Pajama Sam 2: Thunder And Lightning Aren't So Frightening

With Pajama Sam no longer being afraid of Darkness after the events of Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide (9.75/10), our young superhero now tackles his fear of stormy weather in Pajama Sam: Thunder and Lightning. Like the previous game, this next installment of continues to execute well the franchise's goal of helping young children overcome their common worries. So, what new situations await Sam in this second chapter of the series? As the game starts over a scene from an episode of the official Pajama Man TV show, Sam's little hour of entertainment is suddenly interrupted by the flashing and booming of a storm from outside. Once again trying to affirm to himself that he doesn't need to be scared, Sam quickly decides to grab his cape, before ascending into the sky beyond his attic, and arriving at World Wide Weather, the headquarters that controls all the weather in the world. But unlike the previous game, Sam encounters the figures of his fear within seconds after his arrival, and shortly after starting to get to know Thunder and Lightning better, the boy accidentally falls on their control panel, causing their weather machines to malfunction and send four important pieces flying everywhere, causing chaos all over the world, and thus leaving Sam with the task of recollecting the parts and returning them to their rightful homes to restore the weather to its optimal conditions. Remember the side objective where Sam needed to collect a bunch of socks in the previous game? Well, now he must collect sixteen puzzle pieces (though the box says a hundred) and put them back together again. Like in the prior chapter, Pajama Sam: Thunder and Lightning has some well-designed puzzles, some of which require a little more attention to detail this time around, the hidden animations are lovable, some of them even telling unexpected jokes almost as much as some of the other characters, save files are once again saved and loaded instantly, and there are even some little callbacks to the first game in the series, which are always good to have! The second entry in the Pajama Sam series does indeed do what it intended to do well, in terms of helping to relieve children of their fear through interesting fantasy scenarios, but the adventure as a whole is not quite on the same quality level as its predecessor. Once again, there is no tutorial for controls, saving or loading. (Although, regarding the latter, besides saving with [S] and loading with [L], you can now save and load through the pause menu, which is accessed by the computer monitor icon in Sam's inventory.) There is a small pipe maze puzzle which is designed decently, but has slow pacing. (Yes, you can still skip over the animations with [Esc], thank goodness.) But I think the lowest part of this game is the fact that while different scenarios are chosen by the game with each playthrough, the environments aren't altered to the same degree as the scenarios in the previous title. This game instead only focuses on different character interactions and the random placement of the weather machine parts of your search in the main objective. On top of that, the diversity of the gameplay, such as that with the minecarts and boat rides, has also unfortunately been omitted. You can also select different scenarios from the pause menu, but I like it better when games are unpredictable and you have to actually learn how they work. It may only be a small step down from Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide, but Pajama Sam: Thunder and Lightning doesn't keep its head in the clouds with what it's doing. If you have or know a child who is frightened by storms, fear not. Because this game, despite its weathery themes, won't even rain a single drop on your parade, as from what I can tell, a child who plays this might soon find their worries simply gone in a flash. Final Score: 9.5/10