I said a few weeks ago or maybe it was before Christmas... either way at some point recently i said that i would write a review on Two Worlds II and so here's a preliminary review.
Two Worlds II - PC
Two worlds II is the sequel to Two Worlds which received mixed reviews. Set in a magical world called Antaloor, ruled by a powerful evil wizard called Gandohar and his right hand man, Sordahon. The player takes on the role of the hero from the first game to defeat evil and save his sister from their evil clutches, but does this game improve and fix upon the original.
The short answer is a yes… well sort of; although the game is miles further ahead than its predecessor there are still some issues that prevent this game from being superb. But we will start on the good side of the coin. First thing that has to be said is that the visuals are hugely improved on the original, thanks mainly due to the new engine that powers it all (GRACE). This engine allows for more particles and higher fidelity models as well as improved ambient occlusion and HDR. However this also means that any flat and drab textures look surprisingly obvious, rock faces and caves all reuse the same basic texture just with a different colour. However the range of climates is nice and varied going from a sub-tropical island inhabited by frog monsters, to a savannah full of lions, rhinos and other critters, to dense tropical jungles swarming with a host of fantastical and somewhat curious monsters.
The sounds very convincing for the most part but repeated and hollow dialog is very disappointing. For the most part the environment sounds are quite nice; sitting back in the savannah you can hear distant animals and close up insects. Even in the dense jungle things remain just as immersive. Animal sounds are mixed and varied enough to let you know what’s attacking you before you can actually see it, even idle noises are realistic as possible. Sadly however this again is drawn back by the somewhat hit and miss dialog, for some parts it’s well-placed and actors deliver their lines with heart and that really shows through. But it’s the continuous boring flat toned, one dimensional conversations with NPCs that really is noticeable, for example; me and a group of men were storming a gatehouse when I was told that I should hold here and defend any incoming forces. Despite me two dialog options one literately telling the NPC to back off and follow my lead and the other more submissive and agreeing. Despite selecting the option that to most it would sound aggressive, it came out with just as much feeling as you would give to a rock; it was boring and I was left wondering if the protagonist had a vocal problem meaning that he couldn’t shout. This sadly is the same for the idle talk; it’s repeated too much for my liking and after a while became trivial to hear a merchant say the exact same thing every time you walk by. In most cases the people of Antaloor are 1D with their voices with rare cases popping up every now and then.
The music of this world is nice and varied and suitable to the world around you and that remains so up until you start fighting, same music for all the fights minus the boss fights. During your time exploring fitting music will play depending on your location; on the savannah it’s quite tribal and lively, in the cities it’s noisy and rich and in the jungle it’s intense and chaotic. Some boss fights also have well suited music to try and get you fired up for the upcoming battle but can sometimes drone on. But yet again there’s another side to this coin; long trawls through caves can already wear on the soul but more so when the music is dull, mundane and repetitive.
The gameplay should feel immediately familiar with any RPG player; you kill and complete quests to level up allowing you to get better gear and thus become stronger allowing you to take on harder quests and kill tougher enemies, this formula works well if the player knows how hard something is and know what they need to bring to save inventory space. Sadly however or maybe for the better, the game doesn’t display how dangerous something is, it’s up to the player to discover during their play through that some monsters are exceedingly powerful. However this had me stumped for some time as I couldn’t figure out what made this skeleton tougher than the ones I fought 5 minutes earlier, the only way to really know this is either prior experience or constant monitoring of your health bar.
The story is of simple revenge, saving family and ridding the land of great evil tyranny, nothing unusual there. The person you’re trying to save is your sister Kyra being held by Gandohar. He has you both prisoners in his palace and is using your life force to keep her alive while he tries to find a way to pull a fire god spirit out of her. Set five years after the first the conflict is between 3 groups; the Orcs, who are now all but extinct after a war with the humans, the rebels, led by a man call the ‘Captain’ seek to destroy the empire, and the empires forces who came into power along with Gandohar and the destruction of the old council, the oppress the local populous. You are sprung from his clutches by none other than a group of Orcs all having unique abilities, after escaping Gandohars’ palace, you are taken to the “Dragon Queen” who gives you some basic gear and a premonition of your sister death releasing the god of fire allowing Gandohar to become a god himself. From there you leave out on an epic quest that will take you all across Antaloor to find out about Gandohars’ past and destroy him thus saving everyone.
