Thanks to Wolfman for helping with edits.
The Xbox Live Arcade, the Xbox and Xbox 360’s platform for downloadable titles, had a very humble beginning. On the 360, games were limited by Microsoft’s 50MB memory cap. The library was small and lacked variety. And though, a few outliers aside, that library wasn’t exciting, the potential of the service was. Old favorites could get introduced to a new generation (grinding through Gauntlet with some high school buddies is a cherished memory), and forgotten titles of yesteryear could get another chance! Brand new games were coming, some of which could be successors to, and build upon, older games!
This is actually the third game titled Frogger 2. I’m hoping to score the awesomely-titled second one, Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge, someday. (Image: Konami)
Unsurprisingly, arcade veteran Konami invested in Microsoft’s nascent storefront, re-releasing several of their coin-ops on it. This was invaluable, letting me finally experience classics like Contra (plus underwhelming affairs like Time Pilot). Thankfully, I also got to re-experience some childhood favorites, including The Simpsons and Frogger. Presumably, the latter’s 2006 high definition remaster sold well (it was notably bundled with a special controller), because two years later, a direct follow-up hit. I passed on Frogger 2 then, finding myself unimpressed with what I sampled—and well over a decade later, my feelings towards it are no more positive after enduring the whole thing.
Frogger is a simple, challenging game. You hop towards a swamp, evading obstacles. Once five Froggers nestle in their home, you jump to the next level. Stages grow progressively harder, with hazards—automobiles, snakes, and crocodiles—becoming faster, more plentiful, and more aggressive (unsurprisingly, Frogger‘s visuals remains consistent). Leaping onto lily pads or past a truck demands precision; being a millimeter off means death. The appeal is in attaining a new high score, something that’s common of arcade fare (only a handful of titles, like Donkey Kong, put any emphasis on their narratives). And Frogger, especially, is popular, becoming so emblematic of its era that shows like Seinfeld highlighted it.
Some of those qualities are preserved here. Frogger still lumbers along, jumping across landscapes and moving platforms while avoiding hazards—and the slightest error yields a swift death. Nevertheless, this Frogger is a different beast, placing effort into a story mode. The plot itself is functional fluff—local good guy Frogger helps a lost alien repair his ship—and conveyed through brief cinematics that play after finishing stages. Altogether, there are five distinct stages, all but the third and fifth of which span two acts.
Unsurprisingly, Frogger’s basic movement—hopping up, down, left, and right—carries over. This old frog has a few new tricks, though: he can grab goodies with his tongue, and by pressing the left or right bumper, Frogger appropriately changes the direction he’s facing. These additions are mostly in service to Frogger 2’s collectibles and, therefore, feel superfluous (while playing, I found myself wishing Frogger could briefly stun foes with his tongue, potentially letting skilled players sprint through acts faster). Like the original, a timer looms over you, but it’s really just for show; each level gives you thirty minutes to clear it.
Frogger 2’s audio alternates between being forgettable and grating. Its main theme, which it remixes for its menu and credits themes, is itself a lackluster remix of Ancient Shadow’s main theme (which Helmet Chaos also remixed). (Image: Konami)
Collectibles are uninspired but entirely optional. A few stages feature balloons that give gameplay tips. Occasionally, you’ll spot Frogger icons, which usually require your tongue and reward an extra life (you can only keep up to five lives total, oddly). Gold coins dot each act, and collecting twenty also yields an extra life. The final goodie, the musical notes, also exist just to give extra lives. Each stage’s first level houses three and tucks the final note away somewhere in the second. If you grab all four, a portal in each second act starts glowing, letting you enter a hazardless bonus area filled with coins.
Frogger 2 whisks its namesake through a swamp, volcano, factory, floating island, and space station. The swamp is a straightforward primer, mixing traditional Frogger elements with newer ones. The volcano is where things begin diverging, introducing long, linear walkways, branching routes, and platforms that move vertically. It’s also where the game’s biggest annoyance emerges: Frogger 2 often asks you to stand still, waiting until hazards and platforms cycle through their patterns—and eventually, for a brief moment, everything aligns in a manner that lets you proceed. Stage 3 onwards exasperates this, introducing pathways with dead ends and foes who poorly telegraph their movement patterns. And if you’re hunting notes, backtracking becomes mandatory. Not only is Frogger 2 tedious, it loses its predecessor’s frantic energy, the sense that you must urgently keep moving (for his idle animation, Frogger falls asleep, and there’s an Achievement for beating the game without triggering it. Spinning around prevents him from slumbering, sure, but you’ll be sitting a lot regardless).
Those inapposite checkerboard squares are checkpoints. Most stages contain three of them. (Image: Konami)
Stages 3-3 and 5-3 pit Frogger against bosses. The first fight features walking bombs who become stationary after our hero licks them. Then they explode, and your job is to time those explosions so they hit a wandering security robot. The second boss is a security mechanism that fires lasers and missiles at you, but pressing four buttons within a small window deactivates it. Once you have a handle on its battlefield and the projectiles’ timing, you can sprint through with little hassle.
Frogger 2 does try to encourage replayability, even if not through racking up high scores. Going through the campaign a second time populates stages with new balloons that soar in difficult to reach places (they’re often at the edge of a screen, demanding Frogger’s tongue) and might elaborate upon its narrative (though it’s hard to imagine why that’d entice anyone with a cast and tale this threadbare). The “Time Attack” mode is a better reason to revisit stages—which lose some items and enemies, making them a little snappier to run through—as are the multiplayer modes. Unfortunately, though I’ve heard some compliment the versus modes, no one plays this game online, so I couldn’t test them myself.
Ideally, Frogger 2 would let players pan its camera up and down, letting us plan our routes. Getting on a moving platform only to discover it doesn’t lead anywhere isn’t satisfying. (Image: Konami)
However, the biggest issue plaguing Frogger 2 is its garish art direction—it’s primarily why I initially avoided the game. Everything has this bright, plasticine sheen and shading is nonexistent; this Frogger looks flat. The timer blends in with the environments, obscuring important information (a problem that plagues comparably unsightly projects). Character animations are clunky, accentuating the game’s lethargic pacing. And its cutesy visuals are frankly deceiving, suggesting this Frogger is easier or more accessible than it actually is. Other low budget games of the era share these aesthetic shortcoming, though Frogger 2 suffers worse for them—it looks like some cheap Flash thing or a Frogger knockoff you’d find skimming the Google Play Store, not an official sequel.
Frogger is one of my favorite arcade games, a classic I have nostalgia for. That affection does not extend to Frogger 2, a game nobody even seems to remember. Upon release, reception to it was tepid. By happenstance, I was browsing Microsoft’s store a few months ago and discovered Frogger 2 was on sale for just over a dollar, spurring an impulse purchase. An unenjoyable afternoon later, my biggest takeaway from it is how much it feels like a cheap smartphone game years before those existed (even its vertically-oriented screen, despite being an obvious tribute to the first Frogger, brings mobile gaming to mind). Oh well—there’s another forgotten Frogger Xbox Live Arcade title, Hyper Arcade Edition, and when that inevitably enters my possession, I hope I find it a stronger experience.
Sky Island is the game’s worst world. Its enemies are obnoxious, and the distance Frogger moves when hopping along clouds can be inconsistent, messing with his simple, core mechanic. (Image: Konami)
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