The rad Teeny Titans is getting a sequel next month with Teen Titans GO Figure, also known as Teeny Titans 2. Convoluted name aside, we now know when the game’s releasing, and I’ve gotten to play some of this new figure-battling-and-collecting game, and you ought to be excited. Grumpyface and Cartoon Network have gone with a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude to the game. The core gameplay systems are very similar, to where I hadn’t played the original in a while and I very quickly was right at home with the game. But the gameplay is still really fun, and there are some cool new elements to the game.

The figure-buying system is the same as before, with the amusing ability to just throw away figures or peek behind them while in the stores. One big new element to the game is that you can now choose your playable character from the five Teen Titans: Robin, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy. If you love Starfire’s speech idiosyncrasies (I too like to refer to random objects with the definitive case), then you might want to pick her instead of Robin, who was the star of the first game.

Your ultimate goal is still very Pokemon-esque where you gotta get all the figures, with some rarer than others. Many of the figures return, but there are plenty of new ones, and new variants of the originals. For example, all of the Teen Titans have Radical, 1980s-inspired versions of their characters that you can find and collect. The game still has you deploy three heroes into battle, with real-time combat where you weigh the risk of waiting for more powerful abilities with quicker-to-use abilities lower on the power bar. A six-element rock-paper-scissors system is in play with each figure’s elemental alignment. You take three figures into battle, can swap between them, and your main three get experience, while the other three in your lineup of six get less experience. This is a handy way to make sure you can level up lower-level figures.

The game is far less linear now, as you get dropped in Jump City, and have objectives, but you also need to increase the level of your figures. So you can go complete objectives to get money and engage in battles, but you can also just wander around and pick up tons of side missions. You can ignore the main plot for as long as you want, and you even have a choice of which city, Gotham or Metropolis, you get to explore. Gotham hilariously is always dark and rainy no matter whether it’s day or night. And yes, the day and night system returns, with some shops only available during one time of day.

The new cities mean that you get some new characters that pop up, with the Batman and Superman cast making appearances. The most brilliant thing about Teen Titans GO is the way that it mocks and makes references to DC characters and history, and you’ll get to see characters in a new light, and the particularly eagle-eyed fans will catch all sorts of sly references. And Teen Titans GO fans will spot all kinds of references to past episodes of the show, including one-off characters available as figures.

You can still customize your figures by choosing which stats to level up, and applying items to them, but now you can buy special paint jobs for figures. Roy G. Bivolo, the Rainbow Raider, will offer different colors for each character that you purchase with special tokens, and can give your figures a cool new look.

With more figurines, more areas to explore, and new customizations, Teen Titans GO Figure should provide a lot of what’s good to fans of the original game. You can check out Teeny Titans 2 on iOS and Android on July 19th, and you can pre-order the game right now on the App Store and pre-register on Google Play
ahead of its launch.