I am an RPG dork, it’s a fact. I’ve spent over 180 hours in Dragon Age: Origins, over 220 hours in Final Fantasy XIII, and a retarded amount of time in countless other RPG’s in my lifetime. If you look at the games I own, more than half of them are RPGs, and if you were to look at a list of my top 10 favorite games ever made, I can bet money at least half of the list would be role playing games. That being said, Two Worlds II is quite often being compared to another huge RPG of the past: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In a lot of ways, I can say this is a fair comparison, but Two Worlds II managed to do something Oblivion could never do: Keep me playing.
Can we get a werebeast? Can we? With a hat?! Oh right, review going on here. Sorry.
While Oblivion did a lot of things right in regards to an open world that feels alive and massive, the gameplay left a lot to be desired and I personally had a lot of issues with the way the hit boxes worked, and would often find myself missing arrow shots that went directly into an enemy’s chest. This caused a lot of frustration for me and I wound up quitting after a short period of time. With Two Worlds II, it starts off a lot like Oblivion does, so I was afraid that I’d fall into the same conundrum. Luckily for me, I found a game that is truly far superior to its original, as well as the mighty Oblivion itself. Though to be fair, don’t compare this game to Oblivion, because it plays more like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - but unlike that game, it’s actually good.
Two Worlds 1 was, for lack of a better term, horrendous. Everything about it was bad. With Two Worlds II they’ve learned from their previous mistakes and developed a surprisingly deep game that sort of brings together everything you like about other entries in the fantasy genre together. While playing, I found elements that reminded me of Oblivion, Fable II, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, and several other RPGs that I loved in the past.
Don’t get me wrong, TW2 has some issues. For example: The voice acting is laugh out loud horrible. I passed a lady with an obvious accent, and I’m not exactly sure where Antaloor is, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near Wisconsin. The plus side to this is that Two Worlds II wears a clever disguise, and delivers a somewhat typical “save the world” storyline without taking itself very seriously. For me, this fills the game with personality and charm.
What a badass. At the Gay Bar Gay Bar Gay Bar WAAAAAOOOAOOWWWW!
The graphics aren’t the cleanest in the world, but they are damn pretty. I often found myself swiveling the camera around just to look at what was around me. The details were quite intricate, even if the edges weren’t always super smooth. I really liked the look of enchantments on weapons as well. Having frost on my bow made my arrow shoot with an almost dark swirling mist around them. That rocked, even if my Ranger looked like a bouncer at a gay bar. Combining that with the ability to shoot 8 arrows at a time, it was apparent that the club truly could not handle me, and my Ranger went on a non-stop 45 minute rape fest. So awesome it should be in every game.
The combat is pretty good, but again, quirky. The animations are often kind of clunky and feel funny, but they do actually land. One of my biggest peeves in any game is to see my sword strike someone and they are unaffected. The biggest problem I had with playing a Ranger was trying to get my bow drawn and holding down my aim trigger which would throw me into a melee attack with the bow instead of drawing an arrow. Not a big deal, just a bit of a weird timing issue. Other than headshots still winding up hitting the mobs in the chest/back, I really had no complains about the combat; it’s solid.
Perhaps the best thing about Two Worlds II is the crafting. You can make all sorts of potions from the random stuff you pick up, and there are a lot of wild cards you can throw in the mix to change the outcome of the potion completely. TW2 has one of the best spell crafting ideas I’ve ever seen in a RPG. You can choose your element, choose the spell type, and then choose modifiers to increase/supplement the effects. This is one of the best customization options I’ve seen in a very long time. You can even save your custom spell and give it whatever name you like. This means that you’re more than welcome to name your heat sinking missile-type fire blast spell “The Assblaster”.
Overall, Two Worlds II is everything you’d want from an open world, endless exploration world type of game. The map is huge and there’s enough here to keep you busy for quite some time. Add that with a separate online multiplayer character for dueling and questing, and you’ve got yourself a pretty badass contender in the realm of soul sucking RPGs. This game is a lot of fun and is very easy to get lost in, coming back hours later going “wait, I just loaded this to upgrade my sword.” If you’re looking for a game to get lost in, or at least something to hold you over until Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim comes out, look no further. The quirkiness of this game gives it its charm and at first glance it might seem buggy or funny, but I promise you the reward is worth it once you get the hang of things. It’s not as awkward as it might feel, it just takes time to get used to. This is an excellent RPG and should not be overlooked by any RPG fans.
