I've only played a few rounds of Town of Salem 2 versus my hundreds of games of Town of Salem 1, so I'm not the most knowledgeable fellow when it comes to the sequel, and I daresay that I've a bias towards the original. Some things I say may turn out to be wrong or unnuanced, but they are all inspired by my first couple of times playing Town of Salem 2, meaning that my opinions and takeaways are built on what I experienced in and expected of Town of Salem 2 based on my long time playing Town of Salem 1. My initial takeaway from a few rounds of Town of Salem 2 is that I just like the original more. I reckon it's completely down to my own personal preferences. You may agree, you may disagree, and that's fine. I'm just gonna share my thoughts and hope somebody may find them helpful.
Town of Salem 2's chat looks messier and harder to follow, (though the new "glossary" of terms that have hover text you can use in chat is a really cool feature). The symbols in front of names and numbers (that are not always there and on every player) make it more difficult for me to read along through the chat, as I like to look at the far left of each line of text for the numbers of the players talking.
Dead players have no real reason to stay in a game. In Town of Salem 1, you could stay in a game if you felt like your team was going to win (or if you already had completed your win conditions before dying) and you wanted to get the points from that round. In Town of Salem 2, you don't have to; when a game that you were in finishes, the end results are recorded in your account whether or not you stayed until the end of the game. This is a good feature, I'm giving points to ToS2 for that one.
BUT the original Town of Salem also had a gameplay reason for dead players to stay in a lobby: the Medium. The medium is useful but often underutilized role, either due to dying instantly (or at least before anyone with useful info dies) or because all of the dead players keep leaving. But, the Medium incentivizes dead players to stay in the lobby so that the medium can relay messages from the dead back to the living. There is no Medium role in Town of Salem 2. I don't think the Medium was particularly overpowered, so I expect it got the axe because Blankmedia knows a lot of people have issues with the role (probably due to it not getting used to its full potential most of the time because dead players frequently leave or go afk), and I get the reasoning in leaving the Medium role behind. But I think that it would have been nicer if they had tried to make sticking around after you die more incentivized. Making more roles that work with dead players (maybe a role that lets the ghosts vote on a living player that they get to kill, idk), or just some thing that dead players can do regardless of roles that have an actual tangible impact on the game (i'll be honest, I don't really have any ideas on what they could do for that that wouldn't be super abusable, but I'm really just spitballing here). Instead, Town of Salem 2 has Death Games, two different mini games that suck: there's Death Roll where players roll a 1001 sided die whose sides shrink down to the lowest number rolled until one player rolls a 0 and loses! Then there's Death Guess, where dead players can make bets about which living player they think will die earlier than other living players! Players bet with Ghost Points, a currency system that can only be increased by dying or playing Death Games, however Ghost Points have no actual usage beyond betting in the Death Games. The Death Games are really lame, man.
I have more issues with this game beyond the lack of the Medium, I swear.
Town of Salem 2 really likes being flashier than Town of Salem 1. The pre-game waiting room is no longer just a list of players, roles, and a chat box, it's now the town itself. The game is no longer just talking with other players in the town circle, now you can walk around and enter other players' Club Penguin igloos. The wheel of roles is gone, now your character walks behind a changing screen and walks out as their "true form," a player model representing their role for the game (only for this cutscene, during the actual game you use the player model you chose during customization [unless someone else using it joined your lobby first]). During the night time, you can walk around your house! Dying at night is no longer just a red flash, now it's a little cutscene that extends into the start of the daytime. Trials are now cuts to a new animation on the gallows. And now there are roles who can attack during the daytime, using (you guessed it) another new animation!
I am not a fan of the new animation, I think the lack of a smooth transition from normal gameplay into the cutscene is a bit too jarring for my liking (especially with the daytime cutscenes as they can go off whenever the other player decides to use their ability, as opposed to the nighttime cutscenes which always happens at the end of the night phase). Even more annoying is the fact that you can disable the animations that play during the night (the new death animations) but you can't disable the animations that play during the day (like the deputy shooting someone). You have the option to watch the nighttime animations, but you are required to watch the daytime animations. Why are the daytime animations necessary but the nighttime animations aren't?
