Though I wasn’t overly enamoured with the first Mega Cat Studios Collection for the Evercade (as you can see from my review here), there were a few games on there that were excellent – and it’s always good to discover new games, especially on a platform that initially felt as if it was built specifically to revisit already familiar experiences.

The Evercade is incredibly good at handling ‘new retro’ games such as those from publisher Mega Cat, however – providing a great platform to experience them on.

This second volume of titles from Mega Cat is a massive improvement over the first one too.

It feels like a much better curated collection, though be warned: if you’re not a fan of puzzles and platforming, it might not be for you.

Unusually for an Evercade cartridge, there’s not a weak title here; even the very best collections usually have one or two deep cuts that are welcome for curiosity purposes, but tend to be fairly unsatisfactory in terms of overall quality.

Which is not the case with Mega Cat Studios Collection 2; it’s banger after banger on here!

As alluded to, it’s heavy on the puzzle platformers – with almost half of the eight included games being from that specific sub genre.

However, it’s worth noting that each one has a unique, well implemented mechanic that sets it apart from any of the others – and as they’re all excellent, it’s difficult to point to the best one.

However, for me that has to be Yazzie – in which your little treasure hunter dude – the brilliantly named Yazzie Goldsmith – navigates a series of increasingly challenging stages in a search for loot. It’s amazingly smooth in gameplay terms and very well designed; it’s a real challenge too.

Alter Ego is a game in which you play as two characters simultaneously – albeit switching between a physical and spectral form in order to complete the levels.

Though this one quite often breaks my brain – I’ll frequently switch to the ghost form and walk the wrong way off a platform, with my brain still locked into its counterpart character’s position and movement – there’s no denying that this is a game with a great central mechanic that’s very well implemented.

Gluf is another superb puzzle platformer, with an electric frog who needs to charge themselves up on a level’s generator before electrifying all the tiles and opening the exit. With less of a brain busting premise than, say, Alter Ego, this one’s a bit friendlier for puzzle platform noobs like me.

Devwill Too is a more traditional platformer, with a nice combo bouncing mechanic. The devilish homunculus protagonist has an adorably tiny sprite, allowing for some nicely expansive, single screen level layouts and appealing pixelated settings.

It’s a bit of a mistake to have fatal drops out of the bottom of the screen for most of the proceedings, then have the odd one or two of these lead to the next part of the stage – but the developers do incorporate hints into the game with other homunculi showing you which drops you can safely fall into. That aside, this is a simple but very addictive game with a superb soundtrack.

Roniu’s Tale was initially just a demo version when Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 first came out. The full game didn’t initially appear on the cartridge as it wasn’t quite ready in time for release, but it can now be updated using the Evercade VS or Evercade Exp to update the cartridge with the full edition.

Which is well worth doing, because Roniu’s Tale is a great top-down puzzle title with some real inventiveness in its mechanics and stage layouts. I did find it a little difficult to keep switching between abilities and ensuring I had enough left to complete each stage, but hey – that’s the puzzling aspect right there. It’s another excellent title.

Arkagis Revolution sticks out on Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 as being vastly different from anything else on the cartridge – it’s a top down shoot ’em up with a Mode 7-esque level rotation gimmick. It’s got some lovely presentation and its unusual design almost gives it the feel of a Metroidvania, albeit one that takes the form of a shoot ’em up!

Misplaced is a top down puzzler a bit like Roniu’s Tale in principle – you control a character and try to solve environmental puzzles in order to proceed.

However, Misplaced’s killer gimmick is based around recording and playing back your moves to manipulate your character’s position in each stage, thus avoiding deadly gaps in the scenery or otherwise impassable objects. Inventive and compelling, this one is another superb addition to the cartridge.

Lastly, there’s Romeow and Julicat. Though its premise of romancing cats has little to do with the gameplay, it does add cute presentation to what could have felt like a largely dull and abstract puzzle game.

There’s no fear of that though, with the compelling shape placement – which sort of looks like it’s going to be like Tetris, but ends up being much more about the creative use of space, generally at your own pace, in order to succeed – making this a wonderfully addictive game.

Even better is the fact that, if you have an Evercade VS, there’s an absolutely unmissable two player vs mode in Romeow and Julicat.

All in all then, Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 ends up being one of the finest Evercade releases to date.

It’s leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor and showcases just how strong the Evercade can be when it’s not simply relying on nostalgia for its collections.

It really shows that there are so many different ways that the Evercade sets itself apart from straightforward emulation devices, with a curated selection of games on here that would otherwise prove fairly costly and difficult to get together on a single machine. Not to mention that it brings all of these games together in a convenient way, with features such as save states added too.

Highly recommended.

You can purchase the Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 cartridge from Amazon here.