Despite its status as a classic film, The Goonies never got a sequel. And if the Gods of Cinema are merciful, they will strike down the one that is supposedly in the works.

However, Konami apparently loved the property, since they weren’t willing to wait around for a second movie. They were lusting for another go, so they just made it happen with 1987’s The Goonies 2. And unlike The Goonies 1, which (technically) stayed isolated on the Famicom, North America actually received The Goonies 2 on NES.

That’s little comfort, since The Goonies 2 is very different from the previous game. The good news is, it isn’t bad.

DAMNED KIDS

Rather than a simple arcade-style platformer, The Goonies 2 is closer to Metroid. Everything takes place in a great big map, and you have to find items to get past certain barriers. Gated exploration. However, it certainly feels different than Metroid. All the items are contained in rooms that are depicted in a first-person adventure game style. The world has separate “front” and “back” maps joined by these first-person rooms.

The genre we’d one day suckily know as “Metroidvania” had a heyday in the wake of Metroid’s ‘86 launch. Konami dug right into gated exploration with Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest, Metal Gear, and The Goonies 2. To mixed results. In fact, you get the full mix right there. Metal Gear is pretty good, Simon’s Quest is horrid, and The Goonies 2 is right in the middle.

The story involves the Fratellis breaking out of jail and kidnapping Annie. You know Annie, right? She’s a mermaid. She wasn’t in the movie, and that’s because she has nothing to do with anything. But sometime after the first movie, I guess the kids made friends with a mermaid, and the Fratelli’s kidnapped her to get back at them. Don’t ask me, I just work here.

IN THE REAR

You play as Mikey, and the goal is to rescue all the captured Goonies, as well as the aforementioned Mermaid. This means gathering items, getting keys, finding the Goonies, and progressing deeper into the caverns under the Fratelli house.

There are a lot of enemies that constantly respawn in plain view, but the real challenge is getting through the more cryptic parts of the game. You’ll be punching walls a lot in the first-person view. You punch walls to make things appear, and then when you get a hammer, you hammer walls to find hidden doorways and such. Always punch the back wall, even when there’s a door there. You can use the hammer on the floor, back wall, and ceiling, but not the side walls. You’re welcome.

Sometimes you have to use glasses to find hidden secrets in adventure mode. There’s a lady in the game that tells you she needs glasses to see, and that’s somehow supposed to be a hint about their function. It can be rather obtuse.

You’ll probably also want to get some graph paper and make a map. There’s a mini-map you can always reference, however it doesn’t display where walls are or where warp hallways lead. On this most recent playthrough, I actually referred to my notes from 14 years ago, which made things easier. Although, there were some major holes in my notes. Most notably, I just stopped adding to the map as I approached the end of the game. There are a few things I wish my past self had told me. Pretty selfish, past Zoey. However, I didn’t add to my notes to solidify them this time through, so I guess my lack of consideration for future Zoey hasn’t changed.

SNAKES AND LADDERS

Typical for the era, The Goonies 2 is a pretty simple affair. The items that allow you to go further are either things that improve your movement or allow you to get through blocked areas in the adventure mode. Keys are only used to rescue imprisoned Goonies.

Enemies are mostly there to frustrate you, though once you get to the last area of the game, they do immense damage. That’s a gate in itself, as you need to upgrade your health by saving Goonies before accessing the later areas. My main gripe against the enemies is that they seem rather arbitrarily placed. They’ll park themselves on ledges or atop ladders so you can’t help but get hit by them. It doesn’t feel like a game that you’re expected to avoid every enemy attack, it’s one where you need to withstand them instead. And that kind of sucks.

Actually, my wider gripe is that the level design doesn’t feel very intentional. It feels like it was just blocked together and left that way without any refinement. We’re a long way from Castlevania. We’re a lot closer to Castlevania 2. That said, the overall map is well done. Even if you have a great memory for locations, the way that you flip to the backside.

GOONTROIDVANIA

The Goonies 2 is definitely not Konami royalty. It’s not even really up to the standard of The Goonies. However, it’s still a better game than you’d probably expect. Actually, I’m now questioning how low my expectations really were. There’s some clever world design, the first-person adventure segments are extremely shallow but somewhat interesting, and the music is decent (again featuring an 8-bit rendition of The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough). Yet the minute-to-minute gameplay is just really underwhelming. Well, not underwhelming. I guess just semiwhelming.

Truthfully, as far as the gated exploration games that came in the wake of Metroid go, The Goonies 2 is at the low end in terms of quality. I’d rate it as better than Castlevania 2, but maybe not quite Legacy of the Wizard or Metal Gear. But barely. So, I guess what I’m saying is The Goonies 2 is middling, and that’s still better than I had expected. It’s just barely good enough (good enough).

5/10

This review was conducted on a RGB-modded NES upscaled with a RetroTink 4K. It was paid for by the author.