Ittle Dew 2 is an Action-Adventure game developed by Swedish developer Ludosity, and the sequel to Ittle Dew. After the first game's adventure, Ittle and Tippsie are on a raft in the middle of the ocean... and somehow crash on shore in a pond on a new island. After meeting Passel, who tells them there is no adventuring to be had here and that they should both just swim off the island, Ittle and Tippsie find out there is an adventure here, and the prize just so happens to be the pieces for a brand new raft.
Ittle Dew 2 is heavily influenced by older The Legend of Zelda titles, just like the first game, with weapons being used to solve various tile-based puzzles like before. The game has a stronger emphasis on combat, with tougher enemies, a new dodge roll, and a slightly more harsh punishment for dying. The games structure has gotten an overhaul as well, featuring eight dungeons with the first seven being playable in any order, a large amount of hidden secrets hidden across an expansive overworld, and a jump to 3D graphics that emulate its predecessor's art style, down to the Line Boil.
Ittle Dew 2 was released on November 15, 2016 for PC and Mac (via Steam), PS4, and Xbox One, with a Nintendo Switch port released in 2017.
And then there's a patch, called Ittle Dew 2+ released in 2019, adding the previously Switch exclusive Dream World dungeons.
Tropes used in Ittle Dew 2:
- Actionized Sequel: Combat has been given more of an emphasis, with a dodge roll, enemies that are more frequent and more dangerous, and more areas that are purely focused on fighting.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The Superboss, a.k.a ??? in the translation notes, has all her Swedish dialogue start with K:Krossa = Crush
Knyckla = Mangle
Knåda = knead
Kvadda = Wreck
Krasa = Crack
Krascha = Crash
Knäcka = Break
Karva = Carve
Kapitulera = Surrender
Krevera = Explode - Attack Deflector: You can shoot projectiles with the Force Wand in order to reflect them back at enemies. The Ice Ring subverts this somewhat, as it only reflects your own Force Wand projectiles.
- Audience Surrogate: The Queen of Adventure, a mysterious figure who leaves special hint messages in secret areas, is a very tongue-in-cheek version of this. All her behaviors (obsessed with adventuring, exploring every nook and cranny of the island for 100% Completion, doing self-imposed challenges and even making her own dungeons) are exaggerated traits of video game players and fandom in general. This is all Foreshadowing for the reveal that Passel literally made her to simulate an adventurer. Becomes an Affectionate Parody in her ending, where she apologizes for overworking Passel and explains that she did everything out of love for his work.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Superboss, the Queen of Adventure, was a robot who was designed to solve puzzles in order to test the island. The problem was that it kept on doing it, working Passel to exhaustion in doing so, and then it started making dungeons of its own. If you confront it, it states it has plans to place dungeons all around the world.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: One event in the Pepperpain Prairie has a UFO show up to abduct a cowbun.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can find various "outfits" in the game and equip them in the Changing Tent.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Syncope, one of the previously Switch-exclusive Dream World dungeons.
- Bleak Level:
- Sunken Labyrinth, Machine Fortress, Dark Hapostyle, and Tomb of the Simulacrum, the four Bonus Dungeons, all have darker lighting and coloring, and have a more foreboding feeling to them.
- Bottomless Tower in the Dream World levels, which is a dimly lit, eerie tower with a boss room where Ittle fights nearly invulnerable crystal skull creatures. The level also contains the entrance to "Bad Dream", a fairly unnerving Easter Egg location.
- Syncope in the Dream World, being in a vaguely underground area with unkillable enemies which force Ittle to be careful about being spotted.
- Bonus Dungeon: Multiple:
- There are three pillars scattered throughout the overworld which require a certain amount of secret shards to open. Beating all three dungeons gives you the keys to unlock the Tomb of the Simulacrum, which is explained below.
- The Tomb of Simulacrum, accessed by getting all the secret shards, and getting all the forbidden keys from the secret dungeons opened with them, along with the last one from Passel at the end of the Grand Library.
- And then there's The Promised Remedy, which has very little in the way of puzzles but a brutal Superboss, That Guy. Getting to it requires having all ten hearts at least, and clearing most of the game twice and scrounging for thoroughly-hidden secret areas if you follow the puzzles involved without a guide.
- Slightly Downplayed with the Dream World dungeons. They are accessible after you beat one dungeon, but they limit the equipment you can use in them and the only rewards you get from them are cosmetic.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Slayer Jennies, found in the Frozen Court. They have lots of health, multiple attacks and deal good damage.
