I sat down to play the original Two Worlds in the summer of 2007. At that time, my love for the RPG had once again been ignited by the Shivering Isles expansion earlier that year and Two Worlds was, in theory, supposed to ease the anxiety of waiting for The Witcher and Mass Effect which were to be released in the last quarter. After about an hour of laughably bad writing, combat and voice acting I put the game down in disgust never to touch it again. Unfortunately Two Worlds wasn’t the anaesthetic I had hoped for. After that experience the announcement of a sequel didn’t move me to any emotion past perhaps the initial shock that developers Reality Pump got the green light for a sequel, but I was happy to let it pass me by. However to my dubious surprise Two Worlds 2 was received relatively well, both by critics and peers of whose opinions I respect. Since I was already avoiding Dragon Age 2 and the sequel to The Witcher was still a bit away I decided to give Reality Pump another chance, and picked up Two Worlds 2.
It’s probably best to put a disclaimer right at the start of this. If you are only into RPGs, or just games in general because of the quality of story or characters then Two Worlds 2 might not be the game for you. The writing in Two Worlds 2 is not good, this becomes apparent after about 10 minutes and it does not get any better. Every character in the game is there as a quest giver, nothing more than a mechanical feature of the game, they might
as well just be a notice board. The story is about as clichéd as you can get and the voice acting ranges from dull to poor to just downright strange. At first the writing made me laugh in an “it’s so bad it’s enjoyable” kind of way, but once I was properly into the game I just skimmed through it, trying to end the conversation before the voice acting would kick in. It’s important to say however, that this criticism of the game doesn’t change much. Two Worlds 2 isn't about the story or the characters, they’re just a method to put you in this world they’ve
created and give you something to do. As bad as the writing is, it’s hard to condemn Two Worlds 2 for it because that wasn’t their focus, it would be like knocking 20% off Diablo because it had a bad story. Good writing in a game is fantastic and extremely important, but it isn’t essential if the game doesn’t depend on it, and that’s the case with Two Worlds 2.
So what does it depend on then? Well, character progression for one. Reality Pump have gone to a lot of effort with the itemization in Two Worlds 2, there is an amazing array of items in the game and plenty of different graphics to each of them. To actually see your character become more visually impressive as he equips higher level armour is a great way for a game to give the player an aesthetic impression of how his/her character is progressing, and it is a nice breakaway from the more mundane armour sets of Dragon Age, Mass Effect or any of Bethesda’s games. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the quests in Two Worlds 2. There is a genuine effort to create some interesting quests, and although they’re poorly delivered by the NPCs and there are some go kill x amount of x tasks, a lot of the quests can be excellent. There were times when I expected a simple go and kill quest and then was caught off guard as it took an unexpected and much appreciated turn. More than anything else in this game, the quests are an absolute far cry away from the mind-numbingly dull ones in the first game.
The world they’ve created can be a bit hot and cold at times. It doesn’t help that the area the first chapter is set in, is a sparse desert which has a Fallout-esque bleakness to it, especially when the tutorial island is this lush jungle surrounded with a lovely green only broken by the blue of the rivers. The second chapter does a much better job though. The one massive advantage an open world game has over a linear one is obviously exploration, yet I never felt the urge to explore in Two Worlds 2. Even when I did all I came across were droves of angry ostriches and a literal metropolis of Varn (wolf-like bad guys) camps. Following the story takes you to all the interesting places the islands have to offer anyway, and I feel that Reality Pump really missed out on this opportunity. It does look very pretty though, there is a point in the game where you are sent to a lighthouse and as I was about to descend I stopped and just looked out over the sea which boarded a nearby fishing village. The sun was setting and it really was a lovely sight, it’s just a pity that when I got to the village it was just yet another boring location which was only there to hold a few quest givers. It reminds me of the time I was playing World of Warcraft and I was in my favourite area, Redridge. Again, I stopped to admire the nice, albeit cartoony sights, and all I could do was lament the fact that this village was just another quest hub only designed to progress you from level 15-20, that’s how I feel about the world in Two Worlds 2.
The combat is also hot and cold. The magic system Reality Pump have come up with is nothing short of innovative. It’s system where you can have fun with a combat mechanic without even engaging in combat. The experimentation is key and is quite similar to Magicka in the sense that you don’t know quite what you’re doing, but the end result is usually going to be something to make you smile. I haven’t had this much fun with a mage in an RPG since the glass cannons of Baldur’s Gate and if Reality Pump have gotten one thing right with Two Worlds 2 it is definitely this. Unfortunately the other combat options don’t offer anywhere near the same amount of detail or enjoyment. The ranged combat is extremely disengaging, you don’t feel like you’re actually in combat as you easily pick monsters off from range as they struggle to reach you. There’s no feel to it at all, I may as well just be clicking on an enemy and watching his health drop. I had to change after the first boss battle which I won by just repeatedly firing arrows at him which would knock him back enough so that he’d never reach me if I kept firing.
There are three types of melee combat, two handed, sword and shield and dual-wielding. Dual-wielding feels clunky and unresponsive, the shield sometimes bugs out and starts twisting my arm in strange and painful ways, thankfully the two handed style works quite well and I’d find it hard to imagine anyone finishing the game who hasn’t just switched to the two handed style altogether, abandoning any notions of a second weapon or shield. The combat itself is extremely basic, and while it starts off interesting enough as soon as you level your block breaking ability enough, fights then just break into a constant spamming of said ability. The enemies also bug out quite often, I’ve had fights where I’ve been completely ignored by nine out of the ten monsters surrounding me, sometimes monsters become invulnerable for a short space of time, and then there’s the odd time a monster has just said “sod it” and walked away from me mid fight, turning on his invulnerability shield in the process. The bugs aren’t just limited to combat either, there are still some quests that you can’t complete and I’ve had the odd quest giver who just wouldn’t talk to me.
I enjoyed my time with Two Worlds 2, it’s not the best RPG in the world but then again I never expected it would be. In the great scheme of things Two Worlds 2 won’t really be remembered, but that at least is a step up from its original, which is remembered for all the wrong reasons. Reality Pump have definitely improved on Two Worlds, which is cause enough to celebrate. Part of me suspects that this hyperbole surrounding Two Worlds 2 has a lot to do with this improvement, but even still, if Two Worlds 3 makes a similar sized jump in quality then we could be on to a genuinely great game.
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