I was pretty disappointed with this. Nostalgia may be a factor, but I replayed Oxenfree 1 before playing this and I loved it. While the visuals and UI/QOL have been improved a lot, this sequel had little impact on me compared to the first game.

Riley, Jacob, and Olivia are all strong and memorable characters. They're going to resonate a lot with certain people. The writers for this game understand how to write complex characters and how to depict the insecurities/traumas each character deals with using nuance. This is what elevates the game above a five (average) for me.

That being said, I think making Riley and Jacob the only main characters in this game was a mistake. The Oxenfree games are essentially walking sims, and the relationship mechanics between the five protagonists were what kept the walking in the first game interesting. With only two characters to develop the relationship between in the second game, it gets boring fast.

Riley and Jacob don't have any meaningful conflict with each other unless you choose to initiate it (it was impossible to not upset at least one of your friends in Oxenfree 1) so it's not like it's hard to get them to like each other. Insead, they're just kind of talking about life and getting to know each other the whole game. This is fine but it doesn't elicit the same interest as unravelling the baggage between two characters who already know each other, i.e. Alex and Clarissa, nor do Jacob and Riley have any staked incentive to get to know each other like Alex and Jonas did (my favourite dynamic in Oxenfree 1). At the very least, I think Jacob should have been balanced out with other protagonists for Riley to have different kinds of interactions with, so he could shine more in contrast. Oxenfree 2 is kind of like if Oxenfree 1 removed every character except Alex and Nona. There are plenty of minor characters in Oxenfree 2 Riley can speak with i.e. the cultists and people on the walkie talkie channels, but there's fewer opportunities to interact with them. A lot of the appeal of Oxenfree 1 was unravelling the backstory of what happened between all these characters, why they feel the way they do about each other, and that interpersonal drama is missing from Oxenfree 2. The Oxenfree 2 characters kind of all just have their own independent stuff going on and ask each other for advice on it.

In terms of the overall plot, I did not find it to be meaningfully different than Oxenfree 1, especially after the resolution of a certain twist that takes place before the final area. A large part of the appeal of Oxenfree 1 for me was figuring out what was going on with the ghosts, who they were, how they were speaking to us, what happened to them, how they were possessing people, what their plan was, and almost none of these concepts are developed or iterated on in Oxenfree 2. I think that contributed to why I did not feel as tense and invested during this game as I did in Oxenfree 1- as someone who played the first game I kind of already knew what was going on. I also feel like the music was not as effective as the first game with helping build that sense of mystery.

The increased map size didn't help with the boredom. If your game is essentially a walking sim, a larger map with no fast travel is not inherently an improvement. It could have been worth it if there were more characters to spend that travel time with, but as it is, Camena was a slog to explore compared to Edward's Island and I was disinterested in backtracking to get all the Adler letters this time.

There was one moment that made me emotional (Riley sitting with a man fishing- if you know you know) and the ending choice was hard, but I mostly felt nothing at this game, not scared, not tense, not sad, little sense of mystery. I was mostly bored and forcing myself to pick it back up again, which is a shame.

-SPOILERS BELOW-

I also want to say that I don't like how the other characters speak about Olivia's decision to go into the portal if you choose that ending. I saw Olivia's decision to give up on life to be with her dead parents as analogous for suicide, so it's then disturbing to hear Riley and Jacob justify it as 'what she wanted' and 'her decision', I think Jacob even says something like it's 'what was best for her/what she needed'? I don't doubt that the writers didn't intend this but it feels like these characters are justifying this teenager's decision to commit suicide. It would have been more emotionally impactful if they talked about it like the unfair tragedy it is, even if they still felt like it was the best option available.