With no real tutorial on how the interface works beyond one click, it can become frustrating. This though is part of the process that we should go through and not give up on. Once sussed the game reveals its true form but still getting to this point can be solely based on trial and error, a simple tutorial would have saved so much time. An example is trying to change the active quest, which when I look back on it wasn’t difficult but sill, you have to right click but nowhere does it tell you this.
Whilst on the subject of quests you have the main story and side quests, but the game encourages you to do side quest subtlety by steadily increasing the complexity of the tasks. Side quests generally follow that one would think should follow the pattern of go to B kill everything, return to A will be in for a treat. Many quests have multiple methods of approach and success, in one case a neighbouring village won’t send emergency aid to starving people, you can either choose to convince the village elder or simply kill him and his followers for a quick resolution. This however has unpredictable consequences of the bad variety; killing and entire village may render future quests impossible to complete, and yet despite slaughtering hundreds of innocents no one looks at you any differently, which is odd even for this world.
Rewards for these quests are usually money (auras) but sometime equipment. Another one of the game strong points is weapons and combat; you can choose to pursue any of 3 class specifics or learn some from all. Melee, Range and magic all have their perks and drawbacks, without going into masses of detail each weapon can be imbued with magical properties and given an edge. The weapon variety is something to behold along with the armour list. Oh yes and armour can be dyed different colours to match your attitude. All objects can be dismantled into raw materials which can then be used to upgrade weapons and armour for even more power.
Each class has specials moves which used correctly are satisfyingly potent. Combat is a lot more refined this time around with melee taking the foreground, but all one on one fights really descend into block counter or mash attacks and some of these can go on for upwards of 10 minutes, however this makes the fighting suitably more fun as you both are struggling to stay a step ahead and it does test you will power after 15 minutes. Against multiple enemies things get a bit trickier; although the game features a look on mechanic this auto lock whatever enemy is in the centre of the screen and can be irritating when you are looking around and your character starts attacking a box rather than the 20ft ogre in front.
Before we move on boxes are single-handedly the most annoyed objects in the world, the game seems to have issues when it comes to physics. Although it’s funny to uppercut a guard and watch him fly off thanks to selective gravity, walking over some objects and jumping are illogical in their complexity. Let’s start on jumping; small gaps no problem, long gaps simple sprint jump there, so what bout medium jumps. Well this requires so much more luck that trial and error that I’m left wondering why. The same goes for jumping or walking over objects, your character can get stuck in invisible walls, fly into space and pretty much everything short of self-combustion can happen when walking of boxes (one case of spontaneous death due to exploding). Although this doesn’t break the game experience it is noticeable.
Lastly but not least is the extracurricular activities such as potion making and lock picking. As most skills are the same as in other games its lock picking that stands out from the crowd. It actually requires skill!!! Not as in skill points but as in player skill to begin with, this means that from the get go you can pick any lock if you as a person are skilled enough. Although you can level this ability up it only increases the time you get.
Despite the many and sometimes game breaking bugs/moments the game is still enormously addictive and entertaining to boot. The amount of things to do can grow weary after a while but with an average run time of 30+ hours taken to try and complete not including side quests the game has a lot more to offer those who dig a little deeper into the game and explore the world. Also the game includes a multiplayer option, sadly as this was written before the release of the actual game there is no one online to play with. So this is really just a single player review, but expect it to be the same basic mechanics just with a buddy to help out on the harder quests. Overall I would recommend this to those who enjoy RPG’s, but this may not appeal to all fans. But if you enjoyed the first or are looking for an addictive game then this should defiantly be bought, or at least rented.
