A rough gem, or just rough?
By Fitzquaid 1 Comments
I decided to finish Two Worlds today, just over a year since I last played it. Here's the trip report.
Technical Issues
It's a donkey. The game hard-locked my 360 once in the middle of a fight, forcing me to reset and lose a good chunk of playtime. On a later occasion, it stopped recognizing my attempts to cast spells until I saved and re-loaded the game. Oh, and one lengthy, plot-crucial cutscene was completely silent - there were subtitles, at least, but I can't believe the lack of music or sound effects was intentional.
Graphics
The game's art design is well enough, but I have one very specific complaint to make: the fucking spell effects. My character's build was paladin-esque, including the use of defensive magic; two buff spells were particularly important to surviving combat against any hypothetical dangerous foes he might encounter. Both spells lasted around five minutes, and they both produced swirling glowing spell effects surrounding the player character. Result: the guy was lit up like a brown-and-retina-searingly-bright-white Christmas decoration for the better part of two painful hours.
Writing
<Player picks a common mushroom.>
Hero dramatically intones: "What's this?"
<Dramatic cutscene sets up final boss fight - the culmination of all the story so far, fate of the world is at stake, yadda yadda yadda.>
Hero quips: "Looks like it's my lucky day."
I liked the hero's action movie one-liners, hilarious and inappropriate though they often were. The game succeeded at being funny, intentionally or otherwise. I can't say that it succeeded dramatically, but let's not ask the impossible here.
The Ending
Two Worlds' gameplay is a power fantasy through and through, so I can't complain that I managed to break the difficulty curve, but the facts are these: the final boss died in two hits. The achievement for his death was worth 370 gamer points. After his undignified demise, a thirty second cutscene played, after which I was dumped to the main title screen without so much as a credit scroll. I started to laugh.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Two Worlds, but on the strength of the ending I honestly couldn't tell you why.
I do like the undead horses, though.
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