Two Worlds

"Yet Another Average Roleplaying Game"

Graphics: 9/10 Great

The Game is beautiful, to say the least. Everything looks as it should and looks really great. I docked it to a nine because a few of the creatures are somewhat blocky and because the HDR is too intense, even at lower settings. Especially when walking on sand in sunlight, which was poorly done.



Sound: 6/10 Above Average

The music is acceptable and doesn't get in the way of the game. Nothing exceptional about it, though. There are, however, quite a few sound effects which sound awful, such as the bears and a few other creatures which don't sound at all as they should.

I am balling up the voice acting into this category, which I have to spend a moment on. It really sounds like they pulled together a high school drama team... no, a mentally challenged high school drama team to read the lines for these characters. The writing is bad enough, when you don't have a bunch of mongoloid children trying to generate some meaningful inflection. They're plainly awful, and make me want to turn the sound off when I'm not laughing at the game.



Gameplay: 5/10 Good in some aspects, but broken in most:

Let me start out by saying that: the character development in this game is NOT broad! I'm not sure how everyone lost their standards when they turned this game on, but the creators as well as all of the positive reviews toted an expansive character creation system, for which there is not one. Aesthetically, you have very close to no options as to what your character will be like. Now, so far as skills are concerned, you can be a mage, archer, or a warrior.... or some combination therein. This gives you seven different options in mixing and matching the three types. Of course, there are 5 different spells groups each containing 14 spells, but there are all so extraordinarily similar that there is little point in differentiating. There are almost no skills for archers and warriors... each having 4-5 passive and 4-5 active skills. At the end of the game, the most impressive skills you have at your command are ones in which you stand in place and swing your sword or fire your bow, and a few bolt spells. Overall, there's little point in specializing in anything but spells and passive skills.... yawn.

So tell me, how is this an expansive character development system?

Then you have the equipment system, which is completely broken. I say broken because it is LAUGHABLY easy to become unstoppable with only mid-range weapons. I leveled up a little, got a combat spear, and just continued to stack it with more of itself and spirit gems, which in the end I was pumping out more spirit damage than anything else. This covered me for a LARGE portion of the game. I was capable of killing enemies in two hits that were capable of killing me in one before they could even touch me. Then by the time things got too tough I simply upgraded to a new weapon and pumped it full of the 300% worth of damage lightning gems I had collected. Rinse and repeat.

Additionally, later towns simply have a larger number of the same types of merchants carrying the same things, so there is no point in going to any merchants beyond the first town, which completely made me apathetic about exploring. Why should I be excited to get to the next town when the first town will have everything I need as I level?

And finally.... how can you all have fun KILLING THE SAME FIVE ENEMIES OVER AND OVER?

The majority of the upper half of the map is simply killing HUNDREDS of wolves... over and over and over, with a few goblins and bandits in between. The bottom half is wyverns, over and over and over, with some raptors, giant spiders, and scorpions... then more bandits and goblins in between. I'm not sure why this was supposed to be fun... because it wasn't.



Story, Plot and Quests: 3/10 Not bad at first, but VERY poorly executed.

Save you sister who has been kidnapped and stop the evil organization from releasing the God of the Orcs. In between a few people have plans of betrayal and things turn out as you might expect them to. Not a bad plot, but it was not put together well at the seams.

To start with... the WRITING IS BAD BAD BAD! Forsooth! Pray tell why doth you use thy poor middle english?! The use of middle english was HEAVILY overdone... and it really made me wonder why it was done in the first place. Additionally, nobody has anything to say to you beyond telling you what you should do, and your character has nothing to say beyond yes or no. There isn't a single character in the game that actually has any character.

"Hey you... help me from those bandits!"
"Pray tell why I shouldst help you from those bandits?!"
"I will reward you well!"
"Ok...."

Rinse and Repeat........


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Pros:
-Lot's of places to go.
-Beautiful graphics.
-A lot of standard RPG fanfare.

Con's:
-Why go to all the places if there's hardly anything unique?
-Very little choices to make with your character.
-Horrible writing, acting, and questing.
-Several broken systems that make the game laughably easy.



Overall: 5/10 Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/11/07

Game Release: Two Worlds (US, 08/23/07)