I really didn't like the first one. The game felt more tedious than fun and I could only push myself to about the halfway point of the game, but this game provides a lot of improvements over the first and now I'm totally hooked. Puzzles aren't really that difficult but are difficult enough to be satisfying when you solve them, combat is surprisingly fluid and has a sort of rhythm to it once you get used to it, and the variety in areas as well as a more open map makes the game feel much more satisfying to explore. I can understand how mechanically this game might turn some people off, especially if you aren't fond of older rpg's but I really didn't find this game annoying or unbearably janky like a lot of the games this game references (I just cannot for the life of me get into either of the Ultima Underworlds no matter how much I want to like those games). Also, if you're looking for a good story with world building and character development this is not the game for you.
Even with mods and patches this game is an absolute buggy mess. I tried to power through it though, but by the end of the game I didn't really feel like it was worth working through the clunky, unsatisfying combat mechanics and unengaging story. Maybe if I had played this game around the time it had come out I would have the same kind of rose colored glasses a lot of people seem to have for this game; I firmly believe that this game has not stood the test of time and there are far better choices from this era of CRPG's. The game feels totally unfinished and so many things about the game hardly makes any sense I won't bother to go through them exhaustively. I will say, though, that it does 1 thing right and I wish most other RPG's did these days, in that similar to some of my other favorite classic RPG's they do not make you feel like the "chosen one" or a hero right off the bat, and you have to slowly struggle your way upward. That sort of progression I find to be really satisfying and is probably why I stuck to it even though I found the rest of the game to be pretty irritating.
This game really surprised me with how much it's drawn me in. Fantastic music, art, and intriguing puzzles. There's a lot to be unraveled here even symbolically; as somebody that has previously spent a lot of time in self isolation there were a lot of things that were really cathartic to me. It will very likely test your patience at first, and for this reason it's fairly difficult to describe how enchanting this game is. If you take your time with it, savor it, and inhibit yourself from looking up anything about the game while you experience it, it is absolutely worth the $15 price tag.
Great story and dialogue, puzzles generally lean towards fairly easy to pretty difficult (only because the harder puzzles in the game require being conscientious of information easy to forget or gloss over). Implementation of game mechanics via Vera's implants was a nice feature that added to the immersion but I really would have liked to have seen these mechanics with greater impact to how the game pans out. It gets a pass either way because I felt that it was adequate enough to have been there to begin. It's a shame this game is so short; the characters are interesting and the overall premise of the game was executed pretty well and I would have loved to have spent more time immersed in it. In a way the game also gets away with leaving out some of these details by being a point of interest to analyze and ponder after finishing the game, and with that in mind the game certainly seems to have a level of self awareness which could only mean the developers knew they could only fit so much into a low budget indie game. The result is a game that's very straightforward, but also very much worth your time and $15.
Pretty much everything you've read about this game is spot on, just play it already. If you love narrative driven games this is pretty much as good as it gets. Not to say that its age doesn't show and it hasn't any flaws (the combat is really underwhelming, for one), but I am saying what makes this game good completely makes up for these irritations. Be prepared to read a lot, as the meat and bones of this game is in the dialogue and the choices you make. There's so much to dive into in this game that it took me roughly 7 years of trying this game on and off before I bit the bullet and pushed through the VERY overwhelming first 1-2 hours of this game. You're thrust into this completely alien world playing as a character with memory loss, and in hindsight I feel like the overwhelming amount of information you have to deal with in the earlier parts of the game is, while pretty rough by today's standards, is exactly what is necessary for immersion and really seeing the world through The Nameless One's eyes.
This game had so much potential. I really loved the art style, the voice acting, and the overall setting from the start. But after the first chapter I slowly became less and less impressed with the writing and the puzzles of this game. There really isn't a single head scratcher in this game, making the puzzles more of a chore than anything else. The story starts strong but it never really peaks at all; nothing ever really pulls you in or emotionally affects you. This is largely because the game doesn't do that great of a job of actually making you care about any of the characters involved, besides the fact that the way the plot unfolds itself quickly devolves into a fairly predictable and unexciting "save the world" cliche. You know, I usually don't even mind that kind of story, but the way Unforeseen Incidents handles it is very bland. The good parts of the game are the fun little references showered about in the game, some of the dialogue options, and the overall personality of the main character. There were quite a few times that the MC's dialogue was genuinely funny, and it's a real shame that the game did not capitalize on this character beyond that (just vague and insignificant references to his past that mean little beyond maybe insinuating why he's a 20-something with no direction in life). Grab it on sale, otherwise give this mediocre PnC a pass.