- Bragging Rights Reward:
- The EFCS (Exploding Flaming Chainsaw Shotgun) under Dungeon Bypass is a zig-zagged example. In a normal playthrough, it's going to be the last weapon you get, and will mostly be used for clearing through the last few secrets on the overworld. However, the game's structure means you could get it before clearing most of game's puzzles, if you know what you're doing and go well out of your way.
- Averted against the Superboss That Guy, as said EFCS (Exploding Flaming Chainsaw Shotgun) is required to get through his dungeon, and is the only weapon that can harm him.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A rare heroic example. Unlike the other bosses, Le Biadlo holds a grudge against Ittle due to the latter shattering his cousin, probably Masked Ruby from the first game. Ittle doesn't even remember it and says that if she did, it was pretty unremarkable.
- The Cameo: Business Casual Man can be seen in a room in the Art Exhibit dungeon. In addition, many other Ludosity characters can be seen as photography billboards. That Guy is also a Superboss.
- Cartoon Bomb: The dynamite item is, well, a stick of dynamite.
- Collection Sidequest: The Secret Shards, which can be found in various Secret Hidden Caves. They're needed to unlock the Bonus Dungeons, and are ultimately revealed to be pieces of the Queen of Adventure, who Passel destroyed after she proved too effective a beta tester. Collect them all and complete the final Bonus Dungeon, and they'll reform, letting you fight the Queen of Adventure as an Optional Boss.
- Developer Room: Ludo City, the only secret on the overworld that can't be accessed with just the stick. It contains Old Man scarecrows from the first game spouting lines from the developers, along with various easter eggs.
- Developer's Foresight:
- Tippsie has lines for every uniquely named area in the game, including many one-room secret areas.
- While it requires a mod to move the camera, the supposed Final Boss Preview in the Art Exhibit is actually there. It's just a poorly drawn picture of Tippsie.
- Down in the Dumps: Trash Cave.
- Dungeon Bypass: The final dungeon gives you "The Ultimate Weapon", an Exploding Flaming Chainsaw Shotgun, letting Ittle "solve" any-and-every puzzle in the game by blowing it up.
- In addition, many of the puzzles in the secret caves can be trivialized with the right items, though they are not required in order to solve them.
- Early-Bird Cameo: That Guy makes a few appearances in the background in a few places, long before you'll be able to fight him.
- Enemy Posturing: Cyber Jenny and Ultra Mechabun both have a posturing step in their AI cycle.
- Equipment Upgrade: If you find an item in a chest and you already have it, the item will be upgraded to its next level, either increasing damage or adding new functionalities.
- Eternal Engine: The general theme of the secret shard dungeons and the Tomb of the Simulacrum.
- Fireballs: The fire mace item, obtained in the final dungeon, lets you shoot these with your main attack, once per second.
- Flaming Sword: The aptly-named Fire Sword. In addition to having more damage compared to the stick you start with, it can also be used to light torches and melt ice blocks.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Queen of Adventure was a robot built by Passel to simulate an adventurer, essentially acting as a beta tester for the island. However, she proved too good at it, obsessively running through the adventure over and over again, faster than Passel could reset everything. He finally snapped, tore her apart, threw the pieces into her own dungeons, and developed a hatred for adventurers. You can fix this by collecting the Secret Shards and completing the Bonus Dungeons.
- Guide Dang It!: This game has very fiendish secrets, many hidden in the already-secret portal worlds.
- Hailfire Peaks: The Boiling Grave dungeon. Lampshaded as well, since Ittle is glad to go to a fire-themed dungeon after traversing a Slippy-Slidey Ice World, and Tippsie says that "it will probably turn ice themed halfway through."
- Heart Container: Boxes of Crayons — unlike in the first game, Ittle starts with all the paper she needs, and just needs to draw the new hearts. They also increase your max health by a quarter of a heart with each find, instead of needing to wait for four.
- Homing Projectile: Most "energy ball" projectiles will home in on you to some degree or others. Some more "physical" projectiles are homing as well.
- An Ice Person: You can be this with the Ice Ring item. If used right on top of an enemy, it will slow them down and prevent them from using ranged attacks. It can also be used to create ice blocks that can be pushed around (even diagonally if cut in half first) or used as a shield.
