[h1][i]“It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them!”[/i]
~Obi-Wan Kenobi[/h1]
Runaway: A Road Adventure was anything but perfect. It was cringey at times, it suffered from some terrible pixel hunting, etc. Yet, it was the right game at the right time. Together with some others (like Benoît Sokal's Syberia, for example), it was one of those games that gave the point-and-click genre support in a time of decline. It was nothing like what Nintendo did after the infamous video game crash of 1983, of course, but still, it was one of those games that helped the genre survive. It was pretty stylish, it had an interesting narrative (for a European point-and-click adventure, that is), it looked good, and it had exclusive songs with vocals (a rare thing to see back in the day). Like I said, it was a thing. And when there's a thing? A sequel is inevitable. So, ladies, gentlemen, and all the others, please welcome Runaway 2. I mean, Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle.
And you know what? The intro looks promising. It's stylish, it comes with a new song (no famous singers, though; I wasn't even able to find out who Ryk-C is), and it feels exactly like what we all expected from a Runaway sequel. I mean, come on. The original Runaway, despite all of its flaws, was very movie-like. Heck, it was actually inspired by certain names. It was, like, the game's most powerful trait. Together with a certain amount of quality, it was something that put the original Runaway above the other European adventures that mostly aimed for quick money and didn't care about such stuff. That's what we all wanted from Runaway 2. Guess what it did? It joined “The Dark Side of the Force.”
I mean, that's it. Runaway 2 is one of those European adventures that some of us fans call “the genre rot.” You know, when the genre's in such a bad shape that no major companies really care to produce quality stuff and only small ones produce games for a quick money grab. What about indies, you may ask? Well, that's another problem. It was still the early 2000s, and the indie scene wasn't nearly as strong as it is today. With no easily accessible engines that were really worth working with (like Unity, for example) and no real demand or support, it was only starting to take form. Dave Gilbert, for example, had just dropped the very first game (as long as we don't count Bestowers of Eternity) in his Blackwell series. So, with nothing else on the market, the old fans had no other choice but to play second-grade stuff like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None. But OK, I keep calling those games bad, but what was wrong with them exactly? Well, Runaway 2 is a nice example of that.
What's funny is that lots of the crimes it committed were already present in the first game. All Pendulo really needed to do was learn from their previous mistakes. They didn't. Instead, they made new ones. Let's start with the dialogues. Let's just admit it: everybody hates those in these kinds of games (even when there are famous actors like Duke Nukem himself, Jon St. John here). The point-and-click genre is built around exactly that—pointing and clicking. And the dopamine comes at the moment when you pick up the right item and put it on the right spot. Combining items included. Dialogues? Those kinda make everything vague for no real reason, aside from adding unfair difficulty. Which was kind of a thing in the pre-Internet time, when people wasted days and weeks trying to figure things out in order to brag to their friends, but quickly became a buzzkill when walkthroughs became easily accessible (wasting days on painfully confusing things was no fun anymore because there were no real-life rewards for it). And Runaway 2? It's, like, dialogue hell. You'll need dialogues to progress (there's even a part where you'll walk from one NPC to another multiple times); very often, our dude Brian will need to [i]know[/i] what to do before such options become available... That's right: the infamous “you can't use this on that because your character doesn't know that such stuff is possible or needed.” And there are, like, [i]tons[/i] of dialogues. And all of them are stupid. Screw that.
Talking about stupid stuff—that's another problem with European (post-soviet too) adventures from that period. The thing is, such games rarely (if ever) took themselves seriously. That's why the first Runaway stood out. It’s not like it wasn't cheesy at times, and yes, it was heavily comedic, but it did take itself seriously, if that makes sense to you. Runaway 2? It's just a bunch of “LOL, we don't care!” stuff tossed together. And it's so-o-o cliché! It's the same exact European thing copy-pasted from, like, every second adventure out there. Witch doctors, stoners, aliens, racist jokes... Eugh. Which is rather sad, since the main concept (and yes, there [i]is[/i] a concept here) suggests a certain amount of depth. You know how in, say, the Vaishnava tradition, the entire universe is seen as a "dream" manifested by Lord Vishnu during his cosmic slumber? The writer of Runaway 2 tried to play with the idea. Unfortunately... OK, you ever had a stoner friend? The one who, after a couple of YouTube videos, started to explain the universe to you? And you're like, “Dude, stop smoking so much!” I'm not trying to say anything about Josué Monchan (the lead writer), but that's how his work feels. And yes, this game has a different writer (the first Runaway had not one, but three: Ramón Hernáez, Rafael Latiegui Antón, and Felipe Gómez Pinilla).
Also, yes: pixel hunting is a b*tch. It was also a problem with the first game, but here it's even worse. Thanks to how dialogues and other factors keep inventing the rules on the fly without letting you know, it feels especially bad. Again, a healthy amount of pixel hunting is good for your dopamine (in my opinion at least), but honestly, this here is a nice example of how sometimes hotspot highlighting can be a good thing. And there's no excuse for not having it here. I mean, Simon the Sorcerer II happened more than ten years before Runaway 2. And the first Runaway clearly showed that pixel hunting there is a problem. Every single review complained about it. But no, Runaway 2 didn't care. At least in both of its major forms: the PC version and the Wii port (which added some sort of a hint system, in which a Jar Jar-like character named Joshua will tell you things like “cards usually belong in slots”). Cyanide (yes, [i]that[/i] Cyanide who made Styx and Call of Cthulhu) did add hotspot highlighting in their port for the Nintendo DS, but mostly because they didn't have a choice—the game is completely unplayable on the DS without it (and even with it, it's not really a nice experience thanks to how hard it is to see a thing).
[i]Anyway[/i], the tragedy of Runaway 2 is that it pretty much destroyed everything that used to make the first one good and became “yet another one of those.” Take any European (or post-soviet) adventure from that time period and that'll be it. Heck, if anything, some of those actually did better. So Blonde, for example, while having a similar approach, felt much smoother and even threw in extra content (mini-games) in the Wii and DS ports (something that Runaway 2 didn't).
So, what's the verdict? Is it worth getting back to this game nowadays? My answer is no. Not a single reason. The genre's doing great with indies today, with most of such games being heavily conceptual. Low budget? Sure. But still heavily conceptual. And it's not like there's a lack of those. You want a good game? Aim for those. As for Runaway 2? Well, it's playable (may require dgVoodoo2 on modern systems, though), but like I said, it's “one of those.” And when it's about “those,” it doesn't really matter which game you pick up—Runaway 2 or, say, Mozart: The Conspirators of Prague. It was said that Runaway 2 would destroy crappy European adventures. Instead, it joined them.
