Two Worlds II - Thoughts / First Impressions

Now at the ending. It is terrible. It's the usual kind of tedious boss battle... but they turn off saving. Just to make it extra awful. I've failed and quit in frustration multiple times now. As far as I'm concerned this pushes it from recommended to not recommended. It's that bad.

Damit so apart the final boss the game isn't top but fun to play? I had put it in the "game to not care" box because my feeling with the 1 was very bad. But this II seems better.

consolitis out the yin yang. horrible UI. horrible save game system. terrible controlls. no key maping to compensate. I got a headache playing it. and Ive been a fan of most CRPGs since the gold box's in the 80s. I really loved the firs 2 worlds. this is nothing like it. the menus, the UI, the clunky controlls were enough to make me put it down untill there comes a time when there is nothing else I want to play. Im sorry I bought it

its a first rate title, but if you are wanting to play it on a PC, I wouldnt pay full price. wait for the bargain bin thats sure to follow when the legitimate NA revies hit.

Yet again PC gamers made a success of an RPG and are rewarded with a peice of crap console sequel.

elco said:

Yet again PC gamers made a success of an RPG and are rewarded with a peice of crap console sequel.

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I'm not sure the first Two Worlds really qualified as being a "success". Most people would say it was average at best.

JDR13 said:

I'm not sure the first Two Worlds really qualified as being a "success". Most people would say it was average at best.

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Both games are average at best. Just don't say that overseas they love this series. Some are even calling it best rpg of the year.

Yes, and this might be an actual "cultural thing" gamers often overlook.

There imho *are* things as different tastes in gaming …

If you could just look at it as an action rpg I think it is very well done. It beats out most of the games in that genre that I can recall in the last few years including TW1
There are already mods that improve many thing people are griping about. And yes, a lot of us do like Multiplayer

No, there is no party interaction or turn-based or even pause gaming. NO branching storylines with very few choices that change much of anything in the story. To play it a second time is only about playing a different build cause the story isn't gonna change.

It's an action game. Loot. Level-ups. Skills. If you were expecting Baldurs Gate 3 Or Dragon Age you misled yourself.

There imho *are* things as different tastes in gaming …

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You hit the nail on the head

Well, my first impressions (late to the party, I know) after playing Two Worlds 2 for some hours (passed the prologue and few hours into the first chapter) are not very positive. I must say I'm more than a bit underwhelmed by TW2 and I'm quite surprised this game gets so much praise. Maybe I'm just not seeing the greatness of this game as I'm only at the beginning of the game, but what I've seen so far doesn't bode well. After the new game charm wore off, which happened pretty quickly in this game's case, I was left with a strong feeling of a mediocre game. I will try to slog on for at least to the end of chapter 1, so that I'll get a more thorough look into the game. However, I have my doubts as to whether TW2 will get any better and should it not start to get better, I'll drop it to the "Play When I Got the Time and Nothing Else to Play" list.

Some random thoughts about the game in random order:

- The melee combat is clunky and it doesn't look like it's going to change much (for the better) as the game goes on. Parrying and dodging are pretty much worthless, so melee combat boils down to clicking the enemy to death as fast as possible. Meh! Maneuvering is awkward and doesn't really matter as you're better off just hammering your opponent (click-click-clickety-click) than trying to move around or think about the combat. The melee combat of TW2 is a major disappointment for me.

- Horrid lockpicking minigame. Really bad. Even worse than in Oblivion. (On the plus side, there is an auto-lockpick button which is skill-dependant.)

- Riding controls are awkward. I guess they were trying to copy Red Dead Redemption here, but managed to mangle the controls quite badly. Riding doesn't feel natural nor comfortable, which is why it becomes a test of patience. The controls are passable when galloping, but at slower speeds it is problematic at best. Trying to get your horse to turn to where you want when it's standing is so clumsy it's hilarious. (Or maybe they implemented stubborness into horse behaviour and that's the reason the horsies never quite seem to do what you want them to do.)