- Japanese Delinquents: One of the outfits has this look, with a long-skirted school uniform and surgical mask.
- Level Ate:
- The Sweetwater Coast, a beach full of giant candy canes, ice cream cones, and jelly drops.
- The Pepperpain Prairie, with its giant peppers, lakes of hot sauce, and banana mine.
- Level in Boss Clothing: Passel. He himself barely fights you himself, instead opting to put you through puzzles (while throwing burning books at you) and have enemies attack you.
- Line Boil: Still present, even with the switch to 3D graphics. Whether an object has wibbly outlines is a good indication of if it can be interacted with, in some way.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: There are a couple of enemy types that use shields. They are invulnerable to the front, but their attacks leave them open to the sides and back.
- Malevolent Architecture: Parodied with the Art Exhibit Dungeon (which is supposed to be in a museum) and the Flooded Basement (which is supposed to take place in someone's basement).
- Martial Arts Headband: The headband item. It passively increases your melee damage, and on higher levels increases your ranged damage and gives you a chance to One-Hit Kill enemies.
- Minecart Madness: You don't get to ride any, but in the Potassium Mine there are enemies in minecarts. They're normally invincible, but can be defeated by pushing a block (or creating one with the Ice Ring) in the path of the cart.
- Mini-Mecha: The three main bosses attack you from mechs.
- Multi-Stage Battle: The fight with Passel has you go through the environments of the dungeons you entered.
- Nailed to the Wagon: Tippsie isn't able to get a drop of potion this time around, and is clearly in withdrawal much of the time. Ittle likes to taunt her about this, and it turns out that Ittle's been finding potions the whole time and keeping them for herself.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Collecting all the Secret Shards and completing the Bonus Dungeon ends up releasing a Sealed Evil in a Can, the Queen of Adventure. Ultimately subverted, however, as doing so gives her the opportunity to reconcile with Passel and provide them with a happier ending.
- Noodle Incident: Ittle is interrupted before she can even mention it.Ittle: Good thing I glow in the dark ever since—
- Tippsie also mentions a “juice box incident” as the reason they can walk around in the underwater Abyssal Plain.
- Nostalgia Level:
- One of the secret locations, accessible only with the Explosive Flaming Chainsaw Shotgun, is "Somewhere", a recreation of the Castle Outskirts from the original.
- A much more involved one is the "Place From Younger Days", a recreation of a level in the 2008 prototype for the original Ittle Dew, created for a design thesis project.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: At the end of the first game, Ittle and Tippsie leave the island aboard a new raft, taking Itan Carver along with them. In the sequel's intro, the raft now carries a sick-looking Ittle and Tippsie, along with a human skull.
- Old-Timey Bathing Suit: One of the unlockable outfits. With the stripes and the locker key tied to her ankle, it makes Ittle look a bit like an escaped convict.
- One-Hit Kill: One of the status buffs gives Ittle a chance to do this to enemies that have low health. Upgrading the headband to level 3 also passively gives this effect permanently. It does not work on bosses or minibosses, of course.
- Optional Boss: Several:
- In the Secret Shard dungeons, we have the Mechfishbujin, which are pretty tough to fight and guard a forbidden key each.
- In the Tomb of the Simulacrum, there is the Queen of Adventure, aka the Simulacrum, who is responsible for Passel's attitude towards adventurers.
- And finally, there is That Guy, which is a Guide Dang It! to even find.
- Projectile Spell: The new force wand item lets Ittle fire energy balls that can deal damage to enemies or push objects from a distance.
- Punch-Clock Villain: All the enemies and bosses were hired for this adventure. You can find a few NPCs that can't remember what their hints are supposed to be, and all of the bosses can be found in an employee-area village where they won't fight you because they're off the clock.
- Put on a Bus: Itan Carver, who sailed off with Ittle and Tippsie at the end of the first game, is nowhere to be seen here. He does play a role in the game's backstory, however. Passel is his brother, and he helped with the creation of the island and left him as its caretaker., and it's a Bus Crash if the human skull on Ittle's raft is his, but this is actually averted through a an incredibly weird coincidence, as you find out if you ask Tippsie for advice in Itan’s old shop in the Ittle Dew 1 Nostalgia Level. Itan is alive, and opened a novelty skull shop and Ittle and Tippsie got one for decorating their raft. Though, the developers probably engineered the whole thing to lead players to the conclusion that they ate him. Because, really, who could guess something like that?
