So I was one of the few people who enjoyed the first game. Yep it had hilarious voice acting, but I don't care about that kind of thing anyway. I had some fun with it and completed the game.
I like the idea of action RPGs, but I just don't think any of them are good enough. Gothic, Elder Scrolls, Risen, etc, so I always hoped TW could become another bit of competition to try to make those others up their game. So I was excited about Two Worlds 2 but I got it when it was released and it was just too buggy to be worth playing. I don't even care about bugs either, but the pathing was so bad in this game, it made it unplayable. I would say about 30% of fights, the enemies would just stop moving and stop acting, even ranged mobs would stop. It wasn't playable. So I uninstalled and figured I would play it again after some patches. A year or so later I tried it again, got a bit further, the pathing problem was better but still happened sometimes, the main issue I had was that I only like to play these games as a mage, and the mage was just not fun. So I quit again. Another year later I tried it a third time, I wasted a lot of time trying to get SweetFX working to pimp out the graphics, and then as I started playing I remembered my previous attempt and I just lost motivation and quit yet again.
So years have gone by and I figured I would probably never play it, but I kept reading about the spell crafting system and I really wanted to see for myself what you could do with it, and I felt kinda guilty as someone who is obsessed with spell combat in RPGs, to not see such a landmark version of it. So long enough has passed now that I mostly forgot my previous attempts, and it has all the patches it is ever going to get, and a sequel is announced too, so now was the time to give it one last shot. I installed a mod called Worldmerge that combines the expansion and some multiplayer areas all into the main campaign. It wasn't the slickest of installs but it works.
This time I really gave the game as much patience as I could, and there is a lot about it that I like. But the only thing I really care about in these types of games, is the combat, and specifically the Mage combat. And again, it just isn't good. I persevered, being totally outmatched in every fight is actually fun in its own sort of masochistic way. I have to shoot 2 bolts of my spell at an enemy and then run like hell. Then shoot another, and run again, fighting with the crappy control system to keep one step ahead and kite these mobs around. And with multiple mobs, each one able to kill me with 1 hit, it means I often have to run away and let them reset after I have killed one, and then go back and repeat the whole Benny Hill process again. It was hard work but I was making progress, albeit slow. I finally reached the main world and started getting through the levels. At some point the magic system matures and you can start crafting spells. It is a decent system, but unless I am mistaken, it is very primitive and uninteresting and no way near as interesting as all the people I've seen comment on it make out.
You get 2 columns, the left one is the type of magic you want the spell to be, so you can put fire in there, ice, life, earth, etc. Then the right side you put the type of spell, so it can be a missile, a buff, an area spell, or summon a creature, and one or two other types like traps. But you have limited points (or cards) to put into these slots, so at first you can only make some basic spells. I had a spell that summons a pet, and another spell that shot a lightning bolt. Neither were very strong, but between those two I could make some gimpy progress. By level 10 ish, I could start using a second row on the spell making table thing. So I stuck with lightning in the left, and missile in the right, but now in the second row I use earth in the left, and summons in the right. There are also some modifiers that make it a homing or split or ricochet. So now I have a spell that shoots a lightning bolt, but it splits into several parts, then after each part does its bit of damage, each part will also summon a creature. So I went from getting constantly 1 shotted by bastard mobs and having to reload until I got my kiting dance down, to now where I can shoot this spell from a distance and watch as a several spiders or wolves appear and beat hell out of the mobs while I stand back and twiddle my thumbs. I'm now about 11 hours into the game, level 14 ish, and my spells are a strong now. My main spell is the damage spell that splits and spawns several monsters to fight for me, I use that in almost every fight. I also have an invisibility spell, so if I am fighting a large group, I can shoot my monster creating spell and then go invisible to stop stuff chasing me and ignoring my creatures. This is easy win now, create army of minions, go invis, and wait and watch. I also have a second spell that does damage again that splits several times, but each bolt then spawns a cloud of mist that blinds anything nearby. It is powerful as well. It sounds cool but the problem is that all I really do is stand back and keep clicking either of these spells over and over and it kills everything. For tough higher level boss enemies, I do have a third spell that instead of summoning lots of creatures, just summons one big strong one which seems to cope better.
