Nice followup to Talos 1 core gameplay wise. Kind of misses the point of the first games unique storytelling and pacing by shoving in triple-A game tropes.
Difficulty of puzzles is moderate and doesn't curve upwards much. For most levels each area introduces new mechanics starting from a basic concept instead of them getting cumulatively more difficult. I wish there was more content like the gold puzzles.

Not sure if I like the voiced dialogue & AAA-ish action sequences. I feel like the major strength of Talos 1 is that the game world & text logs are something you discover and take in entirely on your own pace. I thought 2 having character dialogues & cliche sequences shoved in your face from the get-go takes away from that much more than it gives in return. Text terminals & messaging still have some of that old appeal. Though it does get better about the voiced dialogue later on.
World environments are super pretty but I felt like I was running fetchquests using map markers and dialing through voiced dialogue instead of really taking the areas in. That's probably my own fault for rushing through the game.
Music does a great job fitting the puzzles & locations.

I'm hoping for a DLC expansion like Gehenna but it's kind of weird when this game already has a LOT of puzzles. They just hover around the same difficulty. Not sure why when they added an optional mechanic to skip a lot of puzzles if needed.
About the AAA setpieces.. maybe unlike the Institute for Applied Noematics just because you could doesn't mean you should. If there's a cinematic/dialogue sequence that feels forced it makes the game appear more generic. Instead of playing into its unique strengths.

Reviewed on Nov 05, 2023


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