[EGD] One Plus One Equals . . . Three?

Review by meowmeowfurrycat on Saturday, August 9th 2014

Or at least, �Part 2� implies that this game, Dr. Lavarch�s Revenge Part 2, is the second part of a series. In fact, it is not. I mention this because I was recently playing Dr. Lavarch�s Revenge Part 1 and realized that, in fact, it is not the first part in a series. It is the sequel to some other game, making the one that I�m reviewing today the THIRD part in a series.

(Yeah okay, so that was confusing and was totally unrelated to the rest of the review. I just put it in because I wanted it to fit the title, which I just put in because it sounded weird.)

At the beginning of Dr. Lavarch�s Revenge Part 2, you realize that . . . I honestly don�t know. The first time I played this, I hadn�t played any of its prequels and had no clue what was going on. You defeated Dr. Lavarch at some point -- but the classic style of extending a franchise, he�s (surprise!) not defeated! . . . or something. Basically you have to go on a quest and kill a bunch of monsters and then presumably kill Dr. Lavarch AGAIN.

This might be a good time to point out that I only got to the last stage of level one; however, I think I�ve seen enough of it to write a review.

Anyway:

The first level takes place in the cave worlds, and immediately I noticed that it was REALLY, REALLY hard. It�s basically all action, and after a couple of ragequits/restarts, I fell into the pattern of things. I came to recognize how the game worked, and my instincts grew to encompass that. I saw: the player walks into a chamber; at the end of the chamber, a door behind them slams shut; an enemy appears at the far left; there might or might not be a second enemy; the barrier or door on the right opens. Originally when I played this I died a lot, so when I finally managed to make it through stage one without losing any health, I felt really, really good.

The later stages of the first level are much like the first. There are, however, a few changes. First, there�s practically no health given in this game. This is why it�s so hard. However (and second), there are many �hidden� powerups. WORDS OF WISDOM: If you see a switch in Dr. Lavarch�s Revenge Part 2 and you hit it and nothing noticeable occurs, BACKTRACK IMMEDIATELY. There will most likely be coins or health or something to the left. This, too, is something that I noticed and began acting upon.

Also, when in an enemy chamber and there�s a visible switch at the very right, stay in the middle of the chamber. The enemies spawn on either side.

In any case, enemies aren�t the only health-depleting things in this game. There are, of course, hazards; lava parkour is a prominent feature. These serve to add variety to the otherwise monotonous routines, but be warned that occasionally you�ll have to act extremely quickly, else you will be, um, how to put this -- a corpse.

Scenery isn�t that much of a deal in arcade games, but I should at least mention it to say: it wasn�t that much of a deal. Maybe it�s just me, that I was focusing on avoiding/cheating death, but I didn�t see much variety and it was sort of meh. On the other hand, everyone hates scenery so it doesn�t even matter. Let�s give a cheer for serial killing!

There were a couple sequences that I really liked, but you�ll have to play the game yourself, noob.

My conclusion? You should only play Dr. Lavarch�s Revenge Part 2 if you fulfill two requirements: (a) you�re a fairly good arcade game player, and (b) you�ve got a bleepload of time on your hands. Was it fun? Yes, definitely, as well as feature worthy. But the difficulty served as both a blessing and a curse: a curse because I hated it, and a blessing because it allowed me to point and laugh and make fun of those who did even worse than me.

--Meow