For several hours I've had some fun with this and made a lot of progress through the world and the main quest, and done a lot of side quests too. But I am starting to get bored of the same routine. Army of creatures, go invis, watch them work. It was fun at first and nice to see the balance of power change from me almost constantly dying to me almost never dying, but it just isn't a very fun experience. Also besides the combat, there isn't much else to get excited about in this game. The quests are simple and not interesting, the world is very one dimensional almost entirely set in a savannah with no interesting locations, and the main problem is that the dungeons are especially bad, kind of like Oblivion.
But the main reason I play these games is for magic combat, and I really hoped this game would do enough, but my patience is mostly gone now. There are 60+ levels and I'm only 14 so it seems bad giving up so early, but I have thoroughly researched all the possibilities for the magic making, and it just isn't interesting. There are a few spells that I don't have (because I spent all my points on air and earth) like a Necromancy spell called Decay which makes the enemy take more damage. So if you combine that with a spell that does damage and it will boost the damage combined. At higher levels you can combine a third effect, so you shoot a bolt that splits several ways, several creatures spawn to fight for you, and several areas of mist appear to blind or weaken the enemy, and then you make it rain fire in that area and help finish stuff off too. It may sound fun but to me this just isn't interesting or deep enough to keep playing, especially when you compare it to an MMO where you have a hotbar full of spells that each work together in the same way only with more of everything, and you get them all a lot earlier too.
So I am thinking about quitting yet again, and it will be the last time. I gave it my best shot this time, I think 11 hours played time and 14 levels is pretty good, that took me almost a week after all. But I don't think the game is worth it. I wish they could build this series up in the future because I really want it to compete with the other games and I would like to play future games if they can improve on all this stuff, but for now it is not worth my time. That said, I said almost the exact same thing about Skyrim which no doubt had about 100 times the budget. So there's that... But next I'm going to try Dragons Dogma next. But I also have some MMOs installed and they are pretty hard to beat when it comes to action combat.
I like the idea of action RPGs, but I just don't think any of them are good enough. Gothic, Elder Scrolls, Risen, etc, so I always hoped TW could become another bit of competition to try to make those others up their game. So I was excited about Two Worlds 2 but I got it when it was released and it was just too buggy to be worth playing. I don't even care about bugs either, but the pathing was so bad in this game, it made it unplayable. I would say about 30% of fights, the enemies would just stop moving and stop acting, even ranged mobs would stop. It wasn't playable. So I uninstalled and figured I would play it again after some patches. A year or so later I tried it again, got a bit further, the pathing problem was better but still happened sometimes, the main issue I had was that I only like to play these games as a mage, and the mage was just not fun. So I quit again. Another year later I tried it a third time, I wasted a lot of time trying to get SweetFX working to pimp out the graphics, and then as I started playing I remembered my previous attempt and I just lost motivation and quit yet again.
So years have gone by and I figured I would probably never play it, but I kept reading about the spell crafting system and I really wanted to see for myself what you could do with it, and I felt kinda guilty as someone who is obsessed with spell combat in RPGs, to not see such a landmark version of it. So long enough has passed now that I mostly forgot my previous attempts, and it has all the patches it is ever going to get, and a sequel is announced too, so now was the time to give it one last shot. I installed a mod called Worldmerge that combines the expansion and some multiplayer areas all into the main campaign. It wasn't the slickest of installs but it works.
This time I really gave the game as much patience as I could, and there is a lot about it that I like. But the only thing I really care about in these types of games, is the combat, and specifically the Mage combat. And again, it just isn't good. I persevered, being totally outmatched in every fight is actually fun in its own sort of masochistic way. I have to shoot 2 bolts of my spell at an enemy and then run like hell. Then shoot another, and run again, fighting with the crappy control system to keep one step ahead and kite these mobs around. And with multiple mobs, each one able to kill me with 1 hit, it means I often have to run away and let them reset after I have killed one, and then go back and repeat the whole Benny Hill process again. It was hard work but I was making progress, albeit slow. I finally reached the main world and started getting through the levels. At some point the magic system matures and you can start crafting spells. It is a decent system, but unless I am mistaken, it is very primitive and uninteresting and no way near as interesting as all the people I've seen comment on it make out.
