LBA2 was a game I played in my youth and greatly enjoyed. I had lots of fun and remember it as a great adventure with amazing freedom, great story and a huge and interesting world. I had never played the first one and now I've tried. The controls are the same, clunky but workable tankcontrols in an isometric view with different stances for moving and interacting in various ways. However playing this game is very tedious. The beginning section will repeat endlessly until you get it right and get your first weapon. And the last bit of it requires you to do one very specific thing that is not specifically told to you in a limited amount of time or you will die and go back. To make it worse, it locked the game in an unwinnable state for me because a door I entered through a cutscene was suddenly bricked up and the cutscene wouldn't trigger again. Getting past that, the combat is much more frequent than in the second game, enemies are everywhere (which knowing the story makes sense). Running past is often an option and recommended but it will make actually exploring more difficult and you will quickly get lost. Characters rarely have names, you just talk to everybody and do what they tell you. If you can even find your way since the map is pretty useless and the directions, if you are given any, are of location names which are only discernible if you take the time to read signs on the streets. Finally I got past the terrible first two islands only to be greeted by a platforming section while under fire followed by a bit of combat and more platforming. Then a block pushing puzzle while avoiding traps, more combat, you get the drift. The final nail in the coffin for me was a platforming section while avoiding traps and being followed by a rolling log where falling would not kill you but send you around a room with further traps, combat and platforming only to get to try the log bit again. My recommendation, watch a let's play and skip this but play the second game.
