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[ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#1
Any thoughts on Two Worlds II?
(it is an Action RPG, not a space-related game)

I've read opposite reviews and user opinions of it and am unable to form my own. To tell the truth this 50-50% suggests me that the game might be mediocre. Maybe I'm wrong.

Could someone with direct experience of the game share his/her own fact-based knowledge?

Thanks.
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#2
Assuming they didn't patch the hell out of the thing...

The combat was okayish, playable but nothing to write home about. The crafting system had a few decent ideas, but ended feeling like a half-assed tacked on idea. General progress was terribad, it started out rather nicely, with oodles of side quests, and got terribly linear the more you progressed. The "open" game world is for the birds, since the story progression pretty much moves you across the map with no backtracking or reason to do so.
The story is pure unadulterated crap, the final fight was gimmicky and pretty much rendered your character build at that point moot (it's more of a quick time event / puzzle fight, really).

Big letdown in my opinion. Skyrim and Divinity: Dragon Knight are clearly superior choices here. It's okay if you can get it cheap and have a few hours to kill, but in general I think it would have profited from a decent writer in charge of the story, and more filler content to bolster the later chapters. After a good start, you basically get sent on a mad dash run for the end fight.

5/10, lots of wasted potential. The guy responsible for the story should be ashamed of himself. Will not buy another RPG by this company.
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#3
It's almost everything that Hardenberg says it is but both the magic and crafting system were good. The main ending was as bad as stated and the story was mediocre. I suggest you get the add-on, "Pirates of the Flying Fortress" if you decide to play.

I loved it. Hey, I loved the original Two Worlds as well. It's not Skyrim but I spent many enjoyable hours playing it.

You need to give it a go and make up your own mind Fox.

All I can say is roll on Two Worlds III. :D
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#4
I quite enjoyed the original Two Worlds, actually. Sure, I didn't finish it, but I enjoyed playing it. I remember there being a hilarious bug where you could keep combining swords to make a ridiculously powerful sword.

I totally exploited that.

And the Hand of God spell or whatever it was called. Walking around one-shotting everything.

Hhhmm... Where's my disc.... :twisted:
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#5
Yeah, Hardenberg is dead on. It's not great. The crafting and magic systems were kind of neat (but unbalanced; about half way through the game I could off-handed destroy any encounter, pretty much). I found the final boss so frustrating I didn't bother finishing it, which probably tells you how invested I was in the story. Would not recommend spending money on it.
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#6
The original Two Worlds was one of my two most unexpectedly pleasant gaming surprises of 2007, along with Portal.

It definitely wasn't perfect. The English-language voice acting was so bad it was funny, you could be way overpowered long before the end, and the ending itself was... not great.

But a lot of the rest of Two Worlds was remarkably good: it was open-world in the spirit of TES games; from a great height you could see most of the game world (it really was "open"!); combat, while not outstanding, was satisfying; the economic and spell-casting sub-games were fun; the quests were pretty well written; and the ability to craft new weapons by combining similar types was fun.

But maybe the most fun part was looting everything you could to try to find the five matching pieces for sets of armor. In my last playthrough I collected all five parts for 49 of 52 different sets, each with a different appearance and with different enhancements for collecting the whole set. I didn't expect trying to build complete sets would be so engrossing, but it really was satisfying to finally discover the last piece of a set you'd been wanting to complete.

Oh, and the whole thing looked and played very much like a PC game.

Based on that, I kept an eye on the development of Two Worlds II. The screenshots looked interesting, and the developers seemed enthusiastic. But when it was released, I found I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the original.

The worst thing was that it played as though it was gimped for consoles (primarly the PS3). The player character felt big and clumsy, and the world felt smaller. The visuals also were much less crisp; playing TW2 was like looking through gauze covered in Vaseline.

Worst of all, instead of extending the fun of the armor collection game in TW to other kinds of objects in the sequel, it actually dropped the collection game entirely.

Two Worlds II was not a terrible game. But like Deus Ex: Invisible War, the sequel failed to deliver much of what made the original game fun.

I wouldn't say don't play Two Worlds II. But I will say, if you can find it, try the original Two Worlds.
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#7
@ Flatfingers

Like you, I found the original Two Worlds much more enjoyable and satisfying than Two Worlds II. I thought the speech was endearing but maybe that's because I am European. Totally agree with you concerning the feel of the world. Two Worlds really felt like a TES game in its openness but Two Worlds II felt much more constrained.