- Recurring Boss: All of the mech pilots are fought twice, except for Cyber Jenny, who's fought three times. Ultra Mechabun is also fought three times if you do the optional dungeons, gaining new tricks in each dungeon.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Secret Shards you can collect over the course of the game are actually pieces of the Queen of Adventure, a robotic beta tester for the island Gone Horriby Right. Collect them all and complete the final Bonus Dungeon, and they'll come back together, treating you to an Optional Boss.
- Sequence Breaking: Very much encouraged. The first seven dungeons can be done in any order you want, and the game even keeps track of what order you're doing them in. The bosses, however, are always fought in the same order regardless of what dungeons you complete first.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Two new enemies based on Flopflop: One wields a spear, the other a cannon.
- Some Dexterity Required: Some of the puzzles require good timing, especially ones which require you to use a combination of the force wand and ice ring.
- Status Buff: Ittle can also be buffed by collecting items that can be dropped by enemies.
- Defense Up makes Ittle take less damage.
- Attack Up makes you deal more damage.
- Power Attack gives Ittle a chance to perform a One-Hit KO on enemies with low health.
- And Hearty makes all hearts you collect count as blue hearts, which heal more.
- Status Effects: Many different enemies can inflict various bad statuses on Ittle Dew. The tome item gives you a chance to block them.
- Freeze is your standard "slow down" effect. If done on enemies, it prevents them from using ranged attacks.
- Attack Down makes you deal less damage.
- Fragile makes you take more damage.
- Stunned is a bit more of a "silence" status effect in that it prevents you from attacking.
- Swapped Roles: One of the outfits is based off of Tippsie. If you wear it, Tippsie puts on an outfit resembling Ittle Dew's.
- Sword Beam: While not beams per-se, the same principle applies with the Fire Mace, an upgrade for the fire sword that lets you shoot fireballs with your melee attack, though only once per second.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: Two of the previously Switch-exclusive Dream World bosses:
- An unnamed stationary mechanical crystal that shoots energy balls in a predictable pattern, which you need to reflect back into it using mirrors in the room.
- The Skullies, a trio of skull-shaped tanks made of ice. They have two attacks, a scythe and fireball cannon; they’re immune to your weapons, but not their own fireballs.
- Tastes Like Purple: One of the yellow stars, in Star Woods, is described as "Smells like yellow".
- Teleport Spam: The carrot enemies that are normally found in the Grand Library teleport between each of their attacks.
- Tempting Fate: Ittle and Tippsie taunt Passel Carver saying that they don't look like much of a fighter... Cue big fight.Passel: But now it's time to take care of YOU!Ittle: You don't look so spry for a final boss...Passel: Now prepare to meet... *with lightning coming out of their hands* YOUR DOOM! [Ittle and Tippsie are understandably a bit freaked out]
- The Lost Woods: The Star Woods fills the forest area motif. It's also polluted.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Grand Library, which requires you have the other seven raft pieces to enter, and is the only required dungeon you can't beat with just the stick and the item inside.
- For the Dream World, Quietus, which requires you to complete the other four Dream World dungeons and have the Fire Mace from the Grand Library to enter.
- Unique Enemy: In an Easter Egg, you can find what are heavily implied to be Napping Fly larvae in the dark room preceding "Bad Dream", where the 41st card is held.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: A new feature added to the game. Since it gives you some invincibility frames, it is very useful. It is required for certain dungeons if you don't want to get hit.
- Utility Weapon: The different items you find have a use for puzzles as well as combat.
- The Force Wand can be used to shoot enemies from a distance or to push blocks from far away.
- The Dynamite can be used to activate switches on a delay, which can be handy for when you have to hit multiple switches at once.
- The Ice Ring can chill enemies or be used to create blocks to hold down switches.
- The Fire Sword deals more damage than the starting stick, and it can be used to light torches and melt ice.
- The Chain, which would logically be used only for combat since it increases your attack range, has uses in puzzles too, in pressing switches behind walls.
- Even the starting stick is used in some puzzles, as it can be used for uncovering secret areas.
- Warm-Up Boss: Cyber Jenny, the first boss in the game. Her Mini-Mecha makes her look intimidating, but all of her attacks are easily avoidable, and she stops to taunt every so often. It's possible to get through this battle without taking a single point of damage.
- Whip Sword: Sort of. The chain turns your melee weapon into one, increasing its range.
