In the lead-up to our review of the game, our Two Worlds II diary examines our immediate reactions to playing through each chapter of the latest release from SouthPeak, TopWare, and Reality Pump
Somewhere between the incredibly bad boss battle at the end of Chapter 1 and the teleportation to the Asian-themed island of Chapter 2, Two Worlds II suddenly somehow became playable. Check that: it became interesting, too.
And I, coincidentally, began to realize that maybe this game would appeal to me after all.
Though I don’t quite remember at what point TWII turned for me, I’m going to assume that it had to do with my own actions. You see, the first chapter was a tangled mess of grinding sidequests, often leaving me unknowing of what my actual next goal was. The in-game quest log didn’t do much to help, either, as it doesn’t necessarily make it clear at a glance as to which quests have been completed and which are active.
I was close to giving up on the game, until I decided that I would stick to the main quest and ignore the extras. As this practice carries over into Chapter 2, I am able to leisurely tackle some of the optional fetch quests and do some “lite grinding” at my own pace. As the chapter closes I am zeroing in on Level 30 and zipping through the main storyline. Boss battles are becoming easier, my attacks are stronger, and I am experimenting with some of the game’s deeper elements.
As I stated yesterday, TWII is built on its stats and crafting system first and actual gameplay second. That’s not to say that I don’t miss the ill combat and camera sequences, bad voice acting, and unimpressive controls, just that I realize that they aren’t as important to my overall experience. By improving my hero’s archery skills, for instance, sniping enemies at massive distances with fire arrows replaces blindly melee-attacking them with a dizzying camera in tow. Increasing the crafting skills further allows me to improve my weapons and armor, and I learn to weigh the pluses and minuses of two-handed vs sword-and-shield vs dual-wielding weaponry.
I am still having issues with the robust magic-crafting system, however, as my experimental attacks never materialize how my mind envisions them. Shots of fire aren’t exploding into arrays of icicles yet. I’ll have to save those for Chapter 3.
Chapter 2 is paced extremely well, and covers an enormous amount of variety between the town, ocean, Scavenger camp, Swallows, and Old University. My only complaints are that it seems rather short compared to Chapter 1, and that enemy encounters are irregular. Regardless, I finally feel comfortable with the game enough to be enjoying it. I’m definitely looking forward to Chapter 3.
End of Chapter 2
Disclosure: This gameplay diary is based on a copy of the game for the Xbox 360 provided by the publisher.
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