Two Worlds II HD

I played both games back2back. I enjoyed TW1 and was expecting TW2 to be same but better. Unofrtunately I found TW2 to be mostly worse. [b]The Good:[/b] - The spell crafting system is really interesting and makes the game worth checking out just for the Magic part alone. - Eventhough the main character sounds bored and uninvolved, he's demeanor had me chuckle most of the time. He reminds me of the Gothic guy. - Convenient fast travel system right from the start of the game. - The character runs fast, so moving around the areas is quick. - During more complex quests, you often get a choice to be a "good" person, by investigating further, getting to the bottom of things and unraveling secrets, or be a total jerk and kill the NPC while the main character literally says something like "Yeah, I don't really care. Die." I found these moments to be funny, unusual and a relieving, - Respeccing your character is easy and cheep. [b]The Bad:[/b] - The plot and delivery of the story seems disconnected. I sometimes found that people were talking about things which were new to me, in a manner as if I already know about it. (e.g. The Swallow, the Sarcophagus, the Verita) - I found the ending and the plot twist to be abrupt and rushed. Multiple things happened without a proper build up, which also lead to a bunch of plot holes. - The melee combat is floaty, with input dealy, sometimes unresponsive. Some animations are overthetop weird and don`t fit the weapon that you are fighting with. Especially the heavier weapons like maces have a bizzare moveset that looks more fitting for a very light and nimble weapon. - The screenshots to the game show a variety of armors and weapons, but eventhough I did 80% of the quests, I finished the game at level 40 and never saw many of these items. - Selling items for money is not worth it in this game, instead you break gear down and use the part to upgrade other items. It sounds like a decent system but it has issues. You have to constantly break down tons of loot, one by one. In addition, some parts (like chainmail) is quite rare for some reason, so eventhough you have tons of other materials, you cant upgrade some items because you dont get enough of chainmail. - This is kinda an open world game. New parts of the map unlock as you progress the main plot. But the issue is that there is nothing to explore. 99% of the caves and dungeons that I found were part of a quest, which means that if you dont have the quest yet, you sometimes cant even access it. The door to the dungeon will be locked. This takes away any reason to explore anything at all. - I barely explored the last island, because I couldnt find a reason for it. My character was powerfull enough to beat the remainder of the game, and exploration is pointless in this game. - Most caves and dungeons use the same assets. They look almost identical. - The boat is kinda cool, but the wind mechanic is more an annoyance than something that I could find to be interesting. In the end, I don't think I can recommend TW2 for the most people. If you really like magic in games, and want to check out the spell crafting system, I would get this game on a discount. And also TW1, I found the first game to be more fun.

