If you've seen my backloggd profile or know me any amount, you would know that The Talos Principle is my favorite game of all time. A game that's fundamentally changed the way I interact with this medium and also just, changed my life in general honestly, so to say I was excited at the prospect of a sequel is an understatement.
The common throughline for me is that most of the game just feels underbaked. Doesn't feel like enough is given the time of day to shine, and just when it starts to get nearly close to as good as the first game, it's basically over. The gold door puzzles are without a doubt the best 12 levels in the game, which sucks because the final level is just as underdeveloped as the rest of the game is. Having one gimmick per area doesn't really allow for any of them to develop nearly as much as the 5 gimmicks of the main game, leading to worlds that all feel like tutorials for the new gimmick and nothing more.
The stars are almost completely neutered, with maybe 2 of them capturing the same feeling as the original stars in interacting with the world as much as I can in order to solve a macro scaled puzzle that leads me to the star. The prometheus and sphinx stars are especially weak, considering the former are all chase sequences and the latter being extremely bare bones find and interact a little thingy to get the star.
The story, while still good in its own right, doesn't come nearly as close to as good as the first game. Where the original had its told almost entirely through subtext, with the more juicy and frankly important elements all being essentially optional, this game does the opposite and pushes it as much as possible, to where it's the central focus of the game, which doesn't work nearly as well. The overwhelming mass of characters feels painfully unnecessary, especially when only like 2 of them actually matter in the end, with the rest only existing to exist and throw occasional quips at you (although I do like how each character does have their own political viewpoints and that its cool to see how each character interprets the current situation and what they think makes sense as a next move).
Overall, I really expected more than what was received, which in all fairness is partly my fault. Going in with the expectation of a game being the sequel to my literal favorite game is too high, but too much here feels like they're desperately trying to fix something that wasn't ever broken.
The common throughline for me is that most of the game just feels underbaked. Doesn't feel like enough is given the time of day to shine, and just when it starts to get nearly close to as good as the first game, it's basically over. The gold door puzzles are without a doubt the best 12 levels in the game, which sucks because the final level is just as underdeveloped as the rest of the game is. Having one gimmick per area doesn't really allow for any of them to develop nearly as much as the 5 gimmicks of the main game, leading to worlds that all feel like tutorials for the new gimmick and nothing more.
The stars are almost completely neutered, with maybe 2 of them capturing the same feeling as the original stars in interacting with the world as much as I can in order to solve a macro scaled puzzle that leads me to the star. The prometheus and sphinx stars are especially weak, considering the former are all chase sequences and the latter being extremely bare bones find and interact a little thingy to get the star.
The story, while still good in its own right, doesn't come nearly as close to as good as the first game. Where the original had its told almost entirely through subtext, with the more juicy and frankly important elements all being essentially optional, this game does the opposite and pushes it as much as possible, to where it's the central focus of the game, which doesn't work nearly as well. The overwhelming mass of characters feels painfully unnecessary, especially when only like 2 of them actually matter in the end, with the rest only existing to exist and throw occasional quips at you (although I do like how each character does have their own political viewpoints and that its cool to see how each character interprets the current situation and what they think makes sense as a next move).
Overall, I really expected more than what was received, which in all fairness is partly my fault. Going in with the expectation of a game being the sequel to my literal favorite game is too high, but too much here feels like they're desperately trying to fix something that wasn't ever broken.