Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse

The Good
This game's presentation is an improvement over Freddi Fish's first outing in many of the same ways as Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo. The linework is more polished, the backgrounds are colored more skillfully, the writing is rather amusing at times, Freddi's voice acting has more personality, and the soundtrack is pretty good and has plenty of variety, even if it can't really compare to the music of Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo.

And unlike Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, this game delivers in the puzzle department as well. Though there are a few simple ones among them, most of the puzzle chains are reasonably complex and well-designed. Their order isn't linear like in the game's prequel either.

The Bad
The game is more of a mixed bag when it comes to replay value. On each playthrough, it tasks you with obtaining a random selection of five of its eight key items. So even on your second playthrough, you're already going to inevitably see old puzzle chains repeat themselves. The locations of the purple sea urchins are also randomized, but that doesn't make nearly as much of a difference. Especially since they're just red herrings if a certain puzzle chain wasn't selected. Overall, the amount of replay value this game offers is still decent (certainly a lot more than the first three Putt-Putt games), but it's not quite on par with most of the other Junior Adventures, especially later ones.

On a side note, it is a bit disappointing that there isn't any sort of end game. The game just moves straight to the ending after you get the last key item. To be fair, the only Junior Adventure released prior to this game that had an end game was this game's prequel, but its three sequels would later establish it as a tradition of the Freddi Fish subseries.

As far as optional content is concerned, there's a movie theater with some amusing parody clips. There is also a minigame, but it's just an extremely primitive Space Invaders clone. But what probably sticks out the most is the unusually high amount of vocal tracks. Pretty much every NPC you meet can sing a number of short songs about themselves. They do help give them a bit more personality, but most of them aren't all that great when judged as songs. I doubt most of their performers are professional singers. Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo had only a handful of full-fledged songs, but they were far more memorable than any of the songs in this game.

But the game's biggest flaw is that it just doesn't do much to stick out from the rest of the Junior Adventures. It's a pretty competently made and enjoyable experience, but it just doesn't have much of a unique identity to set itself apart from other Freddi Fish games. I think the biggest reason for that is that there isn't really any sort of theme to its setting. The game has a pretty diverse set of locations, but nothing to tie them together. Taken as a whole, it's simply a generic underwater setting. It doesn't help that the cast features a lot of recurring characters from the first game and uses them in pretty much the exact same way as before, although they do at least have better dialogue this time.

The Bottom Line
I know I spent a lot of time complaining about this game, but the truth of the matter is that there really isn't a whole lot wrong with it. It's probably the best Junior Adventure released up to this point. It's just that none of its elements are strong enough to allow it to compete with later games in the series.