I have enjoyed playing this game and I will probably continue to play it occasionally. It is easy to get lost in the game if you like RPGs. It is not easy to recommend it, though. Getting lost in the game feels more like hyper-focusing on a work task than having a good time. Its loot & progression systems keep you engaged (not necessarily having fun, though), while the actual world is disorienting because of its poor execution. There is a constant weird feeling while playing this game because the world feels only half-complete, like it is in pre-alpha. There are villages which are referenced by NPCs which are just completely 100% empty and there are war parties casually sitting outside the homes of unbothered NPCs. This is made worse by the really low quality voice acting, subtitles which have never seen an editor, and embarrassingly bad sound mixing -- some NPCs you can barely hear and you turn up your volume, then another NPC has their sound maxxed out. There are also a lot of quests you do which feel really bizarre because they don't have NPCs or voice acting (the bulletin board quests). They don't feel like real quests as a result, but like half-finished, rushed, filler content. It becomes difficult to find the world immersive & believable when it feels like you can see the development process more than the fantasy. This is even more stark because the events happening in-game are just not really all that compelling. Something about this whole game feels really "off". For the PC version specifically, the menu system is really bad. It is obviously designed for controllers. The inventory system is not as bad, but still very lackluster. The upgrade system is, in my opinion, a failure of design. I understand what they were going for, wanting to make the system from the first game more versatile, but it just doesn't work that well. It DOES keep you engaged with the game, but it is not necessarily "fun". You have to loot absolutely everything you ever find and dismantle it, so the experience is very menu-heavy. And it is worse because of the frustrating way looting is designed -- you have to sheathe your weapon & then watch a short animation play every time you loot, and you have to click each item individually to loot it, and then manually right-click every looted item to dismantle. Because of the sheathing system, it is most time efficient to use a polearm, since they are not sheathed, which is an odd kind of incentive to favor using a certain weapon system. This is all necessary because of the upgrade system's design. I can't help but feel like the first game's system was a better version of this, as it still incentivized upgrading, but did not incentivize this level of inventory micromanagement. On that note, I think this game is a poor successor to the first game. I played these games when they originally came out and Two Worlds II was always a disappointment to me as I was obsessed with the first Two Worlds as a kid. The first game was also a weird, janky, half-finished mess... but it was also really charming. The second entry, I think, tried to be a bit more serious with itself and ended up being a weird, janky, half-finished mess also, but this time, with no charm. And that's the real shame of this game. It is still much more playable nowadays than the first game because its graphics are significantly better and the combat & controls are much smoother, but it turns out to be a less fulfilling experience. I really wish that this game had built upon the work of the first game rather than trying to completely reinvent itself & compete with more modern titles... It is also worth mentioning that this game starts like a sequel and assumes that the player knows the events happening in the world... The problem is, the game heavily redesigned the story & universe from the first game... so new players & returning players both feel confused. Which is just really weird from a design standpoint. EDIT: I should also mention that the intro is way too long, incredibly boring, and the characters break immersion by trying to tell you about game mechanics with voice acting. It only starts to become enjoyable maybe an hour after you get off tutorial island... but it also doesn't stay enjoyable for long enough. I have never actually finished the game. I usually get exhausted by it a little before or after New Ashos and stop playing. SUMMARY: The game can be described as confusing, disorienting, unfinished, poorly designed, poorly executed... but strangely engaging. I think this game remains a relevant & worthwhile RPG not because of its merits, but because of the lack of competition. There are few games which attempt something similar. So, it is likely to be worth a try if you are a big enough fan of RPGs, but it definitely feels wrong to give it a positive score. I still hope that more games of this style are attempted in the future, though.

One step forwards and two steps back... From technical standpoint, this game is massive improvement over Two worlds 1. From every other aspect, it's significantly worse. Magic is improved and actually fun. Ranged combat is atrocious. There's auto-aim you can disable. And auto-aim you can't. For whatever reason, the one you can't disable always targets enemy towards their head. What ends up happening is if enemy is moving in any direction other than towards or away from player, you'll miss 100% of the shots. This can't be avoided since game auto-targets. Magic allows tons of variety and is really well done. Melee combat is worse than in TW1. For whatever reason, they removed backstep button. It kinda exists on space button, but more often than not, it just jumps instead of backstepping. Otherwise melee damage is pathetic compared to any form of magic, and unless using polearms, finicky as heck. Story is terrible. It uses evil ending from TW1 as canon (kinda) and that would be bad, except protagonist acts completely different, main villain does not exist in the story at all until final confrontation (avoiding spoilers), no one has any character development and quests just are. Open world is massive step back. Gone are numerous villages with smaller and larger quests, factions with quests linked to overall world. Factions might as well not exist now. It's all the same. Pick quests from notice board, read letter, finish them, get faction points that reduce their shop price. No characters representing factions, no faction storylines (factions being at sort of war in TW1), nothing. Just letter, go to location, kill enemies, finished quest. And speaking of open world. It's actually deceptively small. 75% of the map is water with nothing on it. Out of remaining 25%, 50% of land mass is empty or, literally, unavailable. Last chapter starts, I try to explore massive land mass in area where final quest is due to happen, get immediately yoinked back by loading screen "you lost your way. Remain on your path". Act 1 is large area with some exploration and basically no secrets. All dungeons are locked until you get quest for them. Act 2 is similar, but kind of becomes empty near the end. Act 3 is small area with only few quests and nothing to it. Act 4 is VERY small area with nothing in it. Sailing is pointless. I went to 5 different islands. They had....NOTHING on them. OK, that's a lie. They had 2-3 plants each. Colossal waste of time. Item crafting took a step back. While in TW1 you could stack same weapon and you could swap weapons up until very end of the game if you liked the mechanic, in TW2 you get higher tier weapon every few levels you can upgrade a bit. Yay for generic instead of unique. Overall, I finished it (after probably worst end boss fight I've played through in years). Sorry, on final boss fight. You skills DO NOT matter. It's set piece. You have ballistas to fight enemy and dodge their attacks when they're firing at you. That's it. That's the boss fight. Anyway, finished the game, still remember some quests from Act 1 (the good part of the game), but after that everything is just...bad. What a waste of time.

