A bit of a letdown in comparison to the first, but it didn't hamper my enthusiasm to play it too much. Although it's considered a sequel thanks to recurring characters, it felt like a completely different story. I agree with some reviewers that the Magic Mirror was not initially a villain, he'd only punished the children because I assume they had broken him. To see him with a different personality was...kinda disappointing.
It would have worked much better if Tommy wanted to go into the worlds his mother spoke about so he'd have foolishly broken the mirror again or threatened it and the mirror retaliated by doing what he says although not promising that he'd be safe when he gets to the other worlds.
The main character this time has zero personality and zero dialogue; only descriptive narration to explain what you need to do and what things do.
They did up the ante with the hidden object scenes by rotating the items all over, in comparison to the first game which claimed that the object is exactly in the same position as on your list. They removed the 'place elsewhere' system which was what I felt made Mirror Mysteries a little more unique, and replaced it with your standard 'get one item to help you move on to the next place' reward that most HOGs contain.
There were also significantly less worlds (only 4) and the time you spend on the last two hardly qualifies as a 'world'. It felt like they invested all their energy into Sky World and none into the rest. Which is sad since you hardly stayed in any world to be honest. The voice actors for the NPCs all sounded like they had to go really bad so they rushed everything they needed to say.
There weren't a lot of puzzles and if there were, they were so simple you'd have finished in a minute or less. Some of the puzzles were entertaining though.
Overall, I still really liked the first one more. I wouldn't call this horrible, but it is a little bland and I do kinda wish it was a more standalone game now rather than a continuation. I hope that if they do make a third installment that they go back into the first game's formula and build it better instead of passing off the series as just another typical HOG. It's just as short as the first game with significantly less entertainment value so I don't think it's particularly worth the full price.
