Synopsis: Welcome to the sequel of sequels, SouthPeak Games’ Two Worlds II has just released and our good buddies sent us a review copy to do our bidding in the world of Antaloor with the first big RPG of 2011. The story takes place shortly after the final events of the first entry, but this time around you can expect completely revamped combat, new enemies, enhanced AI, along with better voice overs and character animations made possible by a new gaming engine to help make the sequel stand out above and beyond the original. So it is time to break the chains, escape the dungeon with an Orc rescue team, and save your sister from Gandohar’s evil grasp…after you read through the review of course!
Praise: I am sure everyone has their own idea about what makes an RPG fun and sure there are some that just think they are lame, but I like RPG’s mainly for the character development and long play time without growing repetitive. Well, this has character development down in spades on top being able to choose which spells and skills to enhance on your quest to squash Gandohar, on top of breaking down obsolete weapons to improve equipped weapons and armor. The environments look wonderful along with the cutscenes, and load speeds are one of the most forgiving I have seen in a while. I do have to admit that the outlook of my review was bleak for the first hour due to not seeing everything on the screen and little bugs here and there, but after turning the safe area on to see all of the user interface and learning about how to develop my hero, I was hooked and easily distracted with both poaching in the Savannah and trying to complete all my side quests before continuing with the main quest.
Gripes: As much as I am a fan of the RPG genre, there are still many things that get to me every time, starting with the voice acting. It could have used some work as it was lacking depth, but the writing of the story and humor is what kept me from skipping the dialogue sequences to get me back in the action faster. Another issue I had was with the map, it would be a lot easier to navigate if I was able to zoom in further, especially in crowded cities. Some of the missions felt repetitious, but the payoff with experience is rather satisfying making it so that it doesn't take too long to level up and beef up your hero. Lastly, I felt like more of a tutorial was needed or at least better descriptions in the interface as there are a LOT of things that you can do on the fly to your character and even after doing it four and five times an hour, I still felt like is was not doing something right or completely missing out on more stuff to do with my items and equipment.
Overall, it has been a great experience with this title and though I was a bit hesitant to give this title a chance due to the negative stigma behind the first entry. However, this is a great example of a developer listening to what was wrong with the first try and making it completely bad ass to get us to shut up and lose our social lives. Now it is time for me to get back to my quests, side quests, and my daily poop flinging baboon slaying fix. Hey, it is not unethical treatments if those bastards started it, right?
Mashbuttons.com gives Two World II an 8 out of 10.
Two World II is available now for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
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