- Quest-locked areas are everywhere. This is really irritating and frustrating! You need to open areas via the main quest and there seems to be no way around that. I can understand that not all the islands are open to exploration from the get go, but within the individual island there shoud be no quest-locked areas. Major fumble here Reality Pump!

- The quests haven't been very great so far. I groaned aloud at the very first side quest you receive from the blind smith - collect 5 pieces of metal. No, no, no! OK, so it is a simple starter side quest and it's showing you the crafting system, but still, "get 5 pieces of metal". Oh c'mon! The quests in general look to be very linear and the main quest railroads you quite forcibly (see quest-locked areas above). For example, the quests the "horse lady" gives you in the first village at the start of chapter 1 require you to first go slay some ostriches to get at least 3 mint grasses (or somesuch) they drop. How very MMO of you, TW2! Then you're told to get help from a nearby village and when you get there you're given little leeway on how to proceed. You must challenge the head honcho of village B and to do that you must do a horse race and whatnot. No option to e.g. reason with him or try to get some kind of deal between these two villages going or something, anything. Nah, you must horse race man! Color me unimpressed.

- Sure, I must have gotten old to complain about this, but the clothing on some of the women in this game are beyond juvenile. Sheesh! Okay, okay, it is a western fantasy tradition to have women wear silly skimpy clothing but, for example, the Prophetess just made me facepalm. The graphic designers of this game really need to meet some women in real life and fast. Nipples FTW!

It doesn't even launch on my computer, it says there's a problem with Direct3D. I made an update to ATI video drivers few month ago for DKS, but also that's the second game that I don't succeed to launch, but my computer is close to 5 years old, so for both games I'll wait get a new computer.

I used the gold patch and the 1.1 to 1.2 patch I hope it's right, they are far to be clear about the patches, lack of professionalism.

Well, still time to cancel my pre-order... :-(

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Yes, and this might be an actual "cultural thing" gamers often overlook.

There imho *are* things as different tastes in gaming …

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I know there are different taste but if the game was funded as much as they say it was. It was supposed to be an rpg to compete with the major developers and its not. Its just another game that promised much and on release was a let down.

I expected a lot from this, but it's pretty clear that it's not going to live up to expectations. I bought it on release day - and I only played a few hours before setting it aside.

I decided I'd wait for mods and updates, as they seem to be working on DX11 integration and the modders are hard at work trying to remove the barrier to the big area, and things like that.

But I definitely got the impression that this is a pure hack/slash game, with moderately improved presentation and a somewhat stronger story - compared to TW1. Both aspects wouldn't be hard to improve, though.

Not a bad thing, but for some reason I thought it'd be more than that. I guess I bought into the hype a bit….

Shame on me!

Okay, I've played for about an hour and a bit now into the prologue on my 360. I have a couple questions.

Since I'm only at level 3, I still have lots of flexibility in what direction to go. In the first game, I focused on melee as well as fire magic. By the end, I was a wrecking machine in melee, but my fire magic was useless for anything but pulling aggro (to use an mmo term). Maybe I didn't find enough cards/invest enough in magic? I'm not sure. So of course, here, I've started a bit heavier into magic, but I'm finding I have some observations/questions.

1. There seems to be a definite pause occasionally when I'll start on my mumbling and chanting when I cast, which, when some enemies are rapidly approaching really messes me up. This might just be a 360 thing - am I the only to have noticed this?

2. Right at the moment, since I have few magic cards, I'm forced to switch between water and fire magic. In order to be really good at one, I'm investing in just water, leaving fire way behind. Does this get better over time? IE: can I, over the course of the game, invest in two or even all three chains of magic and be effective? Should I?

3. Since I"m trying to be magic-oriented, my melee basically sucks. But it seems that unless you're a god-like magic user, you're pretty much going to be in melee fights in about 80%+ of the fights you're in, as you seem to always have lots of enemies.