You get 2 columns, the left one is the type of magic you want the spell to be, so you can put fire in there, ice, life, earth, etc. Then the right side you put the type of spell, so it can be a missile, a buff, an area spell, or summon a creature, and one or two other types like traps. But you have limited points (or cards) to put into these slots, so at first you can only make some basic spells. I had a spell that summons a pet, and another spell that shot a lightning bolt. Neither were very strong, but between those two I could make some gimpy progress. By level 10 ish, I could start using a second row on the spell making table thing. So I stuck with lightning in the left, and missile in the right, but now in the second row I use earth in the left, and summons in the right. There are also some modifiers that make it a homing or split or ricochet. So now I have a spell that shoots a lightning bolt, but it splits into several parts, then after each part does its bit of damage, each part will also summon a creature. So I went from getting constantly 1 shotted by bastard mobs and having to reload until I got my kiting dance down, to now where I can shoot this spell from a distance and watch as a several spiders or wolves appear and beat hell out of the mobs while I stand back and twiddle my thumbs. I'm now about 11 hours into the game, level 14 ish, and my spells are a strong now. My main spell is the damage spell that splits and spawns several monsters to fight for me, I use that in almost every fight. I also have an invisibility spell, so if I am fighting a large group, I can shoot my monster creating spell and then go invisible to stop stuff chasing me and ignoring my creatures. This is easy win now, create army of minions, go invis, and wait and watch. I also have a second spell that does damage again that splits several times, but each bolt then spawns a cloud of mist that blinds anything nearby. It is powerful as well. It sounds cool but the problem is that all I really do is stand back and keep clicking either of these spells over and over and it kills everything. For tough higher level boss enemies, I do have a third spell that instead of summoning lots of creatures, just summons one big strong one which seems to cope better.
For several hours I've had some fun with this and made a lot of progress through the world and the main quest, and done a lot of side quests too. But I am starting to get bored of the same routine. Army of creatures, go invis, watch them work. It was fun at first and nice to see the balance of power change from me almost constantly dying to me almost never dying, but it just isn't a very fun experience. Also besides the combat, there isn't much else to get excited about in this game. The quests are simple and not interesting, the world is very one dimensional almost entirely set in a savannah with no interesting locations, and the main problem is that the dungeons are especially bad, kind of like Oblivion.
But the main reason I play these games is for magic combat, and I really hoped this game would do enough, but my patience is mostly gone now. There are 60+ levels and I'm only 14 so it seems bad giving up so early, but I have thoroughly researched all the possibilities for the magic making, and it just isn't interesting. There are a few spells that I don't have (because I spent all my points on air and earth) like a Necromancy spell called Decay which makes the enemy take more damage. So if you combine that with a spell that does damage and it will boost the damage combined. At higher levels you can combine a third effect, so you shoot a bolt that splits several ways, several creatures spawn to fight for you, and several areas of mist appear to blind or weaken the enemy, and then you make it rain fire in that area and help finish stuff off too. It may sound fun but to me this just isn't interesting or deep enough to keep playing, especially when you compare it to an MMO where you have a hotbar full of spells that each work together in the same way only with more of everything, and you get them all a lot earlier too.
So I am thinking about quitting yet again, and it will be the last time. I gave it my best shot this time, I think 11 hours played time and 14 levels is pretty good, that took me almost a week after all. But I don't think the game is worth it. I wish they could build this series up in the future because I really want it to compete with the other games and I would like to play future games if they can improve on all this stuff, but for now it is not worth my time. That said, I said almost the exact same thing about Skyrim which no doubt had about 100 times the budget. So there's that... But next I'm going to try Dragons Dogma next. But I also have some MMOs installed and they are pretty hard to beat when it comes to action combat.
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