Sylvio 2

A very slow-going and somber experience, but I enjoyed it. I may be a bit biased because ghosts, spirit photography, and electronic voice phenomena fascinate me, so being able to play a game centered around that was very exciting! Some folks may not appreciate how much the game seems to hold your hand by marking everywhere you have to go with white dots, but I don't actually mind it. I feel like it gave me the opportunity to really soak in the unsettling atmosphere and the unnerving discoveries without worrying about navigating my way through the underground labyrinths. It might have been nice if players had the option to disable this feature in the options, but I don't think it detracted from my experience with the game. I do wish there was a bit more color because I could only stand so much monochrome before feeling a bit bored of the scenery. If each location had its own saturated color scheme, rather than sharing the same black-and-white palette, that probably would have helped. Although this game is a sequel, it felt like a stand-alone story. And as someone who hasn't played the first Sylvio, I appreciate that! I'm not totally sure that I'd play it again, at least not any time soon, but it was definitely a memorable experience.

really unfortunate - my understanding is that this is the result of Sylvio 2's kickstarter failing. if you loved the first Sylvio (as is the correct feeling to have), save yourself the heartache and pretend this never came out. the sequel is decidedly Okay outside of its absolutely bizarre setting that hinges on 2's really not-quite-landed ending. (why Sylvio needed to become about aliens when it already had an infinitely-fascinating world of paranormal shenanigans to explore will always elude me)

Disappointing. The original Sylvio was flawed, yes, but it was full of unique ideas and unsettling moments with a beautiful soundtrack. It’s one of the scariest games I’ve ever played, not because of jumpscares but because of its atmosphere. But unfortunately, Sylvio 2 basically throws it all out the window. The puzzles have been completely removed, as have the enemies. And instead of searching for EVPs, you get a dot showing you where to go. So the game went from searching for EVPs, solving puzzles and trying to figure out what’s going on to go here, listen, go here, listen, go here, listen, okay, good, next section. The story feels more like 7 different stories wrapped up into one. I know they were going for more of an anthology style, with every location having its own separate story but the levels were so short that it barely mattered. The original overarching story seems like it barely matters. There’s barely any reference to the first game’s story, except for a couple words at the beginning. There are some good points. There are several points in the game where I could feel my skin crawling and had to pause. There’s a moment near the end of the game that uses the Spectrogram AMAZINGLY. It honestly scared me near to death. But a few moments don’t make up for the strung-together story. And the ENDING, Jesus. Until the ending, I was holding out hope. I didn’t think the game was so bad, it definitely had its moments that made my heart race but then the ending comes out of nowhere and honestly? It ruined the whole game. [spoiler]You finish the game, finding out that Jonathan and Captain Walters are dead and you’re in this really emotional moment. Juliette’s dead boyfriend tells her how much he loves her as she escapes the light house.[/spoiler] [spoiler]AND THEN THERE IS A UFO?? AND ALIENS?? AND IT TAKES YOU AWAY AND BADLY EXPLAINS THE STORY OF THE GAME IN A COUPLE SENTENCES?? APPARENTLY ALL THE HUMANS ON EARTH ARE DEAD BECAUSE IT’S 175 YEARS IN THE FUTURE NOW??[/spoiler] The ending felt more like they had no idea how to finish the game and instead, just slapped together whatever they had. And I know, people are probably thinking ‘Well, at least it was explained??’ but a poor explanation is far worse than NO explanation. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs and instead of getting to the next landing, you get hit in the face with a bat and fall down the stairs. On the technical side, the game is full of bugs and glitches. Some of the little terrain is unfinished and it’s easy to glitch out of the world. You can get hard-locked out of a save due to a bug involving the game’s main mechanic, video scrubbing. If you leave without finding all the voices in a video clip, when you reload the save, you will find the same recordings again and you will not be able to find any more. You will be locked out and have to start a new save. If you don’t complete the tutorial in the exact way they intended, the game will soft-lock and force you to restart. Don’t buy it. Pretend that Sylvio never had a sequel and you’ll be fine.

Terrible graphics I cannot believe this came out in 2017 the controls are not much better either.

I don't hate the game, far from it, but boy is it rough. The game play is actually pretty good, but the ending was so strange that it is a hard sell. I am interested in seeing what the next installment will bring to the table though.

Buen ASMR