Talos 1 is perhaps my favorite puzzle game of all time. The rich, primarily implicit storytelling interspersed with fascinatingly elegant puzzle design gave me something I've been looking for in art for a long time, and have yet to find elsewhere. I've been following this game's development process since it was first unveiled in May of this year. It seemed shocking to me that they actually met the 2023 launch date, and approaching release I became very excited that this could be a new addition to my list of favorites. Unfortunately, I fear it may have been slightly undercooked for my liking.
Nearly every aspect of this game is a significant step down from the first game. Not necessarily bad, but this game proposes fundamental alterations rather than small revisions to a system that was extremely well thought out, with some jank execution in previous installments. The stars, for example, are completely neutered from the incredibly unique outside the box thinking they previously required of the player and are now reduced to menial scavenger hunts once you become accustomed to the gameplay loop. Can you find the sprite? Can you find the incredibly conspicuous switches scattered around the map? Can you find the connector we hid and then find the dashed lines crossing the sky?
The puzzles aren't much better, if I'm being honest. The best puzzles in the game are unilaterally hidden behind the gold doors at the end of the game. In other words, they require sitting through 120 puzzles that are tantamount to tutorials for different gameplay objects interacting before the player is actually tasked to use critical thought to come up with a unique solution -- something that should be expected of every puzzle game from the very beginning. Even if you disagree with me that the game over-tutorializes and refuses to let the players think for themselves, it's impossible to deny how utterly easy the late game of TTP2 is compared to the late game of TTP1 or any of Road to Gehenna.
In some discussions with other friends who are also Talosheads, I heard the phrase "bringing Talos to the masses" stated at one point. I definitely get what they meant -- Talos 2 has a lot of AAA cultural benchmarks that appeal to people who think the puzzle genre might not be for them -- but I really don't think anything about the first game is necessarily unapproachable. The game certainly does challenge the player, yes, but Talos 1 is extremely easy to comprehend given its limited kit of tools. There are 6 gameplay elements, and given how quickly it exhausts the basic tech one needs to know to solve late game puzzles, it has to rely on amping up the difficulty much earlier, and in a way that feels extremely natural. The second game does not do this. Every world is fundamentally a tutorial for the Object Of The Week and the caveats it proposes for other items. It introduces a new object per world so as soon as you finish the first 10 puzzles that feature it, it's gone. The game then requires you to recall everything you learned about the object in question at the very end of the game (FOR ONE PUZZLE) for completionist credit in a way that I find rather disconcerting and stilted.
The puzzles aren't doing much for me, but I'm at least able to take some joy out of the plot, even when it's completely baffling and stupid. One of those aforementioned cultural AAA benchmarks that I find most present throughout the game is the quippy Whedonisms and banter with characters. I do enjoy some of the characters, Byron and Alcatraz especially, for their realistic depictions of various political extremes in a way that does not come off as remotely hamfisted or meanspirited. And I especially enjoy Thecla for the fact that she is an incredibly meanspirited representation of dogmatic religious zealots. The rest I can kind of take or leave. The primary twist and ending are fucking dumb, I'm so sorry. I completely lost interest when all we were doing was talking about Miranda, Cornelius, and Athena. They are non-characters as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that I find Athena's depiction in TTP1 to be really inspiring and life-affirming (she might be my favorite protagonist in media, period). It's just trying too hard to be meaningful and explain to me why it is meaningful, when the first game had the formula figured out and was able to handpick other readings to convey ultimately the same message about self-actualization and what it means to be a human in a way that feels much, much less forced.
I think that's ultimately my problem with this game. It tries to take far too many liberties that damage a perfectly functional system, while also rehashing many of the same ideas from the first game in a way that feels ultimately kind of non-transformative and extremely bloated, not just in scope of plot and the ideas it conveys, but also in the amount of content one must trudge through to reach anything worthwhile.
Nearly every aspect of this game is a significant step down from the first game. Not necessarily bad, but this game proposes fundamental alterations rather than small revisions to a system that was extremely well thought out, with some jank execution in previous installments. The stars, for example, are completely neutered from the incredibly unique outside the box thinking they previously required of the player and are now reduced to menial scavenger hunts once you become accustomed to the gameplay loop. Can you find the sprite? Can you find the incredibly conspicuous switches scattered around the map? Can you find the connector we hid and then find the dashed lines crossing the sky?
The puzzles aren't much better, if I'm being honest. The best puzzles in the game are unilaterally hidden behind the gold doors at the end of the game. In other words, they require sitting through 120 puzzles that are tantamount to tutorials for different gameplay objects interacting before the player is actually tasked to use critical thought to come up with a unique solution -- something that should be expected of every puzzle game from the very beginning. Even if you disagree with me that the game over-tutorializes and refuses to let the players think for themselves, it's impossible to deny how utterly easy the late game of TTP2 is compared to the late game of TTP1 or any of Road to Gehenna.
In some discussions with other friends who are also Talosheads, I heard the phrase "bringing Talos to the masses" stated at one point. I definitely get what they meant -- Talos 2 has a lot of AAA cultural benchmarks that appeal to people who think the puzzle genre might not be for them -- but I really don't think anything about the first game is necessarily unapproachable. The game certainly does challenge the player, yes, but Talos 1 is extremely easy to comprehend given its limited kit of tools. There are 6 gameplay elements, and given how quickly it exhausts the basic tech one needs to know to solve late game puzzles, it has to rely on amping up the difficulty much earlier, and in a way that feels extremely natural. The second game does not do this. Every world is fundamentally a tutorial for the Object Of The Week and the caveats it proposes for other items. It introduces a new object per world so as soon as you finish the first 10 puzzles that feature it, it's gone. The game then requires you to recall everything you learned about the object in question at the very end of the game (FOR ONE PUZZLE) for completionist credit in a way that I find rather disconcerting and stilted.
The puzzles aren't doing much for me, but I'm at least able to take some joy out of the plot, even when it's completely baffling and stupid. One of those aforementioned cultural AAA benchmarks that I find most present throughout the game is the quippy Whedonisms and banter with characters. I do enjoy some of the characters, Byron and Alcatraz especially, for their realistic depictions of various political extremes in a way that does not come off as remotely hamfisted or meanspirited. And I especially enjoy Thecla for the fact that she is an incredibly meanspirited representation of dogmatic religious zealots. The rest I can kind of take or leave. The primary twist and ending are fucking dumb, I'm so sorry. I completely lost interest when all we were doing was talking about Miranda, Cornelius, and Athena. They are non-characters as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that I find Athena's depiction in TTP1 to be really inspiring and life-affirming (she might be my favorite protagonist in media, period). It's just trying too hard to be meaningful and explain to me why it is meaningful, when the first game had the formula figured out and was able to handpick other readings to convey ultimately the same message about self-actualization and what it means to be a human in a way that feels much, much less forced.
I think that's ultimately my problem with this game. It tries to take far too many liberties that damage a perfectly functional system, while also rehashing many of the same ideas from the first game in a way that feels ultimately kind of non-transformative and extremely bloated, not just in scope of plot and the ideas it conveys, but also in the amount of content one must trudge through to reach anything worthwhile.