get a lot for your money with this game, it's a romp, a hoot and a holler. 8/10 (some ui problems)

This game is entirely to my taste. I felt funny when I started this game. This game is lovely. Also, the character is very cute. Unfortunately, fewer players play this game. Many maps and difficulties are also significant. Up to four players can play this game together. I hope to play this game with many people.

I've been playing Spelunker since the NES. Then Spelunker HD for PS3. And I wanted to play Spelunker World but I don't have a PS4, and was hoping there would be a port or something for PC. I finally noticed that Spelunker Party was on Steam, and I went and bought it with no hesitation. It's everything I expected it to be, and more.

I think if you're new to the Spelunker franchise, the gaming mechanics may seem unfair with its one hit deaths, especially by falling 1cm (lol) and you might just wanna break your controller in half. But that's how Spelunker is! It just takes a lot of patience and precision.

There are a lot of, dare I say, "cute" aspects to Spelunker Party, with its character design, the costumes, and the pets! I really enjoy it a lot, and if you want to get the most of the game, get some friends to play with you!

A charming game best played with friends but can also be played alone. The price is a bit higher compared to other games in its genre but its well worth the price since the amount of content this game has greatly makes up for it. There are currently 120 levels and 4 zones with each level having anywhere from 1 to 5 sublevels. Each level has keys that you collect to move on to the next level along with items called litho-stones. These litho-stones are collected to finish off puzzles to earn equipment that give different stats to help make going through different levels easier. For instance theres a bag that gives you extra oxygen to reach places further out to get rare collectibiles and a hat that protects you from bat guano. There are also pet companions you find which have different abilities to help you and your friends such as a dog that can dig for collectibles and a parrot that can resurrect your friends from a long distance. The game does have limitations to how many times you can use these items and companions to help balance out the game but this can be increased based on leveling up these items which is done just by completing stages and wearing them. On top of all that there are also 40+ quests you can do to allow you to earn even more items and companions. If after all that the price still scares you then think of all the laughs it will give you to watch your friends make fatal mistakes and plummet to their death! It is a for sure pick up if you want a fun and challenging co-op game (its up to 4 players).

FUN ALONE, WAY MORE FUN WITH FRIENDS!

In this review, i will talk about three of the reasons that i recommend this game : The history behind the game, the tryout and my actual gameplay.

1) The history : Nostalgia. Oh nostalgia...
A lot of gamers don't know but Spelunker Party isn't the first game of this serie. In fact, i think it's the third game (Spelunker on NES, Spelunker HD on PS3 and Spelunker Party! on Steam and Nintendo Switch). I played both the three games and they were just that good. One can't be compared with the others cause of the gap of time between each title and their graphics constantly changing makes them a different game each time. However, the main mechanic and story was always respected, making the game easy enough to follow. So for nostalgic fans like me or complete newbie, no one will be penalized for that point.

2) The tryout : Before i bought the game
I tried the game at a friend's house on the Nintendo Switch. The controls were fine despite the shape of the controllers on the console. When i heard that the game was on Steam AND it was playable with the Xbox style controller, i jumped to the occasion and decide to buy the game for my own good. It actually took around 30 to 45 minutes of gameplay before i took my decision... Talk about quickness.

3) My personnal experience
When i started playing alone on my computer, i realised that the game was quite challenging but a lot, LOT of fun. However, the only negative point of the game is for people who loves to get the 100% game complete ( in other words : for completionists ). If you want to COMPLETE the game, you will need... i mean, you MUST HAVE other players to play with you!!! To gain the rare objects, they are certain path that requires 2 players in order to reach it. Kind of sad when you try to connect online and realise there's not a lot of players patient enough to wait for someone to unblock them. But at least, you can just plug another controller into YOUR game and ask a pal to help you out ( probably the reason why no one waits in online mode ).

With that said, the best thing to do is : If you are all alone, it will be fun but not as much as with friends.
Personnal note for the game : 8,4 / 10

Spelunker Party, if your familiar with the HD version the majority of the gameplay is already known to you, some new system around cosmetic items and level selection stuff aside. Everyone else, read on!

Spelunker Party is based off of Spelunker, that game some of you may regard as some ancient relic if you know of it at all with the highly regarded weakest character in video games, the spelunker. A man capable of destroying his life from simple missteps half his height that destroy his legs and all chance of survival, to needing a rapidly depleting oxygen tank to breath at all. A character who braves deep ruinous caverns to grab treasure and try to keep smiling while everything turns into a living hell around him. Spelunker Party keeps this man and his flaws intact, while giving him some friends who also suffer similar vulnerabilities to play as.

Spelunker at it's core is a platforming game that requires precise timing of your actions, from given only a split second of thinking time to work around a passage of instant death traps to running from giant boulders through a cavern composed of just platforms to jump across. Simple snakes and hidden pits require your full attention as your ability to jump is only just enough to bypass such things and mistakes lead to lost lives. Jumping from a rope onto an incline the wrong way is a good way to perish. Flares you launched to rid yourself of bats and their deadly guano ended up falling on you on your way back with the treasure and burned you alive. You will struggle and try to endure and the game offers great personal satisfaction for your troubles.

The series likes to pride itself on it's difficulty, and while it's still largely intact here, you are also given items to find and equip that augment your abilities, such as your bombs having a larger blast radius, or recieving protection from a single type of trap/enemy to stave off death for one or two hits. Such items also gain experience and level up through usage, increasing the bonus they give. While some of this is just for personal comfort, the game does expect you to use certain equipment to uncover secrets through abilities they give, such as a dog you can travel with is capable of digging up hidden treasure.

While the core of spelunker is alive and well in spelunker party, it does have some caveats in it's design, namely certain secrets can only be obtained through multiplayer. Cooperating with other players is sometimes the only to progress to certain secrets, such as someone needing to stand on a switch which creates platforms across a wide pit for someone else to run across. If you are intent on getting everything in the game, be sure you have people to work with. The game does have local and online multiplayer.
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While I'm aware that there is a piece of equipment that allows you to press switches from far away, you still need other players to actually perform all the quests in the game.
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As for some technical points, you can't remap controls within the game, and you will want a controller ready for this. The game boots up with the steam Big Picture Mode UI - not necessarily fullscreen, you can always play the game in a window but the UI will remain in the overlay. While playing multiplayer if you encounter any cutscenes after a level you will be kicked from any group you were playing with. If you lose all your lives in a level while playing multiplayer and no one manages to revive you, you will be booted from the group you are playing with, if this happens to the host then you will be dealing with a hopefully minor annoyance of host migration.

Despite it's faults, this is a game I greatly enjoy, and intend to put many more hours into it. Multiplayer also allows for a great amount of entertainment - for the full experience turn Friendly Fire on in the lobby creation settings, your not doing it to intentionally kill eachother, it will just happen and it will be the magical misery that will cause you to howl with pain and laughter.

P.S. If using a dual analog stick, be sure to click in the right stick during multiplayer, it will save you a lot of eye strain.