[b]‘Super Secret Secret Squirrel!’[/b]
[i]“Some Assembly Required”[/i] is the second entry in the [i]SPY Fox[/i] trilogy and successfully reperforms everything that made the first entry so great. While maybe not quite as good as the original, it is worth trying all the same.
After we learn about a previously unknown criminal enterprise titled S.M.E.L.L.Y. (a source of several cringy puns), commissioner assigns SPY Fox on a mission to stop a Napoleonic insect intent on terrorizing the world with his giant robodog. The antagonist was almost certainly inspired by the ‘foreign terrorist’ trope that was especially popular at that time, but in-between situations we get a little of his backstory, making him more interesting than the first antagonist. The story is nothing legendary, but it is adequate and mimics the stereotypical Saturday morning cartoon plot quite well.
If you never tried [i]“Dry Cereal”[/i], you’ll have no issue making sense of [i]“Some Assembly Required”[/i]. Although there is a handful of references to the first entry as well as a few returning characters, playing the original is not critical to understanding this story. Most of the characters are new and, once again, have their own colorful personalities: a washed-up stunt driver ready for a comeback, smart Aleck ewes who could be twins, a cook blissfully unaware of her food’s wanting quality, an ice rink employé who longs for the good old days, and more. None of the characters is particularly deep, but they don’t need to be: the rôles that they serve, they serve well. The humour consists of awful puns for the most part, but there were a few other moments that made me laugh.
Like the first [i]SPY Fox[/i] title, [i]“Some Assembly Required”[/i] is mostly easy: most of the solutions are intuitive, though you will occasionally stumble upon a challenge that relies on ‘cartoon logic’, like the ventilation room. There were only a couple of times that left me scratching my head: the Venus flytrap with the switch stuck in its mouth, and finding a code for the Restruct-O-Lux, though in both cases I should have realised the solutions earlier than I did. In spite of these few exceptions, I never once had to consult a walkthrough.
You can finish the story in two hours (or a quarter of that time if you know what to do), but as with other Humongous Entertainment adventures, starting a new playthrough results in different challenges to face, which is a great incentive for replaying. Because the world is intriguing, the brevity and the easiness aren’t problems.
Nonetheless, this sequel still has its flaws. For the twoth time, [url=https://tcrf.net/Spy_Fox_2:_Some_Assembly_Required]a good deal of content goes unused due to simple programming oversights[/url], and the subtitles are strictly in English. Neither of these flaws is serious (unless you are both deaf and unable to read English), but it is unlikely that anybody will officially update this product to address them, which is a shame.
The sound consists largely of the standard cartoon clichés that you should expect by now, but there are hardly any sounds that are particularly grating. With regards to the voice acting: it is somewhat disappointing that Robert Zenk did not reprise his rôle as the protagonist, but Mike Madeoy does an acceptable job (even if he just sounds like he’s doing Inspector Gadget impressions), and so do the other voice actors. The music, likewise, gets the job done, though I have to confess that hardly any of the tracks felt memorable.
Graphically, the quality is nearly identical to [i]“Dry Cereal”[/i], which is to say that it keeps the charming, cartoony style intact, apart from Monkey Penny looking a little off sometimes. The animation is, likewise, adequate; not buttery smooth, but not jerky either. I did notice one glitch where SPY Fox talked with his mouth closed in the wax museum, but otherwise visual glitches are rare. The only incessant flaws are the edgy pixelation and the want of detail in the character models: the backgrounds, by comparison, look much better. Otherwise, the visuals are fine, and if loved the clickpoints from [i]“Dry Cereal”[/i], you’ll be delighted by their abundance here.
[i]“Some Assembly Required”[/i] is certainly not a revolutionary sequel, but if [i]“Dry Cereal”[/i] left you wanting more, [i]“Some Assembly Required”[/i] will serve you nicely. While $7 is okay for a standalone purchase, you would be [b]much[/b] better off getting this as part of the Spy Fox Complete Pack for $20 (regardless of the two spin-offs’ quality), because you can’t truly appreciate this series if the only entry that you ever play is this sequel.
