Good, but not great...
I have been thinking about this game for a long time, and have finally decided to give it a review. First of all, the art is excellent. The 3D lends itself very well to the world of Pico, and the enemies and bosses looked incredible. However, graphics are not enough to make a good game. The stages themselves are quite linear, and there is not enough to collect. The "Pico Classics" cards were fun to collect, but they were hidden in plain sight and in small supply. The enemies weren't very imaginative, the regular Uber-kids, the Uber-uber-kids (I chuckled at this bit), and a few others. I felt the best enemy was Shadow Pico, since we don't really ever learn anything about him and his appearances are scarce. I hope his backstory will be addressed in Pico 3. (Of course, if that project is planned, if it is not, then I am fine.) Aside from the occasional enemy, the levels are barren, and while atmospheric, was very linear. I felt no challenge running through most of the levels, as the traps were easy to avoid and predictable and the enemies were knocked down quickly. The only enemy I had trouble getting past was the Mini-Penilans, and the only level I had any trouble with was "Cassandra's Spaceship" (due to the annoying black holes, which were more irritating than innovating.) I am truly sorry if you are offended by this review so far, and in that spirit, I will now say some things I liked about this game. One thing is the Newgrounds cameos, I enjoyed seeing familiar faces such as Tank Man and Salad Fingers (For those of you looking for Strawberry Clock, he's in a corner in the "Sea Men" level!). I was not expecting the "Hall of Classic Cartoons" level, even though Pico is quite a classic cartoon character himself, I enjoyed duking it out with the likes of Homer Simpson and Bugs Bunny. Another thing I like about this game is the music. My favorite music track from this game is from the "Sea Men" level, it's very atmospheric, and very spacey, but somehow also very quirky. Due to this, I was glad to find a "Sound Mode" prior to completing the game. Also by completing the game, I unlocked the accessibility of being able to play as Pico's faithful friends, Nene and Darnell. I enjoyed these characters a lot. Another thing I really liked was the final boss battle, in which Cassandra, in full Penillan garb, merges with all of her alien friends and becomes giant. The battle was creative, challenging, and the most important part, fun. However, I wish I could say this about the rest of the game. While the whole thing runs very smoothly, with wonderful animation and not a bit of lag, the levels are not given their full extent of creativity. There is only one path in most of the levels, the levels with two paths only have one path that leads somewhere, while the other is just some sort of bonus. Later in the game, I felt like I was just playing the same level, albeit with different tiles and power-ups. Speaking of power-ups and weapons, they were not very creative either, with the usual Uzis and Shotguns, and the only health restoring item was the classic "Medicinal Marijuana" from the astounding first game. This one doesn't live up to its predecessor, but still manages to be a pretty good game. However, it suffers from a huge amount of flaws, so huge I could write a novel about the problems. The little bonuses didn't make up for them much, even if we did get to see Pico's girlfriend Nene naked. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of the Pico franchise, but I felt like this could have been done a lot better. In the next game, you could add more paths, more power-ups, perhaps a multiplayer mode? These are but mere suggestions, however if you would take them into mind I would appreciate it dearly. This game could use a lot of improvement, and I have not even brought up all the problems with it, but I still enjoyed it a lot, because of the creative level designs and a few little things that make the game worthwhile. In conclusion, this game is far from classic, but far from terrible. I am sure the next Pico game will be a blast. 7 stars.