Having just beaten it last night, I'm still chewing on Talos Principle 2 and what it brings, but I think I'm coming off more underwhelmed than I hoped.
Did Nintendo bite these devs? Which virulent strain hit the puzzle design? TP 2 brings great assortment of toys to play with, yet only a few of the new mechanics are given space to be incorporated in the core set of puzzle building blocks. On the other hand, it isn't even able to sustain the variety throughout the whole thing as the gimmick of one of the islands is "uhh moving walls I guess", while the last island is just a gallery of slightly obscure mechanical gotchas without a binding theme. What's there is enjoyable, but TP2 left me CRAVING for some sort of mechanical escalation, and I don't usually look for hardass cosmic brain puzzles from these games. A Gehenna-style DLC might actually fix this, will be looking forward to that.
There's a lot to like about writing of the game too, but I've got my misgivings. TP2 takes anthropological approach and puts you in the entire society of cool philosophizing robots. You get to travel with a neat crew of explorers, who could easily just end up as mouthpieces for their specific themes and perspectives, but the power of good dialogue and voice acting fashions them as quite lovable bunch. The posture and worldview you establish through conversations comes back shaping the world in a few surprising ways, which was a really nice touch. Unfortunately, I'm overall not so high on this aspect either as the game just feels too courteous, I guess? I've clearly chosen the path that aligns with the views of the author so I've not really felt like my position was disputed enough, the challenge was never postulated in anything but brief qualms. The mood ended up almost toxically positive, which I didn't vibe with too much. Maybe I'm just the part of the problem, as the game's writing would put it. But overall it's a lot like the puzzles – slick, with some edges sanded off.
A few more points to mention:
1. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is one of the first games I bought for my first computer and likely the first PC game I finished. Despite all my misgivings with TP2, it was fucking nice to play another game from Croteam so many years later whose massive environments are still so full of Croteam's charm. Hope these people continue to make games for 20 more years.
2. I love tetris bridges! There are a lot of tetris bridges in this game yet it still wasn't enough. I'd play an entire game that's just tetris bridges.
3. The cat sanctuary is so sweet I got a little teary eyed.
Did Nintendo bite these devs? Which virulent strain hit the puzzle design? TP 2 brings great assortment of toys to play with, yet only a few of the new mechanics are given space to be incorporated in the core set of puzzle building blocks. On the other hand, it isn't even able to sustain the variety throughout the whole thing as the gimmick of one of the islands is "uhh moving walls I guess", while the last island is just a gallery of slightly obscure mechanical gotchas without a binding theme. What's there is enjoyable, but TP2 left me CRAVING for some sort of mechanical escalation, and I don't usually look for hardass cosmic brain puzzles from these games. A Gehenna-style DLC might actually fix this, will be looking forward to that.
There's a lot to like about writing of the game too, but I've got my misgivings. TP2 takes anthropological approach and puts you in the entire society of cool philosophizing robots. You get to travel with a neat crew of explorers, who could easily just end up as mouthpieces for their specific themes and perspectives, but the power of good dialogue and voice acting fashions them as quite lovable bunch. The posture and worldview you establish through conversations comes back shaping the world in a few surprising ways, which was a really nice touch. Unfortunately, I'm overall not so high on this aspect either as the game just feels too courteous, I guess? I've clearly chosen the path that aligns with the views of the author so I've not really felt like my position was disputed enough, the challenge was never postulated in anything but brief qualms. The mood ended up almost toxically positive, which I didn't vibe with too much. Maybe I'm just the part of the problem, as the game's writing would put it. But overall it's a lot like the puzzles – slick, with some edges sanded off.
A few more points to mention:
1. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is one of the first games I bought for my first computer and likely the first PC game I finished. Despite all my misgivings with TP2, it was fucking nice to play another game from Croteam so many years later whose massive environments are still so full of Croteam's charm. Hope these people continue to make games for 20 more years.
2. I love tetris bridges! There are a lot of tetris bridges in this game yet it still wasn't enough. I'd play an entire game that's just tetris bridges.
3. The cat sanctuary is so sweet I got a little teary eyed.