Ittle Dew 2+ is an alright zelda-like that both soars and fails because of its nonlinearity. it's cool to be able to go to any dungeon you want in any order, and the inclusion of intentional shortcuts in prior dungeons that you can use with later dungeon items is neat. however, i feel like the whole of exploration isn't all that engaging. if you explore outside the dungeons, you'll find copies of items before you've even been to the dungeon the item comes from. if you're truly trying to get everything, you aren't really going to want to skip or use shortcuts anyways. so many puzzles are incredibly basic and easily 'cheesed' by having items you "aren't supposed to have" (even though it's intentional). sometimes, you will find a key you can use in any dungeon, which is essentially rewarding your exploration and optional puzzle solving with the option to play less of the game.

if you're trying to do a speedrun, this sounds cool, but to me, there didn't seem like anything too exciting to explore for. i cleared every cave i saw, and even did one optional dungeon. the bosses were repetitive and highly derivative of each other, and while the combat is better in this game as opposed to the first, it's not all that exciting.

maybe i'll consider going back for what appears to be a better ending, but i doubt i will. i'm also aware of there being a good number of optional puzzles that test your puzzle brain while explicitly locking off specific item usage to prevent cheese, so maybe those are neat, but i didn't play them personally.

overall, it's a fine game. it's really silly and quite funny sometimes! it just wasn't very special to me specifically, and there's nothing here that has me wanting to play more.