Two Worlds III announced! :-)
Two Worlds series must be the game series where my personal opinion is most radically divorced from critical opinion - it's a big personal favorite of mine, I really love those two titles.
And yes, I know the balancing and game-play are far from perfect. Forsooth, I know the olde style writing and voice acting received very harsh assessment.
Yet I cannot resist the quirkiness, tongue-in-cheek attitude and good humoured self-awareness of Two Worlds. It's a game that clearly has been written with a lot of love and fun.
I actually really admire the "can do attitude" they had in casting their internal staff (minus the hero) in first, when they did not have a lot of money. To me it just adds uniqueness and originality to Two Worlds we are likely not going to see again soon. I mean: how many average and ok-but-bland voice productions we have anyway?
I particularly love my nameless hero, and Two Worlds 2 actually has one of the most enjoyable Indiana Jones spoofs ever in a game! ;-)
I was really devastated when I read Reality Pump had gone under, and really had to search around to be persuaded it's been brought back, and this was not a cruel April fool's joke:
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/144858/20160329/two-worlds-3-enters-development-topware-interactive-reveals.htm
SoD released and TW3 announced - what glorious end of month this was indeed! :-D
And yes, I know the balancing and game-play are far from perfect. Forsooth, I know the olde style writing and voice acting received very harsh assessment.
Yet I cannot resist the quirkiness, tongue-in-cheek attitude and good humoured self-awareness of Two Worlds. It's a game that clearly has been written with a lot of love and fun.
I actually really admire the "can do attitude" they had in casting their internal staff (minus the hero) in first, when they did not have a lot of money. To me it just adds uniqueness and originality to Two Worlds we are likely not going to see again soon. I mean: how many average and ok-but-bland voice productions we have anyway?
I particularly love my nameless hero, and Two Worlds 2 actually has one of the most enjoyable Indiana Jones spoofs ever in a game! ;-)
I was really devastated when I read Reality Pump had gone under, and really had to search around to be persuaded it's been brought back, and this was not a cruel April fool's joke:
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/144858/20160329/two-worlds-3-enters-development-topware-interactive-reveals.htm
SoD released and TW3 announced - what glorious end of month this was indeed! :-D
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Comments
Personally, I rather disliked Two Worlds 2 due to the dumped down roleplaying aspects: the sequel really dampened the world exploring factor with its thrice-cursed locked locations, hand-holding quest entries and having an entire continent solely for Multiplayer. Well, at least its graphics were pretty... I guess.
So, yeah, I'm really hoping that this time around it will be *all* about world exploration. And they better not implement that damned "holding hands" treadment.
The first game-world is really vast, and I have to confess I can never resist over-powering my hero, but that's part of the fun, I guess. Alchemy is really quite satisfying in first.
Maybe my sense of humour is weird, but I really enjoyed the hilarious little quest notes and some of the purposefully dead-pan comments by the hero in the second.
So, there is a batch of infernal man-eating umbrellas around, and what does he say, cool as you like: "I am here to perform a product recall." Second aspect I liked about TW2 that it allowed you to feel bit more attached to your allies and factions, with even a hint of romance. This improves, personally, immersion for me. I rather liked some of the side characters.
All in all, I can only hope that the financial difficulties have not lead to core writing team breaking up, but cautiously optimistic - and certainly happier with the announcement than without it!
I always paid for these games normally, from gaming discs to eventual digitalisation, and only recall normal product code activation, but maybe there just is not free lunch then.
Humour is enormously individualistic thing, but to me, personally, Reality Pump had one of the most amusing writing attitudes, delightfully executed - giving the title its very definite identity that I love!
Otherwise, it works pretty fine also as sand-box action-RPG exploration, for those who take to the game-world or combat and skill system.
I just have a thing for game-world originality, personally.
For example, I also like Gothic-to-Risen even if these games have always had filthily frustrating combat system (to me) at low levels. Even a giant rat has insanely successful interruption rate! Still, I have always had the stamina to persist until it gets more fun, because what good and unique game-world as to offer.
I know the first one was supposed to be very buggy upon release, I only played it past patching stage, but it also annoys me how the voice acting got totally lambasted. From a certain perspective, it's a different take on "realism" - if I suddenly found myself thrown as a bit-player into a story, I'm guessing that's how I would sound... (Plus we'll probably never get voice work like that again, the "can do attitude" just impresses me, cannot help it)
Heck, my Two Worlds II gamed better than DA:Inquisition upon release, for bugs!
For above any par:
- Musical score. Besides liking it plainly, different cities / regions having a musical theme makes a lovely difference for game-world immersion
- Crafting. I think for armor/weapon crafting system, this would be my favorite ever, pit it even against any high-budget developer.
That crafting system is "non-micro-managerial" or "shuffle up and down a menu - as a bluaady PC gamer, why?!? Where is that boiling vat of acid anyway??" Looting even the poorest item makes sense until the end game, as does crafting your gear. Well done, Reality Pump!
PS: I do not play magic wielding chars minus PS:T - but magic should be as cool as metallurgy crafting with Two Wolrds II. That's the rumour...
What bugs me about spellcasters is though that you cannot enchant robes. Only reinforce them with similar robes. The same goes for mage staffs as well. The closest you can to creating your own fiddlestick is to enhance some weathered quarterstaff with elemental damage. No bonus to Mana makes this approach rather gimped though.
So, yeah, it is more than a little odd for mages to not benefit from enchanting stuff.
The first was stacking which I liked because pretty unusual, and second was dismantling and crafting per components. In the first case, only five bonus effects could be stacked at one given time. In the latter, crafting is very robust - but best preserved to latter stages of the game (IMO).
The mix and match with magic cards / carrier effects / boosters are quite powerful per se - and interesting, it should be. There is one dungeon in TW2 where you should not venture lest you have boosted jump capability, or bad-ass magic.
I had neither at that time. Having searched for a solution on-line, I realized it was re-load time for me. But not before reading of a fellow gamer who was pretty cool magic wielder: by a specific magic combo, he/she was able to summon a tornado of trash, I think (I'd naturally think boulders but it was not that evident if I recall) which piled up. Do a few times - no jumping, just climb up the impossible height!
I mentally bowed in admiration... :-D