Two Worlds II: PotFF - Review @ GameBanshee

The quests and scenarios in Pirates are also quite a bit more fun. While the original campaign had its share of entertaining adventures, Pirates is much more consistent about tone - it keeps the main story serious, and has its sillier moments relegated to optional content. From a quest to don Santa Claus' garb and deliver gifts around an island to content some lost spirits, to a pantry-raiding mimic disguised as a treasure chest, it's nice to see Reality Pump's sense of humour come into the game without it getting in the way of the main plot or pacing.

Unfortunately, not all is good. Combat is a major downside of Two Worlds II, and it's not much better in the expansion. The high point is that there are more boss fights and more varied enemies in general, like mages who summon minions. However, the combat balance is quite poor; most enemies are easy to defeat, but you'll occasionally stumble into a dozen archers who stun-lock your character from afar, or a stray fireball that kills you in one hit. The higher-level enemies also mean that certain character builds are also even weaker, though it's still possible to respec. And, just like the main story's final hours, Pirates features an overly long ending segment which is packed with obvious and unnecessary filler, both in combat (enemies spawning every 20 feet) and quests (like spending 30 minutes doing chores for a whiny boy).

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They're [the islands that make up the landscape of the expansion] all just the right size to be manageable, which is a welcome change from the sprawling, oversized and rather empty world in the original campaign. Unlike the original campaign, there's also more reason to explore, with more optional dungeons to delve into and more unique loot and random side-quests to find...

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