So what is/was your strategy? Did you do archery+melee? Just melee? All magic? Just fire?

What worked for you, what didn't - and just as importantly, what did you find fun? So far, I'm still learning the 360 controls and subsequently getting killed more often than I'd like. I think this is mostly due to having been so powerful at the end of TW1 that I pretty much ignored my health 90% of the time. Can't do that just yet in TW2.

Thanks!

Oliver

I started trying archery but found it weak at first and not well designed in UI terms, then tried magehood but found it confusing and weak, then switched to melee and all was well

By the end of the game I was having fun with the various melee options, plus some summoned beasties for entertainment and to distract enemies

Magic is VERY weak initially and I found it fairly useless at the start of the game. I built up some basic melee skills early on while quietly building some magic. As you get into the game and get more points, magic comes into its own, but at the start, bow and weapon of choice are your best bets. Summoning is useful as a means of distracting enemies, though the summoned creatures are not overly powerful. Hope that helps.

oliverh72 said:

1. There seems to be a definite pause occasionally when I'll start on my mumbling and chanting when I cast, which, when some enemies are rapidly approaching really messes me up. This might just be a 360 thing - am I the only to have noticed this?

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If you construct spells that are powerful, they often have a cast time. Usually, single target damage spells are instant, while other spells with more effects have a cast time. The cast time is the mumbling thing, with a circle on your screen "filling up" until the spell is cast.

oliverh72 said:

2. Right at the moment, since I have few magic cards, I'm forced to switch between water and fire magic. In order to be really good at one, I'm investing in just water, leaving fire way behind. Does this get better over time? IE: can I, over the course of the game, invest in two or even all three chains of magic and be effective? Should I?

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You can mix and match a lot. For example it is possible to start out with single target effect + 5 fire cards (which only requires 5 fire points) and then add an area effect to the spell + 5 water cards (5 water points required). This creates a well balanced spell that does good single target damage and somewhat decent area damage as well. I like to have at least two such spells with various types of damage so I can always harm enemies.

All in all, almost anything is viable.

oliverh72 said:

3. Since I"m trying to be magic-oriented, my melee basically sucks. But it seems that unless you're a god-like magic user, you're pretty much going to be in melee fights in about 80%+ of the fights you're in, as you seem to always have lots of enemies.

So what is/was your strategy? Did you do archery+melee? Just melee? All magic? Just fire?

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Once you're able to build AoE into your builds, you can pretty much use magic exclusively. Some fights will be a bit challenging, especially in the start and end of the game, but I didn't have too much trouble.

I used magic almost exclusively on my mage. It was a lot of fun, but a "battle mage" might be a better approach. You'd have to get a lot of magic buff spells though.

oliverh72 said:

What worked for you, what didn't - and just as importantly, what did you find fun? So far, I'm still learning the 360 controls and subsequently getting killed more often than I'd like. I think this is mostly due to having been so powerful at the end of TW1 that I pretty much ignored my health 90% of the time. Can't do that just yet in TW2.

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I played through it both as a melee character and a mage character. All in all, melee was probably easier, but I never became powerful enough to ignore health like I did in TW1. Not sure any character build is powerful enough to do that in TW2, but it might be possible with a battle mage approach.

My biggest beef with magic is the scaling of mana - towards the final third of the game, the mana regeneration is so low compared to the mana pool it takes a long time to refill. Make sure you're able to make mana potions.

Edit: I also tried archery, but like Alistair I didn't have much success. It works like a charm in the start, but once you end up in close quarters with something slightly tough it becomes tedious - constant running around trying to get a shot off.

Maylander said:

Edit: I also tried archery, but like Alistair I didn't have much success. It works like a charm in the start, but once you end up in close quarters with something slightly tough it becomes tedious - constant running around trying to get a shot off.

