Thea 2: The Shattering

Enjoyed it despite many flaws It's my favourite genre "survival-roquelike with safe-haven base". I like accumulating power, plan expeditions for achieving current goals and try my luck sending them to dangerous outer world. Sometimes they return with success, sometimes not, sometimes they all dies... which is usually because of bad planning and unnecessary risk... To win, you need patience and one more turn... and again one more turn... I know I can stop any time, I am not really addicted, just another turn.... Features: Good things: - you have reliable base -so far, monsters weren't able to overrun village and kill all the defenders - interesting races in you company - I was able to acquire elves, demons, dwarves, even the unliving - each race can give you serious advantages in expeditions and in village - many factions which live on they own and don't care of you - you can fight them or make them friends, which is interesting because different factions have different interests and impoving relations with one you can worsen relation with anoter - good crafting - make good gear really difficult, but possible, and well equipped party has good chances to survive during expeditions - combat types simplified, so you can understand how to train you party members to create balanced party which is able to survive - really good graphics (for tactical surviving), human character portraits are masterpieces - interesting (but with many strange restrictions) start perks builder Bad things : there are much of them, but because of idiotic 2000 chars review limit I cannot write them all in detail. In short: - no information about stats, mechanics lore - combat (IMHO) is illogical and time-consuming - lack of content, many quests repeats infinitely - unbalanced/uncontrolled monster spawns - useless classical weapon and weapon craft - useless rituals - unbalanced material usage - factions not fighting, even with monsters

Why do people expect sequels to be the same game as the first, but with more stuff? Isn't it better to shake things up? Variety is the spice of life. Thea 2 is pretty great. Downright excellent at times. Above all I love that a company put this much effort into writing. It's even better than the first game, though there is less voice acting (and the original's voice acting was also superb). Once again, they strike an excellent balance between forcing you to read immense walls of text and zooming through the game without reading a single thing. Many challenges are similar-but-different, or they contain important hidden details, giving thoughtful readers opportunity to achieve better outcomes. But if you miss these clues, you can still get through the game just fine. Mechanically, there's been a few changes. You still fight different types of challenges which you can solve through strength, intelligence or magic. But resources and item crafting work quite differently. Buffing stats through items is harder, but still very valuable. Especially for children, buffing their stats is very valuable. Also you can potentially play without a town. I don't remember if that was a thing in the original, but it's nice. There's been occasional bugs and artifacting. Maybe a single crash, after 3 full playthroughs. No major grief here. Overall, excellent game and one of the standouts of last year.

Ok. It's not as complex as the first one. There is less challenges, and less attributes to develop. Instead of 9 challenges, there is only 3 (Physical-Mental-Magic), and instead of 23 attrributes there is only 6. Which gives way less options to trigger some challenges and encounters. The game is a lot simpler. Yes, well, we changed the world in the first one. It's normal to change the difficulty. The Cosmic Tree is back. Life is easier on Thea, even though a new danger arises, the Light. As the world was broken, Darkness and Light got both... "shattered". That's the plot. And once again your God calls for its Chosen. Instead of a starting village, you are a nomad. And you'll need at least one or two games to understand where to settle, if you choose to settle of course. There is other factions, it means trade, alliance, warfare, quest,... Instead of grinding your research points by crafting (which was really annoying in the first game), you can create a school. Your kids can increase skills too before facing the trial of adulhood. The crafting is nice, and way richer. The gathering two, and we can perform more rituals over the game (and invok Rock Trolls). Not too difficult to understand and master, but richer. Weapons need to match your characters' attributes to be effective. Well, there's plenty. It's different. And thank you for that, it's a sequel that do not capitalize on its elder. It changed as Thea changed. And the game is not that easy. It's not a 5 stars as the events are less rich (mostly because of the attribute's system), even though I had fun encountering the Orcish Inquisition (who ever expected the Orcish Inquisition ?) or we meet the Dwarf who married the Rusalka back in the days. But it is great. And I like to sail from an island to another. Good job there.

So other reviews are negative.... But now that it has patches, it is an addictive game! I was not sure at first because it is quite different than Thea 1, but I was proven wrong! It is a fun game on its own. I recommend everyone to give it a go, and be patient with it. It is meant for a niche, and if you are that niche, congrats you found a great way to spend several afternoons.

I loved Thea and was quite excited to check out the newer version. In short, It is worth a try but be ready it will take some time until you get into the flow. It has mesmerizing musical accompaniment. It immerses you into the myth and keeps there. The game is visually appealing. It pleases the eye and doesn't grow old. The writing holds the standards presented in the initial Thea. It keeps the tension and trepidation on what you're getting into in each event. Now about the main Gameplay. I was playing without manual saves, and I had restarted about 6 times before I managed to get a good run without being doomed to extinction. Now you need to keep an eye not only on health but also on mental health and spirit. The thing is, you might still die if it gets lower than 30%. It takes time to get used to it. I thought it is a little too complicated. Other than that, I liked the ability to pick place for a village and have more than one. ( I never figured out how to destroy a building in a village, but that's just me) Also different factions were a nice introduction to the game. At last, now in order to beat Thea you need have to craft to create normal equipment. (Beating with outnumbering doesn't work anymore).] It means a lot of crafting and gathering. That's pretty much it. I liked the new Thea. If you are going to give it a try, then give it some time as well. Also, I will recommend in difficulty settings to tune auto resolve to good, to ensure you can spam it when you get bored of combat.