Review by: Todd Brakke

Whether it ends up being for you or not, the most important thing to know about Two Worlds II is that it makes a bad first impression—a really, really bad one. The voice acting is distractingly awful; the controls take hours to get used to; it does very little to introduce you to its world and your place in it, which makes it all especially confusing given that this sequel picks up from where the first game left off. The role playing systems, with the exception of magic, aren't bad, but don't go anywhere especially interesting.

Although the first couple hours are largely tutorial, it's a poor teacher that demands you figure out a lot of things for yourself. Because the weakest aspects of the game are front and center right from the start, this is a challenging game to get into. If you can struggle through these early hours, however, you may get to a place where you get used to the slippery controls and find yourself getting into the world and some of the gameplay concepts. Maybe.

Two Worlds II places you in the role of an unnamed hero. At least, if he has a name, I haven't seen it. Prototypical villain type #36, also known as Gandohar, has captured you and your sister, Kyra. Your sister is imbued with mysterious mystical power #42 and Gandohar wants to use it to accomplish something evil. I'm honestly not sure what. As the game opens you are freed from imprisonment by a group of the few surviving members of the orc race and are tasked by mysterious horned lady with exposed belly button #12 with stopping Gandohar, freeing the lands over which he lords his power, and, of course, saving your sister.

Although the premise may sound cliché, the mark of a game with a good story isn't about having a novel premise, but how it goes about bringing that premise to life. In this, Two Worlds II both sinks and swims in various respects. The individual characters you meet throughout this largely open game world are all fairly stock cardboard cut outs. Occasionally a character stands out, but the vast majority exists to give you quests to fulfill before they'll be willing to help you. This is obviously not unheard of in a fantasy RPG setting, but this game takes it to the extreme.

You quite simply will never talk to someone related to any story or sub quest that doesn't first make you jump through a hoop or two or three. It gets old. That said, the game does have the capacity to surprise you. Every time you start to sink into a rut a quest runs in a genuinely interesting direction, or a character who initially looked flat displays a flash of depth. This is especially true when you start to track down the hidden history of the game's antagonist and the game starts to make you wonder just what success against Gandohar will cost your character.

There's also some interesting work done with some of the game's side mechanics. No, you don't play a game like this for the lock-picking system, but it's still one of the cooler systems put into a game. It effectively demands skill on the part of the player and lets you use skill points to make it easier to do successfully. The magic system, too, is actually quite innovative. It's a card-based system in which you combine spell card components into an amulet to achieve specific effects. It is difficult to get used to, but for those that want to go the mage route, as you learn the system and grow more powerful, you'll find a lot of room to be creative in making new spells for your character.