Earthworm Jim 2

Earthworm Jim 2 for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive is a 1995 single-player action-platform sequel developed by Shiny Entertainment. Playmates Interactive Entertainment published the North American Genesis release, while Virgin Interactive handled the game in other territories. Picking up after the first Earthworm Jim, the game again follows the improbably heroic Jim: an ordinary worm animated by a powerful cyber suit. When the space-villain Psy-Crow carries off Princess What's-Her-Name, Jim heads through a cartoonish galaxy to bring her back.

At its foundation, Earthworm Jim 2 is a side-scrolling run-and-gun game. Jim runs, jumps, climbs and shoots through hazards and enemies, using his worm head as a whip when foes come close. Health is represented by the power of the suit, and pickups can restore or extend it. Weapon crates introduce temporary firearms with very different effects, including an auto-aiming option and the screen-clearing Barn Blaster. The result keeps the physical platforming and combat of its predecessor while giving individual stages room for unusual rules and surprises.

Jim's green companion Snott is central to several of those moves. Snott can fasten to slimy patches overhead so Jim can swing across gaps, and he can deploy as a parachute to soften a descent. Those abilities turn ceilings, drops and timing challenges into part of the route rather than just background scenery. The campaign also includes conventional enemies, environmental traps, and bosses, but it regularly shifts the player into new kinds of tasks instead of treating every level as a straight run to the exit.

That variety is a defining feature of the Genesis/Mega Drive game. One section has Jim transformed into a blind cave salamander navigating an intestinal world, while another interrupts the action with a deliberately absurd quiz show. In a different challenge, an inflated Jim floats upward while avoiding sharp objects and attacks. The game also sends him out on his Pocket Rocket in an isometric shooting stage, where he must guide and protect a bomb-carrying balloon. Other sequences ask the player to use cushions to rescue Peter Puppy or complete offbeat objectives that match the series' surreal comic tone.

Earthworm Jim 2 builds its adventure around returning figures such as Psy-Crow, Evil the Cat, Peter Puppy and Princess What's-Her-Name. Its final pursuit turns the rescue into a race through an obstacle course against Psy-Crow, rather than a standard stationary boss encounter. The game’s exaggerated animation, strange enemy designs and rapid changes of format make the journey feel intentionally unpredictable, even as its basic controls remain rooted in 16-bit action-platforming.

The Genesis and Super NES editions arrived in 1995 and are closely related, though they are not identical in presentation and features. The Mega Drive version later reached Japan through the Sega Channel service rather than a retail package release, and Sega subsequently reissued it as a Wii Virtual Console title. Earthworm Jim 2 remains the second main entry made by Shiny Entertainment’s original Earthworm Jim team, preserving the series’ distinctive blend of shooting, platforming and deliberately bizarre set pieces on Sega’s 16-bit hardware.