Two Worlds 2 improves upon the original but comes up short in its quest to rise above its better playing competition.
The first Two Worlds was initially pitched to gamers as an "online Oblivion" that coupled deep singleplayer with a very rewarding cooperative multiplayer experience that the fans of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series had been clamoring for during the past ten years. It promised so much and yet delivered so little that it's no wonder so few gamers speak positively about their experiences with it. Thanks to a very forgettable (and in my experience, mostly PvP-centered) online mode and a story that was as bland and devoid of class as a cup of tap water it was only the promise of 300 gamer points for defeating the last boss that kept me going until the end. I had hoped Two Worlds 2 would be better, and I was assured through marketing hype that it would be.
While better than the first game in several ways, Two Worlds 2 still falls short of being what I consider to be a quality CRPG.
To prove this you need look no further than the size of the game's world and compare it to the first. While the first game wasn't exceptionally large it was still big enough for me to leave large sections of it unexplored due to lack of time. This sequel, however, has a singleplayer landmass that is divided between three very small islands that when combined barely reach the same size of The Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind. Which is sad when you consider Morrowind is coming up on it's 9th birthday this spring.
In the 40-50 hours it took me to clear the singleplayer portion of the game I had easily (and unintentionally) filled in half of the game world by the 10 hour mark. After completing the Island of Ashos it only took me only another few hours to finish the final few miles of the game's spartan landmass, resulting in a very disappointing final rush to the end that was spurred on more by me wanting to finish it rather than actually being curious as to what I'd find or how I'd conquer it.
To say Two Worlds 2's singleplayer world is small is being extremely kind to it. The world is so small that it barely reaches early 2000 RPG standards and is about only half the size of Morrowind and about 1/10th the size of Oblivion. In today's crowded RPG marketplace it's not a good idea to be so "small".
You might have noticed I put an unusual amount of emphasis on the word "single player" in the previous two paragraphs. If you wondered why, it's due to the brunt of the game world being locked off and only made available to players engaging in the online-only "MMO" style campaign. This large online-only island, which you cannot even glitch your way into during the single player (much less sail to legally) is four times the size of the singleplayer world and plays host to a much more diverse and interesting landscape than what you'll encounter in the offline version of the game. In short, the entirety of the game is wrapped up in this blocked off island and only those with a lot of patience for lag and a fair amount of friends that live in their time zone will get to properly enjoy.
Further blemishing the game is its rather bland and unimaginative combat. While the monsters themselves can sometimes be challenging and therefore fun to do battle with, the vast majority of the game's battles can be won by "spamming" a few key moves while hitting the left mouse button during their cool-down time. Though it isn't as bad as Two Worlds 1 and its "Hit, dodge, hit, dodge" exploit that enabled even under-leveled characters to beat the last two bosses without getting hit, it is still a significant degree below what I consider standard for modern CRPGs. Granted, even most "modern" CRPGs like Fable and Oblivion fail at this but that doesn't give Two Worlds 2 permission to be shallow.
The skill system isn't much better either, since it seems to have an over-abundance of abilities that are either completely useless or at best have a very dubious level of effectiveness. Most of the game's skills seem to only be used as "Filler" and serve no purpose other than to make combat appear deeper than it truly is. This seems most apparent after you realize that the first 3 slots in your hotbar are permanently locked with context-sensitive skills that change depending on what weapon you have equipped and whether you are currently blocking or not. These skills, which are only usable with certain weapon types, are mostly throw-away attacks that do little more than an occasional stun effect or knockdown and are barely more powerful than the much faster and cheaper to execute normal attack.
Though some of them are fun to do once you've maxed them out and they start doing a tiny bit more damage than your normal attacks it's hard to get to that point due to you never being able to spec in one weapon type. Though you could, in theory, pick one type and only increase skills associated with it you can't rely on finding more powerful versions of it in the next area you visit. Plus the game goes to great lengths to make every enemy resistant to at least one type of weapon damage (bludgeon, slashing) which results in you needing to equip weapons you wouldn't have specialized in just to do damage to them.
There is complexity, and then there is complexity just for complexity's sake and Two Worlds 2 seems to have devoted itself to the latter rather than the former.
Fortunately, not everything is all doom and gloom for Topware's controversial sequel. Believe it or not the engine that powers the game produces some of the best graphics I've seen in a PC title since Crysis. With everything maxed out at a respectable resolution Two Worlds 2 moves as fluid and looks as colorful as Crytek's masterpiece...if not better. Even the combat animations, as repetitive as they eventually become, look phenomenal and are worthy of mentioning in even the most critical review.
Coming in a close second to the visuals would be Two Worlds 2's well thought out weapon upgrading system which allows you to canabalize peices of unwanted equipment and then use them in the reforging or reconstruction of your currently equipped items. It sounds confusing but it's actually quite easy and with enough skill points invested in your crafting skills you can turn even a mundane weapon into a deadly implement of destruction just by fusing it with the equivalent of a few hundred broken down swords. Though it's powerful it stops just short of being easily abusive and doesn't become the exploitative process I thought it would be when I first heard about it.
Another impressive feature the sequel can hold over its forebear is the inclusion of new and more interesting quest lines. While the overall story isn't up to the standards set by its genre peers, the side quests shine unusually bright when compared to the previous game. Whether it's a 2 hour completely non-linear side quest involving a serial killer that ends in a Dragon Age style sex scene or a hunt for a teacher who sexually assaulted a student at a magical academy the side quests are rarely boring and sometimes quite provocative.
Unfortunately, other than the graphics and the occasional multi-path side quest there isn't much Two Worlds 2 does that is worthy of praise. I could cherry pick a few things such as the much improved horseback controls or the clever guitar hero-esque mini-game that you can make money from, but with such a small world to ride around in and such an over-abundance of gold these two features don't really make much of an impact on the overall gameplay.
What does affect gameplay would be a small landmass, shallow combat and a very weak skill set. Or the fact that the quest marker destinations are the same color (blue) as the markers for every NPC. Or the inability to put a cursor over containers which means you have to keep re-positioning yourself in order to get the prompt to open a treasure chest. Or the lack of an "auto dismantle" button that would automatically break down weapons that are non-magical and several levels below your current one. These are all things that do, unfortunately, greatly affect the gameplay.
Two Worlds 2 is an improvement over the first game, that much I won't deny, however the game as a whole is still lacking the variety, length, challenge, depth and the size of the world that I've grown accustomed to in my PC RPGs. While I understand European CRPGs aren't always polished I expected Topware to learn from their mistakes in the first game and go the extra mile in making sure their beleaguered IP would be taken more seriously by the genre's fans.
As it stands now Two Worlds 2 is a very lackluster, bland CRPG that would only be worth a buy if you could pick it up for 20 bucks or so. At full price it simply doesn't compete with its contemporaries and isn't the kind of title that a company can build a brand new IP upon. While I commend Topware for improving on the first game I condemn them for not going far enough.
I can only recommend Two Worlds 2 to European RPG fans that plan to only play this game's online mode and who also don't mind the game's simplistic skills and relatively effortless combat. If you're desperate for an action RPG and don't mind a lack of complexity then you could very well derive some enjoyment out of what is an otherwise unimpressive game.
Hopefully Two Worlds 3 continues the slow upward crawl in quality Topware has shown with this sequel. If so, they might find a bigger space reserved for them within the crowded RPG genre.