Ive come to the conclusion that the developers don't do endings. :lol: Both were disappointing but at least in the original it was relevant to the game you had been playing. Exactly what they were thinking when they put together the ending for Two Worlds II is anybodies guess. Very strange!

I said roll on Two Worlds III because I am hoping lessons will have been learned from both the original and its sequel. If they get it right it could be a really satisfying gaming experience. :D
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#8
Thanks to everybody for the input.

Perhaps I found a second-hand velvet edition cheap. Waiting for confirmation.
Then I can give TW2 a try -- but I won't hold by breath.

I looked at a few gameplay videos, some of which in HD. There seems to be a (very) strong blur effect all the time. Maybe this is what makes you perceive the world as smaller than it was in TW1?

I must say, it's pointless to have the visuals at the mile if you cannot see detail at a spit's range. That blur makes no good to the game: it pushes the hi-res and hi-poly assets back to the Low Definition era.
I hope the filter can be reduced.

Lots of gameplay videos posted on youtube cover the initial, tutoring, part of the game. According to most, that part is great.
It is what's after it that rapidly decays the quality (?). I'm not sure I get it.
As I haven't found enough videos to understand this, I'll have to see it with my own eyes.

Should Two Worlds II be a disappointment, I will steer to Titan Quest Immortal Throne. I already know it is a quality ARPG/Hack & Slash -- been sitting on my wishlist for some time.
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#10
Thanks Katawa, I think.

:wtf: Is this what passes for a professional games reviewer nowadays or is he just a legend in his own little world? I am glad I have already played the PC version of the game with trackball and keyboard (no control issues worth mentioning) because this t*ss*r would have totally ruined it for me. Skip to his conclusion at 12:06 if you don't want to listen to this turkey ruining everything.

Luckily he only covered the main game and not the add-on. I suggest you play both games with the add-ons installed assuming you want to play them at all. :)
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#11
Yahtzee has cornered the market on sarcastic reviews, anyway.

His take on Two Worlds II was also not very positive, but he does at least explain why it wasn't fun for him.

Meanwhile, I have just reinstalled the original Two Worlds. (I had to login to the main fan forum to ask the mod there to authorize my game for me -- he was very kind and quick about it. Apparently the GOG version of TW removes that requirement of the original game.)

Two Worlds is starting to show its age. My current rig is somewhat beefier than the last one I ran TW on, so blowing it up to 1920x1200 reveals the limits of its polygons and textures. It's not as bad visually as the first two Thief games look today, but it's starting to look a bit rough. Still nice to see a day/night cycle, though.

I'm also having to try to figure out how to remap the controls so that I can swing a weapon, cast a spell, and jump backwards within milliseconds of each other without actually breaking any of my fingers.

That said, the dialog is as enjoyably hammy as ever, and collecting loot (to mix and match weapons and armor) is still as much fun as ever.

OK, back to it now. :)
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#12
Flatfingers wrote:Yahtzee has cornered the market on sarcastic reviews, anyway.

His take on Two Worlds II was also not very positive, but he does at least explain why it wasn't fun for him.
:lol: Mercy please Flatfingers. I haven't had a really good laugh today but that review was just what I needed. It didn't ruin the game for anyone but covered the salient points very well. Of course it helped that I had actually played the game.

It hasn't been that long since I played through the Epic Version of the original Two Worlds for the second time. I must be a bit weird but I found it a great experience again.
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#14
Sure. You listen to a Yahtzee review, and you think to yourself, "Oh, come now, surely it can't actually be that bad, can it?"

Then you play it and realize he was only exaggerating for comedic effect, and that behind the gags his criticisms are actually well-founded.

Bottom line on TW2 is that it's not a terrible game, but just wasn't what it could/should have been (and IMO pales a bit compared to the original game).
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Re: [ARPG game] Two Worlds II

#15
DWMagus wrote:That review actually makes me want to play the game more. :?
Strangely enough I feel the same way DW. Especially after recently playing the original again. It will have to wait for a little while though as I have just discovered that Skyrim works well on my business laptop. I'm amazed, I didn't think I had a chance especially with Intel's "wonderful" GPU. :D
Flatfingers wrote:Sure. You listen to a Yahtzee review, and you think to yourself, "Oh, come now, surely it can't actually be that bad, can it?"
I would have missed some fun games if I had paid too much attention to reviews Flat. It takes much more than a few reviewers to put me off. ;) :)

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