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Long range fights require the game design fights for it, I noticed both DAO and DKS used a similar trick by making many enemies able to both long range attack and short range attack. This balance better fights for long range characters or long range tactics to not have huge pack of enemy just rushing at you for close range fight. This also allow a better setup for close range characters, to not have an army of archer bombard your close range character rushing to attack.

Two Worlds I > Mistmare
Two Worlds I = Arcania
Two Worlds II = Oblivion > Arcania
Venetica > Two Worlds II = Oblivion
Divinity DKS > Venetica
Divinity DKS = The Witcher = Gothic III/patched
Risen > The Witcher
Risen < Gothic I & II

In my own opinion of course.

Madigan said:

Two Worlds I > Mistmare
Two Worlds I = Arcania
Two Worlds II = Oblivion > Arcania
Venetica > Two Worlds II = Oblivion
Divinity DKS > Venetica
Divinity DKS = The Witcher = Gothic III/patched
Risen > The Witcher
Risen < Gothic I & II

In my own opinion of course.

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There's a nice thread about users top ten all time favorite RPG, it would suit better similar posts. I don't remember my last list I put here but I think next one will be a lot of changed. A quick draft of a new list would be DKS, G2+NOTR, FO1, DQ5 DS, TW, DAO, NWN2 MotB, BG1, Infinite Space, Drakensang. But I really have to play/play more some that are good candidates for my own top ten, DRoT, FNV, and perhaps Risen.

Well, I played a few more hours of this on my 360.

The short of it - it's going back to EB (Gamestop). What a waste of ~$20 (I paid $55, but I'll likely get about $35 credit as it's still so new) and 3 months waiting for release.

Perhaps I'm an impatient and "console" gamer, but I just can't take any more of this game. I loved TW1. Not because it was "good", in really most any sense. But it didn't take itself very seriously, which completely redeemed it of it's many, many faults. The combat was somewhat entertaining and the item-stacking "minigame" kept me playing to just see if I could find another magic card or a piece of gear I already had. I had fun with it - it was dumb, self-effacing, and just… fun. I even finished it, something I *rarely* do.

So I was looking forward to TW2. A lot. I knew it was going to be more "serious", but I guess I didn't realize that meant that they'd taken all of the charm out of it as well. To make matters worse, I found the first few hours of it - I played about 5 hours total - to be so incredibly frustratingly hard as to nearly make me hurl my controller into my TV. I must have reloaded about 20 times trying to defeat some of those Groms. Finally I got past that part.. how? By ignoring them. I went back, completed the silly quest and moved on to the next island. Yeah, great quest design and gameplay there… Maybe I'm just no good at the game, but it really didn't make me want to play more either. On top of that, the controls are clunky, the UI is stupidly enormous (though not really that bad, in a usability sense), and there's an annoying (half-second) pause every single time I try to use magic - on a console. That shouldn't happen. Yeah, that'd get tiring after 30 hours, let alone over the 5 or so I played.

As an odd comparison, around about the same time, I got Drakensang: TRoT. They had release dates that practically coincided, and I couldn't pass up the $18 steal on Impulse. I know they're not the same type of game in the slightest (although they're both RPGs from European devs), but D2 is pretty difficult in its own right. But I was driven to keep playing D2, whereas with TW2, I just don't really care. Nothing is interesting enough in the gameplay or story to make me want to try again… or keep trying to like it. Drakensang 2, on the other hand, is rewarding, challenging, interesting and beautiful. Pretty much everything my admittedly short time with TW2 wasn't. So I ended up playing that about 12-14 hours this weekend, instead of TW2, and loved every minute of it. I even played it for about an hours at 6:30 this morning, before I went to work. A testament to it's addictiveness. I just can't get enough of harvesting those damn plants. Yeah, perhaps I have an addictive, slightly OCD personality, but a great game will make you WANT to collect the things it literally sprinkles around. I finally found some Firemoss and I was unreasonably excited about it. Heh.

Oh well, at least I can use the credit to preorder Divinity 2.

My two cents.