"Two Worlds is a high fantasy action role-playing game developed by Polish video game developer Reality Pump and published by TopWare Interactive in Europe and by SouthPeak Interactive in North America for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The game takes place in a real-time three-dimensional fantasy landscape."
- Wikipedia on Two Worlds
What do I expect from the game?
I knew slightly more about this game before playing it than I did about the previous two Spontaneous Sunday games, having read a few reviews around the time it was released, and I had been interested in playing it for a while as I'm a big fan of RPGs. Two Worlds is an open world role-playing game in a medieval/fantasy setting. I expect the game to contain all the classic RPG features e.g strong fantasy elements, sword fighting, dungeons, villages, dragons and quests. I expect the environments and quest design to be a strong point of the game as is often the case in RPG games.
First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?
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| The game's main menu looks pretty good! |
I hadn't heard of either the developer or publisher of the game before playing it which I found interesting as it's a fairly well-known title. There was a short intro cutscene that provided some background info on the game's story but didn't really seem to explain much, and felt a bit cheap and cheesy. The front end menu looked good and had some decent music. I selected to start a new game and was met with a character creator, which allowed for very limited customisation - there's only 4 hairstyles and a handful of all rather similar hair colours, and some face sliders that don't affect the characters appearance an awful lot.
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| The character creator doesn't offer a lot of customisation options. |
A cutscene then played that again didn't explain much. The game's voice acting feels wooden and leaves a lot to be desired and appears to have been done by a very small number of actors. The graphics aren't great and definitely look dated. When the slightly-too-long intro cutscenes were finished, gameplay began with a short movement and combat intro quest in a small dungeon. Controls immediately felt a bit clunky and the UI system seemed confusing at first sight. After the tutorial mission was done, I was then free to explore the game world freely. In other RPG games, it can take a long time to reach the point at which you can free roam so it was nice to get to the exploration quickly.
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| A shot from the intro cutscene. |
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| The tutorial dungeon is over quickly, allowing the player to get straight into the free-roam action. |
What do I like about the game, what does it do well?
Despite my best efforts to enjoy the game and the fact that I had wanted to play it since it first released, I found more negatives about the game than positives. As I had expected, the environments were definitely a strong point, although the graphics do look dated considering its 2007 release date. The environments are fairly generic fantasy/RPG with ruins, wooden buildings, small wilderness camps, forests, hills, mountains etc. Upon leaving the tutorial dungeon, the player finds themselves on a hill overlooking a valley that makes up the early game area. This allows the player to see the area that they can explore and start from there, deciding which landmark to head towards. The first view of the world is always an important part of the start of an RPG and Two Worlds handled it well.
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| First view of the playable area. |
Heading down through a forest towards the small quest-related village of Komorin, I noticed another positive about the game - the ambient audio and music. There's plenty of ambient sound effects of creatures and weather. There's also a load of creatures dotted all over the wilderness and villages which is genuinely one of my favourite things about the game. There was rabbits and snakes in the forests and geese and ducks in the villages, all of which had sound effects which created an interesting auditory tapestry. I followed the main quest for a while and ended up in a cave that had echoing drip SFX and the sound of bats.
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| The starting village, Komorin. |
The RPG format and pacing is fairly well-executed, if a bit generic. The tutorial dungeon leads into the open world, with gentle encouragement towards the starter settlement from which quests can be picked up, trading can be done etc. Its a familiar formula that makes the game fairly easy to get into it its early stages. The quest design/stories are pretty good too. Once I had gotten over the slightly unattractive menu system, I quickly set to work customising my gear and stats. The inventory and stat systems are simple enough and are a positive point. You get skill points pretty often which gives the impression of constant character progression and working towards a goal in terms of creating a character build.
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| Trading is of course present in the game. The inventory systems is decent. |
What don't I like about the game?
There's a lot of negative points about the game, some of which are minor while others become frustrating quickly and affect the experience. The game as a whole feels cheap, unfinished and a bit cheesy, and it feels much older than it is. For example, The Elders Scrolls 4: Oblivion came out over a year earlier but is much more polished in every way. Two Worlds feels years older than it actually is. The voice acting is a big negative. Even though it doesn't affect the gameplay, it is still difficult to overlook. While reading about the game after playing, I noticed that the voice acting was all done by the developers themselves rather than professional voice actors. The limited character creator was also a bit disappointing. It allows you to create slight variations of pretty much the same character.
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| The dialogue system is simple but effective - but the voice acting is not good. |
The story is difficult to follow. The cutscene before the front end referred to plot points that never came up again in my nearly 3 hours of playing the game. The cutscene when launching the new game gave almost no background on anything and I failed to really understand why what I was doing was important while playing - I didn't know what my motivation was or the significance of certain things in the plot, but I did get the impression that things would be cleared up as the game progressed.
The controls, movement, combat and menu systems - particularly the quest/map menu - are all clunky and frustrating and directly detract from the gameplay experience. The wilderness is filled with enemies that can kill you very easily and attempting to fight them is usually pretty futile, which makes getting around a bit of a chore. About halfway through my time on the game, I managed to kill a few goblin-esque creatures called Groms at a forest camp and acquired a horse. This made getting around a lot easier. The horse was a positive point. You can attack while riding which is good, and the ability to bypass enemies when travelling made for a less frustrating experience. The horse model is also pretty good and looks realistic. But the horse riding controls are not great and its turning circle was a particular annoyance.
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| Having a horse made getting around a lot easier and was also pretty fun. |
Final Thoughts
Two Worlds is undoubtedly a flawed game that feels unfinished and messy and has many negatives that all add up to make it not a very enjoyable experience. I really wanted to like it, but it was difficult to do so. Still, it charmed me somehow (maybe it was the ducks and geese) and I wouldn't be completely opposed to playing it again sometime. The environments are a strong point for sure but the graphics do let it down, and the SFX is also good. The quests, creatures, enemies, stat/inventory systems and towns are all decent, but there's a lot wrong with how the game operates and handles on a fundamental level which invalidates most of what is good about it. I didn't really take many design lessons from it other than what should be avoided.
Since the game's release, the developers acknowledged its many downfalls and the game received a sequel in 2010 which was much more positively received and performed well commercially. Perhaps I will try this game out in a future Spontaneous Sunday and see what comparisons can be drawn? If it manages to keep the good parts of the original, while fixing everything else, it should be a decent game!
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| That's all for this weeks Spontaneous Sunday! |
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