RHEM II SE: The Cave

RHEM II is a bit unique across the RHEM series, since most of the action happens underground. Thus it gives different feeling and tackles your imagination what else this world is hiding behind. Puzzles are more condensed compared to the first and game starts with easier ones. However, soon you start realizing that it is just beginning and certain doors just waiting to surprise. Quality of puzzles are consistent in all the series: challenging but logical and solvable, just lots of attention is required. In my opinion this part and the third part are the best in the series (however, RHEM III SE edition haven't been released yet) and they are really the good starting point if you are new to the game. Some also recommend drawing/using maps, yet navigation is definitely possible just using the head memory. Though notes, sketching and/or photos are necessary, unless you have exceptional memory. Personally, the new area also impressed me, up till now it was the best one IMHO between released SE editions. Eagerly waiting for RHEM III SE and really hope for the RHEM V as well :). Thank you Knut Müller.

I am a huge fan of Myst type point and click exploration/logic puzzle games and I appreciate the effort that went into this game. Wandering around an underground cavern solving arcane puzzles doesn't have wide appeal so again, thank you to Knut Müller for creating them back in the day and updating them with better technology. I have to admit that this chapter in the RHEM saga was much harder than the previous (RHEM I SE). Lots to keep track of, not as many helpful map segments, and it is a bit excessive when it comes to transposition and "mapping" puzzles. Having to view the back of a distribution panel and mirror the image to figure out how power gets from A to Z plus taking into consideration how a color of a conduit might change along the way tests even an enthusiast's resolve. The most frustrating for this player was the maze of rooms where one door opens and another closes. That was an exercise in graph theory and started to feel more like work than play. In fact, I abandoned the game for a bit because it just became too much work. But of course I came back... One other constructive criticism is that this game required noticing some icons in various places but didn't seem to have a helpful map of where they were like RHEM I did, so there is a chance the player might miss something - not a fan of that. I have no problem with hard puzzles that make sense but I believe it is needlessly frustrating to the player to have to look in the right place to see a required clue without any recourse. This game was definitely arcane - requiring the player to have incredible flashes of insight to connect seemingly unrelated clues. So recommended for lovers of the genre, but I don't think given its complexity that it will attract many newcomers. Unsolicited advice to Knut - consider adding in extra puzzles to provide additional hints, clues or maps to those who might be stuck.

READ FIRST: I've experienced what look like compatibility issues after playing this game (Windows 7 Home Premium x64). It's nothing major, just a lot of little annoyances... after I exit the game, I find all my desktop icons scrambled and dumped in the corner. I've also noticed I'm getting errors like "COM Surrogate has stopped working" randomly when I try to preview image files. There've been a few theme burps, too. All of this started after I first played RHEM 2 SE. No issues with RHEM 1 SE, I don't know what the problem is. If anyone has a solution, I'm all ears! That said, I'm bound and determined to finish the series (I'll just have to detox this thing later...) Graphics, sound, maneuvering all the same as the first game, i.e. waxing late 90s nostalgic, but the puzzles have a little more direction than the first and I'm enjoying this one more. Hope you remember your high school algebra, you're gonna need it! My biggest beef is with the weirdo video recordings, the voice sounds fake and out of sync. Not sure if it was a bug or a budget thing.

tl,dr: If you don't mind your games doubling as homework, RHEM II will delight and confound you for hours on end. If you like your puzzles a little breezier and more flexible, look elsewhere -- perhaps Myst, or its sequel Riven? That first bit wasn't hyperbole, by the way. I played RHEM II the way I got through math courses in college and high school: notes on hand, constantly recording information and making visual aids. I've got a 40-page document full of instructions and screenshots and even a map to prove it. And even with all that information, I still missed some important clues I had to go back for, and there was at least one puzzle towards the end I had to seek help for. That should really tell you everything you need to know about the game. I don't want to make RHEM II sound like a chore. Far from it. The game looks quite good, with a firmly established visual language whose tightly controlled environments you can spend hours just wandering through. That's always been a substantial draw of Myst clones for me -- that rich, tactile exploration where you seem to stumble across something important every few feet, before taking a mental note of it and continuing on your way to press even more buttons and flip even more switches.

Great game. Very similar to RHEM I, but this time the setting is below the surface. Clear recommendation for any puzzle enthusiast

Ich persönlich finde das Spiel im Vergleich mit anderen Logik-Games echt viel zu schwierig. Die Rätsel sind sehr mathematisch und häufig viel zu komplex und die Gedankengänge der Erschaffer nicht nachvollziehbar für einen "Normalmenschen" wie mich, der nicht täglich mit Zahlentabellen jongliert... Werde mir die anderen Teile definitiv nicht kaufen.

Très bon jeux ,comme j aime ,intelligent,sans violence,on se casse la tête,mais quel plaisir lorsque on réussit,

Contrary to popular opinion, I found Rhem 1 to be a better game than Rhem 2. Which does not mean that I didn't enjoy playing Rhem 2. =) I found Rhem 2 to be a bit uneven. Area 1 (where the game starts), is great. The puzzles are hard but doable, and the environment is interesting. The second area (the tower), which is also where you'll spend most of your time, is ... Well, I had lots of puzzles and no clues. Several of these puzzles rely on you being aware of your position in the game, relative to that puzzle. Other puzzles require you to observe something a bit random (like number of clicks). I also found the math puzzles to not really fit the game play. Whereas I could finish Rhem 1 without help, there's no way I could have finished Rhem 2 with at least a couple of hints. Towards the end of the game, I also had some minor problems with the game running on my Windows 10 pc. After a while, the sound would glitch (play for only for a second or so), and then finally, the game would freeze, and I would have to restart.

I am going to keep this short. Rhem II is simply the best puzzle adventure game of all times. Beating it without a walkthrough yields a satisfaction that can't be matched with any other game (yes even the entries from Myst series, including the legendary Riven). If you like solving puzzles that require out of the box thinking and mind-bending spatial awareness, waste no time and buy this game. Knut Mueller is a genius (the other games in the series is also almost as good as this one) and I am really hoping that we will get a Rhem V one day.

heel leuk spel, mooi gemaakt, wel moeilijk soms om de bedoeling te achterhalen. Af en toe een walkthrough moeten raadplegen.