I've written way too much already for a game that I'm not too fussed about one way or the other. I just wish I liked Town of Salem 2 more so that I'd be more eager to play the game, since Town of Salem 2 gets more players than Town of Salem 1.
Town of Salem 2's chat looks messier and harder to follow, (though the new "glossary" of terms that have hover text you can use in chat is a really cool feature). The symbols in front of names and numbers (that are not always there and on every player) make it more difficult for me to read along through the chat, as I like to look at the far left of each line of text for the numbers of the players talking.
Dead players have no real reason to stay in a game. In Town of Salem 1, you could stay in a game if you felt like your team was going to win (or if you already had completed your win conditions before dying) and you wanted to get the points from that round. In Town of Salem 2, you don't have to; when a game that you were in finishes, the end results are recorded in your account whether or not you stayed until the end of the game. This is a good feature, I'm giving points to ToS2 for that one.
BUT the original Town of Salem also had a gameplay reason for dead players to stay in a lobby: the Medium. The medium is useful but often underutilized role, either due to dying instantly (or at least before anyone with useful info dies) or because all of the dead players keep leaving. But, the Medium incentivizes dead players to stay in the lobby so that the medium can relay messages from the dead back to the living. There is no Medium role in Town of Salem 2. I don't think the Medium was particularly overpowered, so I expect it got the axe because Blankmedia knows a lot of people have issues with the role (probably due to it not getting used to its full potential most of the time because dead players frequently leave or go afk), and I get the reasoning in leaving the Medium role behind. But I think that it would have been nicer if they had tried to make sticking around after you die more incentivized. Making more roles that work with dead players (maybe a role that lets the ghosts vote on a living player that they get to kill, idk), or just some thing that dead players can do regardless of roles that have an actual tangible impact on the game (i'll be honest, I don't really have any ideas on what they could do for that that wouldn't be super abusable, but I'm really just spitballing here). Instead, Town of Salem 2 has Death Games, two different mini games that suck: there's Death Roll where players roll a 1001 sided die whose sides shrink down to the lowest number rolled until one player rolls a 0 and loses! Then there's Death Guess, where dead players can make bets about which living player they think will die earlier than other living players! Players bet with Ghost Points, a currency system that can only be increased by dying or playing Death Games, however Ghost Points have no actual usage beyond betting in the Death Games. The Death Games are really lame, man.
I have more issues with this game beyond the lack of the Medium, I swear.
Town of Salem 2 really likes being flashier than Town of Salem 1. The pre-game waiting room is no longer just a list of players, roles, and a chat box, it's now the town itself. The game is no longer just talking with other players in the town circle, now you can walk around and enter other players' Club Penguin igloos. The wheel of roles is gone, now your character walks behind a changing screen and walks out as their "true form," a player model representing their role for the game (only for this cutscene, during the actual game you use the player model you chose during customization [unless someone else using it joined your lobby first]). During the night time, you can walk around your house! Dying at night is no longer just a red flash, now it's a little cutscene that extends into the start of the daytime. Trials are now cuts to a new animation on the gallows. And now there are roles who can attack during the daytime, using (you guessed it) another new animation!
I am not a fan of the new animation, I think the lack of a smooth transition from normal gameplay into the cutscene is a bit too jarring for my liking (especially with the daytime cutscenes as they can go off whenever the other player decides to use their ability, as opposed to the nighttime cutscenes which always happens at the end of the night phase). Even more annoying is the fact that you can disable the animations that play during the night (the new death animations) but you can't disable the animations that play during the day (like the deputy shooting someone). You have the option to watch the nighttime animations, but you are required to watch the daytime animations. Why are the daytime animations necessary but the nighttime animations aren't?
I've written way too much already for a game that I'm not too fussed about one way or the other. I just wish I liked Town of Salem 2 more so that I'd be more eager to play the game, since Town of Salem 2 gets more players than Town of Salem 1.