I played several hours of this when I got it and bounced off. It's been a while and I was going to give it another try but I was told I have to to activate by giving my personal information. What the heck is that? I bought this game I didn't have to put my information in or I would have refunded it. I played a character but if I choose not to activate I'm put in to demo mode which will not allow me to continue my game "Not available in demo mode". This is pretty crappy. Greed in this world is already bad enough but you want my personal information so you can sell it probably. You say it's confidential but I don't believe you. Why do you need my address and phone number? Are you going to call me to arrange the BBQ and you want to confirm my address? Please, I'm so sick of this crap, don't buy this game.

The second game is so much worse than the first one. I had fun playing the first one to completion in 2024, but I can't stomach to play the second one even past the prologue. My rating 3/10, not recommended.

Is this game "Fun"? Yes. Should you buy and play this old game in 2025? Maybe. It's got good and bad parts. Bad: The UI is not very polished/streamlined. Looting a corpse requires too much button clicking to the point where it's not really worth the effort. The movement and camera controls are janky. The graphics renderer causes noticeable LOD popping and mesh tearing in the distance. The voice acting does not synch with the lips, and its delivered a bit flat. The story and dialogue is mediocre writing, you just want to skip through it asap. The monster AI is really basic. Pathfinding often causes it to get stuck. Good: The spell crafting system is unique and interesting. It's the main reason I picked this up. You craft your own spells based on an entity component system, with effects, carriers, and chains, allowing you to create weird spell combos. The body animations are pretty well done. The lighting is half decent. Environment foliage looks good, but dated. In 2025, there are better, less janky games to play. But if you want a blast from the past retro gaming moment, or to study some novel RPG game mechanics, it's worth looking into.

Игра сама по себе довольно не плоха. Продуманная система прокачки персонажа, просто изобилие разнообразного оружия, доспехов и прочего, кстати говоря, система прокачки вот этого всего вышеперечисленного - оружия и прочего тоже своего рода заманчивая. Понравилась...

Two Worlds II это реально недооценённая RPG, у которой гораздо больше сильных сторон, чем обычно вспоминают. Первое, что цепляет огромный и разнообразный мир. Он не просто большой для галочки а действительно интересный для исследования. Почти в каждой локации можно найти что-то: скрытые квесты, неожиданные встречи, тайники или просто красивые виды. Есть ощущение приключения, когда ты не бежишь по маркеру, а реально открываешь мир сам. Очень сильная сторона игры атмосфера. Фэнтези здесь не стерильное и не вылизанное, а более живое и местами грубоватое, но от этого только более запоминающееся. Музыка и окружение хорошо дополняют ощущение путешествия. Отдельно стоит магия одна из самых интересных систем в жанре. Возможность комбинировать заклинания и создавать свои варианты даёт огромное поле для экспериментов. Иногда можно собрать настолько мощные или необычные спеллы, что чувствуешь себя реально сильным магом, а не просто персонажем с готовыми навыками. Квесты тоже часто приятно удивляют: есть простые задания, но встречаются и более длинные, с несколькими этапами, выбором и неожиданными поворотами. Игра не всегда ведёт за руку, и это делает процесс более живым. Бои, если к ним привыкнуть, даёт хороший ритм особенно когда уже понимаешь врагов и начинаешь использовать магию и тактику осознанно. Тогда сражения становятся довольно увлекательными. И в целом у игры есть важное качество она даёт свободу. Хочешь исследовать исследуешь. Хочешь качать мага качаешь мага. Хочешь просто идти вперёд по сюжету тоже можно. Если коротко: Two Worlds II это игра не про идеальную полировку, а про атмосферу, свободу и удовольствие от самого путешествия. И вот в этом она реально сильная.